Dada Centennial Performances

An evening of performance and scholarship in celebration of the centennial year of Dada and experimental art for all time. Presented by Ideas for Creative Exploration and the Helen S. Lanier Chair of the Department of English at UGA. To include a performance by visiting artist Luciano Chessa, re-enactments by students in music and theatre and film studies and a presentation by Jed Rasula, author of “Destruction Was My Beatrice,” the globe-spanning narrative of Dada published in 2015.



This event is for people to celebrate the centennial of Dada, an artistic phenomenon that began in February 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland and spread around the world. Although the venue where Dada was born closed after only four months and its acolytes scattered, the idea of Dada quickly spread to New York, where it influenced artists like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray; to Berlin, where it inspired painters George Grosz and Hannah Hoch; and to Paris, where it dethroned previous avant-garde movements like Fauvism and Cubism while inspiring early Surrealists like Andre Breton, Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard. The long tail of Dadaism can be traced even further, to artists as diverse as William S. Burroughs, Robert Rauschenberg, Marshall McLuhan, the Beatles, Monty Python, David Byrne and Jean-Michel Basquiat, all of whom—along with untold others—owe a debt to the bizarre wartime escapades of the Dada vanguard.

The first of three evenings of events to celebrate the centennial of Dada, an artistic phenomenon that began in February 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, Switzerland and spread around the world! Although the venue where Dada was born closed after only four months and its acolytes scattered, the idea of Dada quickly spread to New York, where it influenced artists like Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray; to Berlin, where it inspired painters George Grosz and Hannah Hoch; and to Paris, where it dethroned previous avant-garde movements like Fauvism and Cubism while inspiring early Surrealists like Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, and Paul Eluard. The long tail of Dadaism, Rasula shows, can be traced even further, to artists as diverse as William S. Burroughs, Robert Rauschenberg, Marshall McLuhan, the Beatles, Monty Python, David Byrne, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, all of whom – along with untold others – owe a debt to the bizarre wartime escapades of the Dada vanguard.

Dada Centennial (Part 2)

The Sun Ra Arkestra and Flicker Orchestra

Thursday, February 18 at 8 PM

The Morton Theatre – tickets $15

Celebrate the ongoing spirt of experimental art with a rare performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra at the historic Morton Theatre. Athens’ own Flicker Orchestra will open with live soundtracks for vintage experimental films.

Dada Centennial (Part 3)

Thursday, February 25 from 8 PM

Flicker Theatre & Bar

Free and open to the public

Return to Flicker Theatre & Bar for an evening of new works with visiting artist Bruce Andrews, students from art, music, and theatre and film studies, and the extraordinary Mind Brains!

Sponsored by Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE) and the Helen S. Lanier Chair of the Department of English at UGA present three evenings of performance and scholarship in celebration of the centennial year of Dada and experimental art for all time.