
ERWG 2022 cfp
08 January, 2022 by Ben Spatz | 0 commentsThe IFTR Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) invites proposals for participation from scholars, artists, and others developing embodied research projects in any field. Read more
This WG aims to establish an international platform through which to share innovative and traditionally informed approaches to the methodological, epistemological, and ontological questions provoked by embodied research. These include some of the deepest assumptions that underpin scholarship in theatre and performance studies, such as the distinctions between theory and practice, subject and object, body and mind, techne and episteme.
The Embodied Research Working Group supports individual and collaborative research projects in which embodied practice is an explicit and essential part of the methodology. While embodiment has been a major interest for theatre and other scholars across several decades at least, the claim that embodied practice can constitute a mode or method of academic research is relatively new and in some contexts is still considered controversial. This WG aims to establish an international platform through which to share innovative and traditionally informed approaches to the methodological, epistemological, and ontological questions provoked by embodied research. These include some of the deepest assumptions that underpin scholarship in theatre and performance studies, such as the distinctions between theory and practice, subject and object, body and mind, techne and episteme.
The founding members of the proposed WG bring to the collective table a set of articulated research practices based on a conception of theatre as a privileged site for understanding and innovating embodiment and embodied practice. Recent IFTR conferences have involved significant discussion of embodiment, embodied practice, and embodied research as these relate to diverse theoretical and historiographical methods. The new WG will create a context at IFTR in which embodied knowledge and research are foregrounded as legitimate contributors to the field. The WG will support IFTR’s institutional goals by developing interdisciplinary and intercultural connections that place performing arts in dynamic contact with physical culture, health and healing, and the embodied practices of everyday life. By modelling new modes of assessment and legitimization for these expanded fields of knowledge, the WG will strive to make embodied research more legible within IFTR and in broader academic and social contexts. Our emphasis on sharing methods for embodied research will be realized through an experimental approach to knowledge exchange that combines written papers, practical workshops and demonstrations, and audiovisual media.
The new WG will organize its activities according to the following thematic strands:
Taken together, these strategies and activities will intervene in current epistemological and ontological debates and contribute to the development of new research methodologies based in embodied practice. Over time, the WG aims to effectively expand and legitimize embodied research within and beyond the context of theatre and performance studies.
The first official meeting of ERWG was held at the University of São Paulo in July 2017.
Elizabeth de Roza
Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
derozaelizabeth@gmail.com
Melina Scialom
Federal University of Bahia, Brazil
melinascialom@gmail.com
Ben Spatz
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom
b.spatz@hud.ac.uk
The IFTR Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) invites proposals for participation from scholars, artists, and others developing embodied research projects in any field. Read more
The IFTR Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) invites proposals for participation from scholars, artists, and others developing embodied research projects in any field. Read more
The IFTR Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) invites proposals for participation from scholars, artists, and others developing embodied research projects in any field. Read more
The IFTR Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) invites proposals for participation from scholars, artists, and others developing embodied research projects in any field. Read more
Summary of the 2017 pre-conference events by Matteo Bonfitto Read more
Summary of the IFTR 2017 meeting of ERWG by Ellie Nixon Read more