The Theatre & Architecture Working Group invites proposals from researchers and practitioners for our meeting during the 2020 IFTR Conference

Deadline for bursary applications: 15 December 2019

Deadline for proposals: 31 January 2020

The theme for the 2020 IFTR Conference in Galway, ‘Theatre Ecologies: Environment, Sustainability, and Politics,’ invites reflection on our interconnectedness with each other and the environment. Encompassing the literal and metaphorical dimensions of ecology and environment, the theme encourages us to attend to the political, embodied and performative nature of theatre ecologies. 

For our meeting we will be adopting the main conference theme to explore the networks of interconnections that exist between architecture, performance, artists and institutions, whilst also attending to how these are embedded within broader environments and biological systems. Proposals may address (but are not limited to):

• Ecologies of theatre and architecture

• Theatre architectures and/as environments

• Ecologies of place: site-specificity and site-responsiveness in theatre and/or architecture

• Theatre & architecture in the Anthropocene

• Performance space and climate change

• Performance as assemblage of body and architecture

• Architecture and/as affordance

• Performance, sustainability and social justice

• Place-making and community engagement

• Theatre as an environmentally transformative gesture

• Performance space as taskscape

• Architecture and temporality: resilience and transience

• Ecologies of architecture and scenography

• The aesthetics of waste / the aesthetics of sustainability

• Porous and/or ephemeral performance spaces

• Spatial performativity and spatial agency

• Performance space, location and landscape

• Theatre architecture and environmental change: practical and theoretical considerations

• Methodologies: Environments, Politics, Sustainability

We invite proposals for presentations that may take one of the following forms: academic papers (15 minutes), PechaKucha presentations (20 slides x 20 seconds), screenings, short workshop demonstrations or performative engagements with the conference theme. Please be mindful that resources and time for workshops or performative engagements are limited. We encourage you to discuss resource requirements via email with the Working Group Conveners before submitting proposals and to outline these clearly under ‘equipment needed’ when you submit your abstract.

About the IFTR Theatre & Architecture Working Group
The purpose of the Theatre & Architecture Working Group is to explore all that theatre architecture has been historically, is at present, and might be in the future. We consider built projects alongside unbuilt or speculative architectures, studying these from a wide range of practical and theoretical perspectives. We continue to investigate the ways in which space can be manipulated to bring performers and spectators into dynamic relationship inside traditional theatre auditoria, while also asking how else the disciplines of theatre and architecture intersect. For further Information about the Theatre & Architecture Working Group please visit: https://www.iftr.org/working-groups/theatre-architecture

Abstract Submission
Please submit abstracts through the Cambridge Core website. In order to make a submission you will need to become a member of IFTR first: https://www.cambridge.org/core/membership/iftr. When you submit your abstract please make sure that you indicate that you are submitting to the ‘Theatre & Architecture Working Group’. Please also send a copy of your abstract to the Working Group conveners via email. All abstracts will be independently peer reviewed prior to acceptance.

Our Process
We pre-circulate written papers (of up to 3,000 words) to members in advance of the conference to  encourage in-depth exchange and a constructive and supportive ‘workshopping’ of members’ papers during our meetings. To facilitate this we ask that speakers email copies of written papers to the conveners by 13 June, 2020, for uploading to the group’s shared Dropbox. We also strongly encourage members to attend every session of the Working Group during the conference so as to contribute to discussion throughout.

During the IFTR Conference in Galway we warmly welcome individuals who wish to take part in the group's discussions, but who do not want to submit a paper.

Working Group Conveners
Dr. Andrew Filmer: awf@aber.ac.uk
Prof. Dorita Hannah: dorita.m.hannah@gmail.com

Image Credit: Levitating Theatre by Unism Studio: https://www.unismstudio.net/projects/levitating-theater