The Performances in Public Spaces Working Group is inviting proposals for our forthcoming meeting at the IFTR annual conference in Belgrade in July 2018.

The Performance in Public Spaces Working Group explores a broad range of methodological and theoretical perspectives on performances in a variety of public fora, rather than in traditional theatre venues. In keeping with the 2018 IFTR Belgrade conference theme, “Theatre, Nation, and Identity: Between Migration and Stasis,” we invite new and existing working group members to submit proposals for presentations that engage the performativity of occupying, passing-though, or staying-in-place in physical or virtual public spaces. We specifically welcome proposals that interrogate how such public performances address issues of nationalism, movement, migration, border-crossing, and hybridity, and the effects of mobility and stasis on identity-creation.

 

The WG welcomes paper, performance, workshop, and roundtable proposals from scholars, artists, and others that explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:

 

•       Performing stasis and migration: homeland, security, culture
•       Political engagements in public performance
•       Redefining the public sphere
•       Intersections of architecture, planning, and performance
•       Networks of public performance
•       Hiding in plain sight
•       Social media and public performances
•       Crossing and re-crossing borders and boundaries
•       Gendered public performances
•       New mobilities
•       Public performances of hospitality/hostility
•       Performing asylum and displacement
•       The public cosmopolitan
•       Communities and public performance
•       Public appropriations, cross-fertilizations, and transfers of culture and identity

 

Presentation Format

 

We invite fifteen-minute panels in formats that include papers, performances, theoretical provocations, workshops, and round-tables. We welcome abstracts from academics and scholar-practitioners at all stages of their careers, and attendees from diverse geographies.  Our goal is to examine multiple forms of presentation from a variety of scholarly and practiced locations.   In submitting your abstract, please describe the form of your current research and what materials you would like to present.

 

The co-conveners will arrange proposals into presentations grouped by connected topics. Please indicate your preference for presentation format, and if you would plan to curate a proposal with colleagues.  Presenters may be invited to share their work with other WG members in advance of the conference to facilitate lively discussions.

 

Performance in Public Spaces is a welcoming and inclusive working group.  In Belgrade, we will organize a gathering for early arrivals and a dinner for working group members, and facilitate a public-space performance or encourage group attendance at one sponsored by IFTR.

 

Submission Procedures

 

Proposals must be submitted through the IFTR registration process (see links below).  Please submit a 300-word maximum abstract and a biography of 50 words, stating your presentation format and including links to relevant audiovisual materials where possible.    

 

To submit, you will need to be a member of IFTR with a Cambridge Core account.  Please see the IFTR website.

 

The url for submitting to the Performance in Public Spaces working group will be posted shortly.

 

The deadline for submission of abstracts is 15 January 2018.

 

Acceptance

 

Applicants will be informed of acceptance by late February 2018. 

 

Working Group Co-Convener

 

Lesley Delmenico  delmenic@grinnell.edu