Documents Perform 3

A live performance. A historic document. A public rewriting of Canada’s cultural future

The Setting: A blank stage with a giant screen. Projected onto the screen are two documents containing excerpts of the Massey Commission in English and French. An online ensemble of “hacktors” made up of artists, artistic producers, cultural leaders, and policymakers begin “hacking” and rewriting the Commission in unison, in real time before a live audience.

Documents Perform 3 asks a simple question: Who gets to define the value of culture, and how? The 1951 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (better known as the Massey Commission) established a foundation for how Canada has understood arts, culture, and national identity for more than seventy years. What happens when those historically excluded from its vision become its editors and, in turn, the co-authors of a new cultural blueprint?

As edits unfold on screen, spectators will witness not simply the deconstruction of a historical document, but a public negotiation over the values that ought to guide Canada’s cultural future. At the conclusion of the performance, the newly authored text will be read aloud and publicly ratified as the first iteration of an evolving cultural charter, one that will continue to be collectively rewritten, contested, and expanded over the seven-year life of The Arts Impact Partnership (TAIP)AIP as new voices, communities, and understandings of cultural value emerge.

September 27, 2026 at 2:30 PM

About the artist

Natalie Álvarez

Natalie Álvarez is an award-winning artist-scholar whose work in contemporary performance explores cultural difference, performance and human rights in the Americas, and the civic impacts of the arts. She leads major SSHRC-funded research initiatives and used theatre to develop scenario-based de-escalation training. Recent performance collaborations with the New York City Players’ Incoming Theatre Division include La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Documents Perform | Documentos Actúan, Galicia, and Childful. She is the Project Director of the SSHRC Partnership Grant, The Arts Impact Partnership (TAIP): Understanding the Arts’ Civic Impacts in the Data-Driven Economy.

Richard Maxwell

Richard Maxwell is an artist and the artistic director of New York City Players since its inception in 1999. He has received the Guggenheim Fellowship and The Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, as well as two Obie awards, a Creative Capital grant, a Spalding Gray Award and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant. Mr. Maxwell’s work has been commissioned by ICA London, Barbican Centre, Festival D’Automne, Kunsten Festival, Vienna Festival, and presented in the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial.

Katiana Gonçales Rangel

Katiana Gonçales Rangel is a performer, director and educator from Brazil based in NYC. Recent works include Blasted (2026), Nannies of NYC (2025), Ama The Diver (2024), Graceland (2022) and The Vessel (2021). Main collaborators are Jim Fletcher, Richard Maxwell, Katie Brook, Jasmine Pisapia, Rodrigo Pavon and Lori Goldston. Katiana has been a member of New York City Players since 2013 and the director of the Incoming Theater Division since 2020.