Towards ‘strategy as performance’ in hazard mitigation: reflections on Performing City Resilience in New Orleans

ABSTRACT

Performing City Resilience is a collaborative research project that investigates interrelations between theories, practices and strategies of city resilience, and those of performance. In this essay, the authors explore ways performance might conceive of and contribute to practices of hazard mitigation strategy to better understand how these might lead to a resilient city. They focus on their research in New Orleans, working with the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness during its development of the 2020 Hazard Mitigation Plan. They discuss their interventions, initial impact, and consider performance of strategy as a critical form of ‘strategy as practice’.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance
• city resilience
• hazard mitigation
• emergency preparedness
• strategy

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Ryan Mast, to City Hall staff and to the individuals and organisations in New Orleans who engaged with this project with such generosity. We are similarly very grateful to our editors and peer reviewers for their careful, thoughtful work to develop and enhance this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Similarly, there has been much scholarship on performance in/and New Orleans that has attended to areas related to questions of resilience, even if not framed as such, but it has not attempted to face city strategy development (notably a special section of TDR 57:1, ‘New Orleans After the Flood’, edited by Jan Gilbert, Kevin McCaffrey and Richard Schechner).

2 We held fourteen face-to-face interviews with artists, leaders of arts organisations, journalists etc..

3 Hurricane Katrina (August 2005) flooded eighty percent of the city, with significant loss of life and damage to property and infrastructure.

4 The plan will be submitted to the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (Louisiana) and to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency).

5 A year previously, we ran a public symposium at the Contemporary Arts Centre in New Orleans, and had sourced funds for drinks, but not food. The then Centre Director explained that food was essential and generously provided this. We have subsequently sourced food, although in this instance NOHSEP funded lunch.

6 To this end, in December 2020 we begin work with resilience strategists in Bristol, Glasgow and Newcastle city councils (UK) on ‘Social Distancing and Reimagining City Life’, an 18-month UKRI/AHRC COVID-19 Rapid Response Call project (see performingcityresilience.com).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stuart Andrews

Stuart Andrews researches performances of place, particularly of architecture and environment. Recent publications include Performing Home (Routledge, 2019) and The Dramaturgy of the Door, with Matthew Wagner (Routledge, 2019). Stuart is Lecturer in Theatre, and Research Lead for Theatre, at Brunel University London. He is co-director of Performing City Resilience.

Patrick Duggan

Patrick Duggan is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research focuses on exploring the socio-political efficacy of cultural practices, especially in contexts of crisis. Patrick is Associate Professor of Performance and Culture, and Head of Drama, Theatre and Performance at Northumbria University Newcastle. He is co-director of Performing City Resilience.