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Surafel Wondimu Abebe, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies and Theory at The Africa Institute, participated in the engaging two-day event titled “Stepping Forward: Performance Research and Practice, Here.” The event, organized by 421, Alserkal Arts Foundation, and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), aimed to explore critical questions surrounding performance practice in the MENASA region. Held on 18-19 February 2023, the event brought together artists, curators, academics, and practitioners.
As part of a panel discussion, Professor Abebe presented a captivating performance-lecture titled “The Reproduction of the Nonpublic: Yearning for a Humane World.” The lecture delved into the complexities of publicness and questioned prevailing notions while exploring the reproduction of non-publics in the context of the neoliberal globalizing world.
The symposium offered a diverse program encompassing talks, panel discussions, workshops, and performances. It provided a platform for artists and researchers to present their work outside the confines of traditional institutional models. “Stepping Forward: Performance Research and Practice, Here” aimed to construct new frameworks for performance that go beyond established vocabularies and embrace regional contexts and concerns.
During the event, Professor Abebe shared insightful perspectives on publicness, stating, “There are unthinkable dispossessed subjectivities (unique and universal at once) for which we need to account. The debates around notions of publicness mostly revolve around the idea of the bourgeoisie public sphere… These necessitate a different way of examining inbuilt precariousness and the reproduction of non-publics in the neoliberal globalizing world.”
Professor Abebe employs academia, performance, and media as vehicles for cultural politics and interrogates representational practices. His research focuses on understanding the human experience in the present by engaging with embodied historiographies. Currently, he is working on a book project that explores how Ethiopian female performers navigate and redefine spaces influenced by empires, revolutions, and neoliberal globalization.
His academic journey includes studying Literature and Cultural Studies at Addis Ababa University (AAU) and completing a Ph.D. in Performance Historiography at the University of Minnesota in 2018. He has served as a lecturer, researcher, and Deputy Dean of Humanities at AAU, and he currently holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Center for African Studies, and College of Performing and Visual Arts at AAU. Additionally, he is a board member of AGITATE, a multi-genre online journal based at the University of Minnesota.
Surafel Wondimu Abebe, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies and Theory at The Africa Institute, participated in the engaging two-day event titled “Stepping Forward: Performance Research and Practice, Here.” The event, organized by 421, Alserkal Arts Foundation, and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), aimed to explore critical questions surrounding performance practice in the MENASA region. Held on 18-19 February 2023, the event brought together artists, curators, academics, and practitioners.
Surafel Wondimu Abebe, Assistant Professor of Performance Studies and Theory at The Africa Institute, participated in the engaging two-day event titled “Stepping Forward: Performance Research and Practice, Here.” The event, organized by 421, Alserkal Arts Foundation, and New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), aimed to explore critical questions surrounding performance practice in the MENASA region. Held on 18-19 February 2023, the event brought together artists, curators, academics, and practitioners.
As part of a panel discussion, Professor Abebe presented a captivating performance-lecture titled “The Reproduction of the Nonpublic: Yearning for a Humane World.” The lecture delved into the complexities of publicness and questioned prevailing notions while exploring the reproduction of non-publics in the context of the neoliberal globalizing world.
The symposium offered a diverse program encompassing talks, panel discussions, workshops, and performances. It provided a platform for artists and researchers to present their work outside the confines of traditional institutional models. “Stepping Forward: Performance Research and Practice, Here” aimed to construct new frameworks for performance that go beyond established vocabularies and embrace regional contexts and concerns.
During the event, Professor Abebe shared insightful perspectives on publicness, stating, “There are unthinkable dispossessed subjectivities (unique and universal at once) for which we need to account. The debates around notions of publicness mostly revolve around the idea of the bourgeoisie public sphere… These necessitate a different way of examining inbuilt precariousness and the reproduction of non-publics in the neoliberal globalizing world.”
Professor Abebe employs academia, performance, and media as vehicles for cultural politics and interrogates representational practices. His research focuses on understanding the human experience in the present by engaging with embodied historiographies. Currently, he is working on a book project that explores how Ethiopian female performers navigate and redefine spaces influenced by empires, revolutions, and neoliberal globalization.
His academic journey includes studying Literature and Cultural Studies at Addis Ababa University (AAU) and completing a Ph.D. in Performance Historiography at the University of Minnesota in 2018. He has served as a lecturer, researcher, and Deputy Dean of Humanities at AAU, and he currently holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Center for African Studies, and College of Performing and Visual Arts at AAU. Additionally, he is a board member of AGITATE, a multi-genre online journal based at the University of Minnesota.
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