Being Work by Dorothy Dubrule

Being Work is a collection of essays by dance and theater artists that offer access to varied experiences of performing in live exhibitions. The authors capture a spectrum of mundane and profound moments that arise within performance gig work in visual arts contexts such as museums, galleries and art fairs, detailing the day-to-day practice of inhabiting art work as well as reflecting on broader questions of how they got there and the impact it has had on their outside lives. While providing very personal, human perspectives on what it feels like to perform in visual arts spaces, Being Work asks its audience how a performer’s labor is perceived and valued in these spaces, and what new possibilities might unfurl within the, at times fraught, coexistence of the two mediums.

Contributors include: Mireya Lucio writing on being the work of Marina Abramović, Casey Brown on Maria Hassabi, Jessica Emmanuel on Xu Zhen, Kestrel Leah on Julien Previéux, Allie Hankins on Gordon Hall, effie bowen on Narcissister, Paul Hamilton on Bruce Nauman and Dorothy Dubrule on Tino Sehgal.

Book cover design by Gil Omry-Barel.
Illustrations by Eileen Echikson.

About the Author

Dorothy Dubrule is a choreographer and performer based in Los Angeles. Her choreography is often made in collaboration with people who do not identify as dancers and has been performed in theaters as well as bars, clubs, galleries, sound stages and sports arenas. She has worked with visual artists, musicians, comedians, choreographers and directors such as Emily Mast, Jon Daly, Kate Watson-Wallace, Lea Anderson, Lisel, Melinda Ring, Milka Djordjevich, Narcissister, Tino Sehgal, Trulee Hall and Zoe Aja Moore, among others. Dorothy was the Executive Director of Pieter Performance Space, a non-profit platform for movement artists, healers and activists based in LA from 2017 to 2022. From arts non-profit leadership she transitioned to organizational operations with a focus on the care and resourcing of humans in the workplace.