Breaking Protocol

Collaborative conversations on Indigenous performance art, convened by a leading practitioner

For Breaking Protocol, transdisciplinary artist Maria Hupfield embarked on a research project on the protocols of Indigenous performance—tracing Indigenous knowledge systems, land-preservation practices and feminist scholarship to illuminate strategies for enacting refusal within decolonial frameworks. The book draws from Hupfield’s “Coffee Break”—a series of conversations held over Zoom during the pandemic, in which Hupfield invited international Indigenous performance artists to discuss their work (from dance to stand-up comedy), who in turn invited other artists to join the conversations.
Building on these exchanges, Breaking Protocol asks what we can learn from Indigenous, place-based artistic modes of making and practice to open spaces for reciprocity and multiplicity.
Contributors include: Rebecca Belmore, Lori Blondeau, Pelenakeke Brown, Katherine Carl, Re’al Christian, Christen Clifford, TJ Cuthand, Raven Davis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Akiko Ichikawa, Ursula Johnson, Suzanne Kite, Charles Koroneho, Carin Kuoni, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Jackson 2Bears Leween, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Cathy Mattes, Meagan Musseau, Wanda Nanibush, Peter Morin, Archer Pechawis, Rosanna Raymond, Skeena Reece, Georgiana Uhlyarik, Charlene Vickers and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory.