The inaugural New York City series of the If I Can't Dance Reading Group will take its lead from the focus of Edition V, exploring strategies of appropriation and dedication in performative practice. Readings will be shaped by the Reading Group participants, with an aim to consider the act and presentation of appropriation within the greater social politics of democracy and culture. The New York City Reading Group is moderated by Kelly Kivland.

In this first session we will read Isabelle Graw's ‘Dedication Replacing Appropriation: Fascination, Subversion, and Dispossession in Appropriation Art’ alongside David Harvey's Freedom’s just another word’ that situates the discussion on appropriation in the context of the recent history of neoliberalism.