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Questions of Practice: Curator Ruth Estévez on Why Some Performances Should Remain in the Past

Ruth Estévez, gallery director and curator of REDCAT, discusses the practice of restaging past works for contemporary audiences. To her, restaging is “interesting, but also dangerous” because certain performances may be rooted in particular social and political contexts of a past moment. “Sometimes performance has to happen in a certain moment, and you have to be there and see it,” Estevez says.

Ruth Estévez is a curator, writer, and stage designer. Since 2012, she has served as gallery director and curator of REDCAT, where she has worked with artists including Javier Téllez, Pablo Bronstein, and Allora & Calzadilla, and curated the group exhibitions Agency (Assembly: Before and After the Split Second Recorded) and Hotel Theory. Prior to her appointment at REDCAT, Estévez served as chief curator at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City. In 2016, she served as a panelist in Exhibitions & Public Interpretation.