L. M. Bogad
Professor of Theatre & Dance
L. M. Bogad is an author, performance artist/activist,
educator, Director of the Center for Tactical Performance,
and co-founder of the Clown Army. He has performed across the
United States, Europe, and South America, from SF MOMA, the
Whitney Museum, Yerba Buena Arts Center, and the Mattress Factory
to occupied zones and a squatted military base in Barcelona. He
has led Tactical Performance workshops around the world,
including in Cairo during the first month of the Egyptian
Revolution, and was both “Art and Controversy Fellow” and
“Distinguished Lecturer on Performance and Politics” at Carnegie
Mellon University, and a “Humanities and Political Conflict”
Fellow at ASU.
Bogad’s performances have covered topics such as the Egyptian
revolution, the Haymarket Square Riot, the FBI’s COINTELPRO
activities, and the Pinochet coup in Chile, and have received
grant support from the Puffin Fund, Network of Ensemble Theatres,
Bay Area Theatre Artists Fund, U.C. Institute for Research in the
Arts, the British Academy and the British Arts and Humanities
Research Council. His newest piece, Economusic: Keeping
Score, has been performed in NYC at the Austrian Cultural
Forum and the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics,
and at festivals in Helsinki, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago,
at SF MOMA, and Barcelona. His play, Cointelshow: A
Patriot Act, was published by PM Press and recently
performed at the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s Studio and in New
Orleans for ArtSpot Productions.
Bogad’s first book,Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical
Ridicule and
Social Movements, analyzes the
international campaigns of performance artists who run for public
office as a radical prank. That book, and his many articles on
political performance, are used in college classes
internationally. His new book, Tactical Performance: On the
Theory and Practice of Serious Play, analyzes and critiques
the use of guerrilla theatre/art for human/civil rights, social
justice, labor, and environmental campaigns. He also wrote and
produced a documentary, Radical Ridicule: Serious Play and
the Republican National Convention.
Bogad has led Tactical Performance workshops, helping activists
create
performative, nonviolent images to contest and critique power, in
revolutionary Cairo, Barcelona, Riga, Helsinki, Reykyavik, Buenos
Aires,
Trondheim, across the USA and Europe, and for the Center for
Victims of
Torture. He has been a commentator on political performance on
Michael
Krasny’s “Forum,” Air America, NPR, Pacifica, Peace Radio, and
many other radio stations and programs.
Books by L.M. Bogad:
Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia, which you can purchase here.
Tactical Performance: The Theory and Practice of Serious
Play, which you can purchase here.
Electoral Guerrilla Theatre: Radical Ridicule and Social
Movements (updated and expanded Second Edition) which
you can purchase here.
Cointelshow: A Patriot Act (a darkly satirical, $5 play
about COINTELPRO), which you can purchase here.
See L.M. Bogad’s website for complete information on his publications, performances, workshops, and more.