Artist-filmmaker Diane Severin Nguyen is preparing for her live-performance directorial debut, "WAR SONGS," premiering at the Performa Biennial in November 2025 at BRIC in Brooklyn. The piece features a cast of musicians performing a wide-ranging program of protest music, from Woody Guthrie to Black Sabbath, led by musical director Laszlo Horvath. Nguyen, known for her films exploring performance and identity, is working with a group that practices being a band rather than an actual band, creating a raw, protean work that blends music, theater, and filmic sensibilities.
This matters because Nguyen is a rising artist whose 2024 film "In Her Time (Iris’s Version)" was a standout at the Whitney Biennial, and her move into live performance signals a significant expansion of her practice. The Performa Biennial has a strong track record of pushing artists into new terrain, and "WAR SONGS" promises to interrogate the blurred lines between protest and performance, authenticity and artifice, at a moment when political art is increasingly urgent. The work also continues Nguyen's exploration of how performers use their bodies and mediums to activate identity and communicate historical trauma.