DANSTOPIA

DANSTOPIA! at PS³  is a solo exhibition, dance performance and theatrical encounter by Reuben Brown. The show proposes a hypothetical framework through which to understand nightlife as both a material and symbolic infrastructure. It examines how architectural, social and affective structures intersect in the production of identity, shared ritual and belonging, and how these structures shift to reveal broader dynamics of power embedded in contemporary culture. 

Central to DANSTOPIA! is the notion of the threshold, understood not as a barrier but as a site where experience is shaped by delay and deferral, functioning as a mechanism of regulation and anticipation. In this frame, nightlife is understood as a network of practices and conventions that regulate who is seen, who is admitted and who belongs, whilst also giving rise to fleeting instances of intimacy, collectivity and exclusion. The work treats anticipation as a structuring condition, showing how exclusion generates its own forms of intensity and knowing. It suggests that cultural spaces are defined as much by what holds us outside, through moments of hesitation and withholding, as by what draws us in.

About the artist

Reuben Brown [he/him] (b.2001) is an emerging visual artist, club-creative and researcher based between Belfast and Dublin; Ireland. He is currently undertaking a Masters of Research at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD); Dublin, supported by NCAD through the Postgraduate Futures Scholarship. 

His ongoing research project “club [construction]” investigates the spatial, archival and embodied dimensions of queer club- culture, through experimental exhibition-making, participation and site-based inquiry. He has exhibited locally, nationally and internationally, including several notable solo-exhibitions and curatorial projects in Belfast, Dublin and London. Recent notable solo- exhibitions include; “€URODANC€” at Pallas Projects/Studios; Dublin [June/July 2025] and “White Knuckle Forever” at The Backshop, Culterim Gallery; Berlin [March 2025]. His artistic practice has been supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland through the National Lottery, An Chomhairle Ealaíon / The Arts Council of Ireland and White Claw© Hard Seltzer IE/UK. 

PS² is supported by The National Lottery through Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council's Artists' Studio and Makerspace Organisational Grant, and Arts & Business NI's Blueprint Investment Grant. Danstopia is sponsored by White Claw Hard Seltzer