Performance in Public Spaces

We seek to address the inherent interdisciplinarity of public, site-situated performance practices. We are interested in the intersections between performance acts, performing bodies, public and semi-public environments, mediated environments, cultural politics and landscapes.

KEYWORDS

• public space
• protest
• performance studies
• site

 

performanceinpublicspace@gmail.com

 

Convenors: Prof. Holly Maples (hm19531@essex.ac.uk) and Dr Ciara L. Murphy (Ciara.murphy@tudublin.ie)

 

PiPS 2025 CFP

IFTR Annual Conference 2025

University of Cologne

Cologne, Germany

June 9-13, 2025

 

Performance in Public Spaces WG CALL FOR PAPERS / ABSTRACT PROPOSALS

Building on the ISTR 2025 conference theme Performing Carvival!, the Performance in Public Spaces WG is inviting proposals for papers, performances, interventions, and workshops that considers how public space intersects with the carnivalesque. The open call presents Carnival as a “mercurial phenomena which, rather than being frozen in time like a petrified tradition, is constantly changing, adapting and reinventing itself. Carnival is therefore both deeply rooted in history and always new. It can be highly political and revolutionary at times, self-assuring at others, or merely hedonistic escapism”

 

The Performance in Public Spaces Working group invites reflections on the performance of the carnivalesque in public spaces, considering how socio-political, historical, and cultural contexts inform and influence the function of public space in performing carnival. We ask about how carnival or the carnivaleque utilises performance in public space in order to enact political power, highlight social issues, and entail political and social change. We also welcome considerations of carnival as being a tool of disorder, anarchy, or escapism that interact and intersect with public space in both tangible and intangible ways. 

We share the aim of the open call, which considers physicality as part of the carnivalesque experience: “unlike other forms of cultural expression, the carnivalesque demands the performing body to become experienceable. Though also making use of language and discourse, the carnivalesque usually privileges the sensual, physical experience”. 

IFTR 2025, situated in the city of Cologne, which itself has a longstanding tradition of carnival, offers an opportunity to revisit the concept of carnival in the twenty-first century. In an age characterized by the ascendance of political actors who employ masquerade and exaggeration as a means of exerting influence, and in which the ubiquitous stream of images, stories and sounds creates a multiplicity of competing world views, which frequently obscure real conflicts and power games, reflections on carnival and the carnivalesque have acquired a contemporary urgency.

Possible themes (the list is not meant to be definitive but rather invites extension in all forms):

·      Carnival and Public Spheres of Performance 

·      Sites of Carnival

·      Carnival and Cultural Appropriation in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Power in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Violence in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Gender in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Transformation in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Transgression in Public Spaces

·      Queering Carnival in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Ritual in Public Spaces

·      Ecologies of Carnival in Public Spaces

·      Economies of Carnival in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Cultural Imaginaries in Public Spaces

·      Carnival and Religion in Public Spaces

·      Carnivalesque as Political Protest in Public Space

·      Nostalgia, Collective Memory and the Carnivalesque in Public Spaces

Abstracts/proposals of between 200 and 250 words are invited for this conference from scholars, teachers, researchers, artists, and students of theatre arts, theatre studies, performance studies, and other related disciplines. 

Our Process

We present traditional 15-20 minute papers at our working group sessions or performative presentation to foster debate and discussion. We encourage work presented in process, research in early stages, grant proposals, half-baked ideas, and artistic and research sharings of all kinds in order to foster collegial discussions and feedback on researchers work. We strongly encourage members to attend every session of the Working Group during the conference so as to contribute to discussion throughout. Our sessions also include, wherever possible, a walking tour with a local artist on performance of public spaces in the conference location.

 

All abstracts should be submitted to Cambridge Core. When prompted, please select ‘Performance in Public Spaces’ from the Working Group drop down menu. Please do not send abstracts to the convenors. Please note that you will have to be a member of the IFTR to submit an abstract. To join the IFTR or renew your membership, please visit the Cambridge Core membership page.

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: 15 January 2025

About the IFTR Performance and Public Spaces Working Group

 

The Working Group seeks to address the inherent interdisciplinarity of public, site-situated performance practices. We are interested in the intersections between performance acts, performing bodies, public and semi-public environments, mediated environments, cultural politics, cultural landscapes, and cultural histories. The group explores a broad range of methodological and theoretical perspectives on performances in a variety of public fora, rather than in traditional theatre and performance venues. Our areas of research encompass both digital and physical public spaces, and range from site-based artistic practices to cultural performance phenomena.

 

We are a welcoming group of established and early career researchers with a broad international base, including members from Australia, Iceland, India, Iran, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, U.K., and U.S.A. Our members approach performance research through both practice and scholarship. Our sessions centre on traditional research paper presentations but may also include performance presentations or workshops. Forfurther information about the Performance in Public Spaces Working Group please visit: https://iftr.org/working-groups/performance-in-public-spaces

 

Our History

 

The Performance in Public Spaces Working Group was founded in 2011, with the aim to draw connections between the political, cultural and aesthetic implications of performance practices staged in public spaces.  Our members contribute a broad range of international perspectives to our working group sessions, and we welcome new members.

 

The Working Group seeks to address the inherent interdisciplinarity of public, site-situated performance practices. We are interested in the intersections between performance acts, performing bodies, public and semi-public environments, mediated environments, cultural politics, cultural landscapes, and cultural histories. The group explores a broad range of methodological and theoretical perspectives on performances in a variety of public fora, rather than in traditional theatre and performance venues. Our areas of research encompass both digital and physical public spaces, and range from site-based artistic practices to cultural performance phenomena.

 

We are a welcoming group of established and early career researchers with a broad international base, including members from Iceland, India, Iran, Ireland, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, U.K., and U.S.A. Our members approach performance research through both practice and scholarship. Our sessions centre on traditional research paper presentations but may also include performance presentations or workshops.

 

We are interested in place-based research practices, and at each IFTR conference we look for opportunities to make connections with the wider host city by taking sessions out into local public spaces. In recent years, these have included artist-led guided walks, walks led by urban planners, and meetings with local site-based arts practitioners. We welcome proposals for site-based research presentations or workshop activities.

 

Research themes

 

Questions threaded across our research activities include, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Who is included in notions of the ‘public’? Who is excluded?

• What are the political dimensions of performance staged in public spaces?  What are the social and cultural dimensions?

• What notions of ‘value’ do performances in public spaces uphold?  What notions of value do they critique or undermine?

• What are the methodological challenges of researching performance in public spaces? Where might new methodologies deepen our understanding of these phenomena?

• How do these practices navigate the ethics and risks associated with performance actions in public spaces?

• What do we understand by, and how do performances engage with: the accidental audience, the informed audience, the blurring of performer-spectator roles?

• What are the possibilities and limits of reading performances in public spaces as cultural interventions; as the reclamation of space, place and site? Or of reading them as an occupation, as an act of seizure?

 

Work Plan:

 

The current aims of the Working Group are as follows:

• To plan, edit and publish an edited volume of essays, drawn from contributions by past and present group members.

• To continue to encourage participation in the working group, through online networking, research development, and interim events.

• To engage more deeply with each IFTR host city by pre-circulating a reading specific to local public spaces and/or performance practices; co-ordinating an artist-led walk in the city; and dedicating a session to discussions in response to these.

• To hold an internal working group meeting once a year, in order to support members with ongoing research projects.

• To plan a broader publication agenda emerging from the above.

 

 

 

Follow us on Twitter/X: @IFTRpublicperf

 

Conference hashtag: #IFTRPiPS