An Inside Look at Contemporary Dada Salons

One of our favorite things at Three Rooms Press is the annual publication of MAINTENANT: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art. And—equally exciting!—we host a series of Dada salons to celebrate the work of more than 250 artists and writers from around the world who contribute to the journal.

But what is a Dada salon?

The idea started in the early 20th century. Following the outbreak of the first world war, refugees fled to Switzerland neutral country that offered shelter from the brutality of war. Many of those who fled were artists and writers. Two of them–singer/poet Emmy Hennings and German author/artist Hugo Ball–opened Cabaret Voltaire in February 1916. Soon the artist community gathered there, and events of dance, poetry and spoken word became regular occurrences. The events centered on highlighting the emerging art movement of Dada, as artists and writers abandoned long held artistic principles, creating work was often anti-bourgeois, illogical, and full of chaos, nonsense, and bold experimentation. Underlying all of the anarchy was a clear antiwar sentiment, which carries forward to this day.

In Three Rooms Press’s renowned Dada salons, we reflect the ongoing chaotic world of today. Expect anything. Artists dressed up as robots. Multimedia performances for multiple voices with movement. Some of the wildest costumes imaginable. Humor, anarchy, singing, chanting.

We have staged more than 100 such performances over the past 17 years, and not one is even close to being the same as another. Our Dada salons have taken place in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, a church in the Hudson Valley, a former horse hospital in London, a wine cellar in Paris, a reimagining of Cabaret Voltaire in Rome, a planetarium in Belgium, a closed restaurant Zurich.

We encourage experimentation in presentation, and the audience often interacts with the performers, often in costume themselves.

This year, our focus will be on four in-person US shows, plus 2 powerhouse virtual shows featuring dada artists from Europe, South America, Canada and the Middle East.

Confirmed dates: