A LETTER FROM
Lois Holzman
Performing the World (PTW) was born in a conversation between East Side Institute co-founder, the late Fred Newman, and me at the end of the summer of 2000. We had already “discovered” performance—that ability human beings have to be themselves and someone else at the very same time. For Newman, me and our colleagues, performing was how people grow and learn. Understanding and practicing this was key to the therapeutic, educational and community-organizing work of the Institute and its broader community.
Newman and I were also having conversations with Ken and Mary Gergen, leading social-constructionist psychologists who themselves were becoming interested in performance and were experimenting with new performatory modes of presenting research and scholarship. During the 1990s at annual meetings of the American Psychological Association, we and the Gergens did some joint performatory symposia and Newman’s original “psychology plays” were performed—all to great enthusiasm. We were encouraged and we wanted to create our own format to showcase and “interrogate” performance.
Also encouraging were the many different performatory practices I encountered through my international travels. I met dozens of people and heard of hundreds more, both the grassroots and from within the universities, who were using performance to help people and communities grow and create positive social change. We decided to reach out to those doing this work/play—from community organizers to business people, from artists to social workers, from therapists to teachers.
The first Performing the World conference was held in October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11. Hundreds from all over the world showed up at the beautiful ocean side village of Montauk, 120 miles from New York City, as if this kind of gathering was what they and their communities needed at such a moment.
Nine more Performing the World in-person gatherings took place in and around the NYC area, each one larger than the one before it. When held in NYC at the All Stars Project’s performance space, out of towners had the option of staying with New Yorkers in their homes. That, plus the inclusion of hundreds of All Stars young people, greatly enriched and expanded the PTW community.
When COVID-19 made an in-person conference impossible, we pivoted to online gatherings. Since 2020, PTW has welcomed, over multiple weekends, hundreds of participants and presenters from dozens of countries to showcase and develop their work. The virtual platform allowed wider participation (no visas or travel needed!), generated new ways of participating and building relationships (watch parties and evergreen video recordings), and created a new and unanticipated kind of intimacy (continuing through a newly launched What’s App Group).
The growth, diversity and enthusiasm for PTW as a vibrant community inspires all who have and continue to build it. This year, 2026, 25 years since the East Side Institute launched it, PTW will take place throughout the year, rather than during an intensive weekend or two. Its events will be conceived of, hosted and promoted by members of the PTW community. Anyone can propose an event! (You can learn about upcoming activities on this site.)
As a long-time organizer and humanizer, I believe that the growth of the global performance movement, the growing recognition for performance activism, and the role that PTW is playing in these developments are some of the most important activities happening right now. Let’s continue to perform a new world!
Lois Holzman
PTW Chair
Director, East Side Institute
LoisHolzman.org
EastSideInstitute.org
