Call for Papers

Performing Theory, Theorizing Performance: Conceptualization, Execution, and Documentation

A Graduate Student Conference with the Theatre and Drama Department at University of Wisconsin Madison

March 16, 2013

With keynote speakers:
Chloe Johnston, Assistant Professor of Theater, Lake Forest College, writer and performer with the Neo-Futurists
Coya Paz, Assistant Professor of Theater, Depaul University, founding member of Proyecto Latina, co-director of the Resident Ensemble at Free Street Theatre, Artistic Director for the Poetry Performance Incubator at the Guild Complex

As graduate students we often find ourselves struggling to find a creative outlet for our own theoretical interests, to either put them into practice or test their viability. Even when we find ourselves in the position to create our own work, this creativity may be divorced from the theoretical material we produce. We are often challenged to consider what the applications of our theoretical research, asynchronous of any specific performance, might be. Theory and artistic practice are informed by the world we live in, its histories, languages, cultures, and economic structures. The ways in which performance can recontextualize how we write and what we write are numerous, complex, and instrumental to academic research in the fields of theater, performance studies, and beyond. In this interdisciplinary conference, we want to critically analyze not only how we and others make performance happen but also how those performances then come to inform the writing we do. We welcome proposals from all areas of the humanities, arts, and social sciences that broadly explore the concept of the relationship between theory and performance with particular interest in elements that are theatrical and performative in nature. Possible topics include:

·      Theories of theater, acting, or design
·      Dramaturgical work translated into scholarship
·      Documenting performances
·      Collaboration between academics and performers
·      Interrogating our own performance work
·      Methodological frameworks: their uses and limits
·      The role of interdisciplinarity
·      Intermedial projects and the functions of new technology
·      Ethics of the interview
·      Dramaturgy and the death of the author
·      Shifting cultural contexts and reperformance
·      Authorship sans text

We welcome presentations from graduate students in all areas including acting, directing, design, technology, and theatre research. Graduate students from any and all department are encouraged to submit abstracts. While this conference will feature traditional forms of papers and panels we also encourage non-traditional forms of presentation including performances of texts and visual presentations. Please send abstracts or project proposals of 250 words or less in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Pages or PDF format to James Burling and Katherine Lieder at TDGSO2013@gmail.com by December 22, 2012.

Please include the title of your paper, your name, affiliation, short bio, and A/V requests. Accepted papers will be grouped into panels with papers of similar thematic material. Papers should be 20 minutes in length.