Editorial: PAJ at Thirty

This publication of the eighty-second issue of PAJ marks the beginning of the journal's thirtieth year. To say that we are facing a vastly different world in the new millennium than the one we confronted in 1976, the year of our first issue, would be so great an understatement as to seem naïve. Not only the theatre but the world itself seemed so much more intact then. Yet, as I look back over the first issue, with its acknowledgment of new performance vocabularies, experimental writing, and the avant-garde heritage in several essays and artists' dialogues, there is a familiar trajectory that we have continued into the twenty-first century. Nevertheless, the world of theatre we took as our purview, shaped then by a shared notion of critical thinking, recognizable audiences and spaces, and an assured "downtown" scene has now become much more diffused, and, indeed, the idea of art and artistic process, has been transformed. A few decades ago what dominated a "theatre journal"—and this goes for theatre studies as well—were the plays and performances that individuals or groups presented to audiences.

When PAJ began publication in 1976, performance art was a new form and video art was still very young. Furthermore, they were mostly connected to visual arts concerns. With the rise of solo performance and new media, the shift away from contemporary groups and directors devoted to staging the work of new playwrights, and the gradual shrinkage of the international dramatic repertoire, the theatre world and the art world intermingled more and more. Performance studies, and the academic turn to theory, also generated significant reevaluations of what use to constitute the study and practice of "theatre." The result is that where once PAJ mainly covered theatre, dance, music, and performance art, now video, installations, digital art, photography, drawing, and architecture could be linked to performance issues in its pages. In fact, more than a decade ago, Performing Arts Journal changed its name to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. The art/theatre debates are much less compelling now, as art practice and criticism have moved beyond traditional definitions and boundaries of experience and research, and performance itself has become central to an understanding of contemporary culture, beyond its aesthetic connotations.

This anniversary year offers a natural occasion for reflection on the last three decad1es besides a renewed commitment to the important performance ideas of our time. There are several areas of focus that will define the coming year: cities; media and performance; arts pedagogy; playwriting; rethinking classics. Broad surveys of contributors on a single theme, such as "Art, Religion, Spirituality" are planned, in addition to dialogues featuring a cross-section of New York artists and critics talking about such issues as classics and contemporary theatre, avant-garde legacies, the current state of playwriting, and criticism. Essays and interviews exploring current directions in the arts, global politics, international festivals, and artistic practices at the cutting edge are already underway. Throughout the year we will be publishing selections by PAJ contributors who over the years have helped to shape the dialogue circulating around contemporary works, and introduce new writers and thinkers looking at art and culture today—a process that encompasses both the looking back and looking ahead that seems necessary now.

The content of the current issue initiates our move in this direction—for example, the separate interviews with Marina Abramovic; and Eve Sussman/The Rufus Corporation cover topics as wide-ranging as teaching, spirituality, representation, the artistic heritage, video; in our ongoing international coverage, Michal Kobialka reads Kantor through recent theories to highlight his enduring significance for theatrical thought; Sally Oswald distills the innovative dramaturgy of Richard Maxwell; the play by Marie NDiaye, staged this fall in the Act French Festival, is part of PAJ 's long-time project of introducing international writers to American readers; Jennie Klein and Paige McGinley investigate performances and installations that acknowledge surveillance, sound, and some disturbing turns in live art. My own extended reflections take as a point of departure the arts community PAJ entered three decades ago while attempting to come to terms with the...