- critical costume
- digital and design-led performance
- ecoscenography
- expanded scenography
- material agency of performance
Scenography
Established in 1994 the Scenography Working Group focuses on the criticality of design as - and for - performance, the cultures, practices, theories, and politics of scenographies and scenographics from across the globe. The group represents a leading international forum for the sharing of research.
KEYWORDS
CALL for IFTR 2025
CALL FOR PAPERS, Performing Carnival: Ekstasis, Subversion, Metamorphosis.
Scenography Working Group, IFTR 2025, Cologne, Germany, 9-13 June 2025
Carnival and the carnivalesque acknowledge performance as artifice, simultaneously subversive and materially immersive. Its excesses can be read as the means through which to express current shared anxieties, as much as sociocultural situated identities (Barbieri, 2017). The coalesced worldings and becomings of the carnivalesque ask to foreground manifestations beyond deep-rooted hierarchies and binaries that can endure in practices of representation (or re-presentation).
Within this context, scenographies and scenographic bodies emerge instead as assemblages (Hann, 2018), contraptions (Penna, 2017; 2024) and other expanded (McKinney and Palmer, 2017), porous, entangled, ever-becoming and 'becoming with' (Haraway, 2016) methodologies beyond representation. This results in renewed understandings and doings of scenographies with transformative sociocultural, ecological and political impact.
Crucially, vital, dynamic and meaningful materialisations in practices of carnival and masquerade from non-Western contexts, can address the urgent call for unsettling and decentring a Western emphasis that underpins global asymmetries in scenography and performance studies. Such countering of dominant extractive cultures should also find carnival in alignment with ecocritical discourses and practices that oppose oppressive neo-colonial hegemonies.
The Scenography Research Working Group invites reflections on performances, expanding practices and aesthetics of the carnivalesque from wide-ranging geographical, political, technological, social, political, and cultural contexts. We invite research on the significance of contemporary manifestations, on the liveness of historical ones, as well as considering the ways in which the liminality of carnival can include digital, mixed reality experiences.
Suggest themes include (but not limited to):
- Carnival, power, and politics in scenography
- Feminist carnivalesque and costumed bodies
- The multiple agencies of carnival matter
- Material embodiment and carnival practices
- The ecocriticality of carnivalesque matter
- Carnivalesque as queering performance design
- Ethics and politics of masking and unmasking
- Transness, scenography and the carnival
- Digital scenography and the carnivalesque
- Scenography, Feminism and Metamorphosis
- Scenography, Carnival and Transformation
- Scenography, Carnival and Transgression
- Scenography, Carnival and Cultural Imaginaries
- Carnival and Material Culture
- Scenographies of the grotesque and uncanny
The working group welcomes responses to the above themes and proposals from researchers from the Global Majority and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds as well as scenography specialists from all fields and geographies of performance design. Presentations in different forms and formats are invited (see below).
Format of Presentation
Abstracts for the following three formats should be submitted no later than 22nd January 2025 via IFTR’s Cambridge Core portal. Please specify Scenography Working Group when submitting your abstract (choose Scenography WG from the drop-down menu).
1. 250-300 word abstracts Academic paper presentation (20-minute maximum) followed by questions.
Abstracts will be peer reviewed internally before acceptance. The formal presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session to promote in-depth discussion and constructive debate within a supportive environment. This format is ideal for those looking for feedback prior to a future submission for publication.
2. Seminar Proposal / Provocation for focused group discussion (15-minute maximum).
Presentation will be followed by small group discussions responding to the themes of the provocation. This format is useful in developing ideas, connections and gaining further theoretical insights as part of the process of research within a supportive environment.
3. Short papers, provocations and flash-talk presentations that report on research at different stages of development (7 minutes).
4.Performative presentations, material fragments of performances and workshop demonstrations are welcome, however these should fit within the 20 minutes maximum presentation format and should be agreed with the WG convenors in advance.
Note that the allocated time may change depending on the number of panels and delegates.
Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: Abstract submissions will close on the 22nd January 2025.
To submit an abstract for consideration you must be a member of IFTR.
To check if you are already a member or to register as one, click here:
To present at the World Congress each member will need to buy membership of IFTR and in Spring 2025 register and pay for the conference (IFTR operate a banding system and a number of concessions are available).
Additional information such as the form the proposed submission and any information about restrictions to your availability over the course of the IFTR World Congress should be included on the online form under ‘equipment required’ and must be discussed (via email) with the Working Group co-convenors.
Please note: IFTR rules prevent individuals from presenting more than one paper during the conference.
CONVENERS
Dr Donatella Barbieri d.barbieri@fashion.arts.ac.uk
Dr Christina (Xristina) Penna x.penna@derby.ac.uk
Conference Dates: 9 – 13 June 2025
Conference Venue: University of Cologne, Germany
Works cited:
Barbieri, D., 2017. Costume in performance: materiality, culture, and the body. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hann, R., 2018. Beyond scenography. Routledge.
Haraway, D.J., 2016. Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. In Staying with the Trouble. Duke University Press.
McKinney, J. and Palmer, S. eds., 2017. Scenography expanded: An introduction to contemporary performance design. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Penna C. Scenographic contraptions: designing uncertainty and orchestrating error for the generation of participatory scenography. Theatralia. 2024 Jan 1;27(1).
The group invites research contributions from and about areas that include the development, performance, and reception of environments, of embodied material practices and of mediatised performances, addressing elements that include space, costume, light, sound, projection, digital/mixed realities, participation and interaction, puppetry, and much more.
It embraces perspectives from multiple histories, present manifestations and possible futures, that may emerge from both situated and transnational communities of practice. It discusses and captures established and expansive scenographic practices, methodologies and pedagogies that may consider its affective workings as well as politics of representation in relation to performers and audiences.
As well as the annual IFTR World Congress gatherings, we hold interim events, such as at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.
By offering opportunities to share and discuss members’ research in a variety of formats, we aim to promote aesthetic, theoretical and philosophical investigations that are both distinct from and inclusive of technological developments for performance.
Early career researchers and postgraduate scholars (either as presenters or observer/participants) are welcome to the group although they may also wish to contribute to the IFTR New Scholars programme at each annual World Congress. IFTR rules prevent individuals from presenting more than one paper during the conference.
Featured Image is from Spectators in a Ghost City 2023 ©Melita Couta
Golden Triga Award PQ23
Curator: Marina Maleni, Artistic Researcher and Installation Designer: Melita Couta, Collaborating Technical Advisor: Harris Kafkarides Art and Technology collaborator for AudioVisual/ New Media Support: Giorgos Lazoglou, Video Performance Artists: Pascal Caron and Melita Couta, Head of THOC Set Construction Workshop: Yiannis Christodoulou, Famagusta before: Audiovisula archive material granted by RIK Archive and Digital Herodotus.