CCASD takes the lead in establishing Columbia University as an affiliate Institutional Member of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.  The Hemispheric Institute is a consortium of institutions, artists, scholars, and activists dedicated to exploring the relationship between expressive behavior (broadly construed as performance) and social and political life in the Americas.  The Institute aims to provide a model for academic study that is specially suited to embodied performance practices in the Americas.  The interdisciplinary focus on performance avoids some of the ethnocentric limitations inherent in traditional theatre and dance studies, enabling students to focus on expressive forms that fall outside the bounds of European performance genres.  The Institute hopes not only to look beyond these disciplinary limits which a long colonial history has imposed, but to illuminate the ways in which much theatre, dance, and music in the Americas has been tied from the outset to the history of colonialism itself.  Studying cultural and political performances across the Americas offers scholars and artists a better understanding of the many shared histories and practices in the Americas that defy national borders. For more information about the Hemispheric Institute and a complete listing of the Institute's news and events, go to: www.hemi.nyu.edu