Endless Shout

The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania presents Endless Shout, a multi-artist performance project exploring collectivity and improvisation. Endless Shout asks how, why, and where performance and improvisation can take place inside a museum. Its name comes from a 1994 composition by George Lewis, who was referencing “Carolina Shout” (1921) by James P. Johnson.

Over the course of six months, five participants—Raul de Nieves, Danielle Goldman, George Lewis, The Otolith Group, and taisha paggett—will oversee an unfolding series of performances and encounters within ICA’s exhibition spaces.

Endless Shout offers improvisation and collectivity beyond music or dance, imagining these techniques as structures for social organizing in public and civic space. The six lead participants—some of whom will themselves perform, others of whom set events in motion—were chosen for their extensive engagement with intermedia projects at a range of scales, and because improvisation, collectivity, and black aesthetics are important touchstones for their efforts. Endless Shout asks how we attend to performance socially, politically, individually, and collectively, and what physical and psychic traces exist before and after the performance’s wake.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website