CFP: Joint Conference of ASTR, the Theatre Library Assoc., and the Congress on Research in Dance

Call for Proposals: Deadline Feb. 1st 2010

Seattle, WA
18-21 November 2010
The Renaissance Seattle Hotel

Embodying Power: Work Over Time

Theater and dance are fellow travelers. Sometimes they are close friends, sharing lodgings, swapping influences, commenting on the same delights and disturbances, even taking a turn or two on the floor together. Sometimes they are rivals, insisting on their own visions of aesthetic merit, concepts of time, space and body, and relationship to history and culture. And sometimes they take divergent paths, walking at different paces, occupied with their own thoughts and casting barely a glance toward one another. Next year will be a time of reunion for these two embodied arts, a time for exchanging ideas and reflecting on their long relationship.

In order to facilitate this reunion, the 2010 joint conference will revolve around the concept of corporeal power. In physics, power is defined as work divided by the time needed to complete the work, or work over time. We seek to focus on the moving body in performance and examine how power has “worked” on/through/with bodies throughout history (over time). We encourage applicants to consider the generative possibilities of clusters of words such as power, movement, mass, gravity, so as to envision the possibility of a politics that is embodied, as weight in bodies in motion, in which there are collisions, reactions between forces in a kind of ‘Newtonian’ universe of dance-theatre. In foregrounding the politics of moving bodies, we hope simultaneously to blur the disciplinary boundaries between dance and theater, and mine the productive relationships between them. Though the focus of the conference is on the intersections of theater and dance, applicants are encouraged to explore the wide variety of embodied, expressive cultural forms (theatre, dance, ritual, fiesta, performance art, international festivals, religious, civil observances, everyday life, etc.). Too, applicants might consider the moving body in theater, theatricality in dance, and genres of performance on and off stage that don’t fit into neat categories.

Proposals might consider the following questions:

How does power operate in and within performance?

How has power been negotiated in the performing arts (between audience and performer, among different performance traditions, over time)?

How do bodies in motion negotiate and enact power?

How are bodies inscribed by power; how are bodies strategically resistant to power?

How are bodies subject to different kinds of forces: gravity, aging, technique, economics, racializing and sexualizing discourses?

How are bodies capable of generating power of their own?

What are the forces that exert power over moving bodies? And what are the forces that moving bodies generate?

What do we mean when we talk about the “transformational or liberatory power of performance”?

How does power circulate within performance pedagogy?

How is power negotiated in terms of culture and identity?

What are the economics of power in performance? Who defines performance genres? Where is the legislative power?

What are the hidden powers of performance?

How and why do performances elicit embodied responses, and how can embodied spectatorship make power visible?

How can different methodological approaches, from dance studies, theater studies, and/or performance studies, work together to assess the role of embodiment in performance?

Participation Guidelines

Plenary Presentations: We invite proposals for individual plenary papers and/or presentations: these presentations are “plenary” in the sense that they address the entire conference and nothing runs concurrently with them. Proposals take the form of an abstract (max. 250 words) that includes name, affiliation, mailing and email addresses. Full-length papers will not be accepted, with the exception of graduate students who wish to be considered for CORD’s Graduate Research Award, who must submit a full-length paper in addition to an abstract. Proposals will be selected by the program committee with an eye towards topics that advance conversations in and about the fields of theatre, dance and performance studies. We encourage both “traditional” and “performative” papers. Individual presentations should not exceed 20 minutes. Those proposals not selected for plenary presentations may be invited to turn their presentation into a working session instead. Also, those whose proposals are not selected for plenary presentations will have the opportunity to apply to a second call for participants in accepted working sessions.

Working Sessions: We invite proposals for working sessions: this category includes roundtables, seminars, research groups, reading groups, forums, workshops, as well as formats that have yet to be imagined. “Working sessions” is a general category that allows the session leader(s) to convene small groups around a proposed area of inquiry or practice, and to structure a method and format that best suits the goals of the group. No formats will be privileged over others; all proposals will be given equal consideration according to their merit. Proposals include a rationale for the intellectual/scholarly/artistic merits of the session as well as a rationale for its format, and must be accompanied by the “ASTR/TLA/CORD Working Sessions Proposal Form,” attached below. Proposals related to the conference theme are particularly welcome, but not necessary. We strongly encourage working session proposals that would explicitly bring together theatre and dance scholars. Once the program committee makes its selection of working sessions, each session convener will issue a specialized call for participants for that session; this second round of calls for participants in working sessions will be posted on the ASTR and CORD and TLA websites, with a late May deadline for submission.

For more information about ASTR working sessions see: http://www.astr.org/Conference/WorkingSe…

For more information about CORD working sessions see:
 http://www.cordance.org/2010-conference

All submissions must be received by 1 February 2010 and should be sent as e-mail attachments, in MS Word, to:  astr.2010 at gmail.com.

Inquiries are welcome; please contact Nadine George-Graves or Anthea Kraut at  astr.2010 at gmail.com with program questions or Nancy Erickson ( NEricksn at aol.com) with any questions about conference logistics.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE 2010

Anthea Kraut, University of California, Riverside, Co-chair

Nadine George-Graves, University of California, San Diego, Co-chair

Susan Brady, TLA representative

Stacy Wolf, Princeton University

Juliet McMains, University of Washington

Scott Magelssen, Bowling Green State University

David Saltz, University of Georgia

Patrick Alcedo, York University

Cindy Garcia, University of Minnesota

Deborah Paredez, University of Texas, Austin

Zelma Badu-Younge, Ohio University

Clare Croft, University of Texas, Austin

Helen Thomas, London College of Fashion

James Harding, University of Mary Washington

SanSan Kwan, California State University, Los Angeles

Michelle Granshaw, University of Washington

For more information on the organizations, and their respective honors and awards, see: http://astr.org/, http://tla.library.unt.edu/, and http://www.cordance.org/

ASTR/TLA/CORD 2010 WORKING SESSIONS PROPOSAL FORM

Please use this form for all proposals other than plenary proposals.

Session Title:

Name(s), institutional affiliation (if any), and email address of Session Leader(s):

Expected Number of Participants:

Select the preferred session length[1]: □ 1-hour session □ Standard 2-hour session □ 3-hour session

Is the group an ongoing ASTR group? (formerly known as a Research Group)[2]

Yes No

Rationale (please attach a 300-word description of your session, articulating its focus, scholarly importance, and relevance to the conference theme or mandate of ASTR, CORD, or TLA):

Format (please attach a 200-word description of the format your session will take—e.g. seminar, working group, reading group, roundtable, workshop, etc[3]), articulating the relationship between the proposed format and the goals of the session, and, in the case of ongoing groups, the stage of the group’s work. Please also articulate why you would prefer a 1-hour, 2-hour or 3-hour time slot).

[1] 3-hour sessions cannot be guaranteed.

[2] It is assumed that ongoing groups will continue their work as appropriate; however, they are not guaranteed scheduling as part of the conference, and will compete for slots according to the merits of their proposals.

[3] This list is not intended to limit possible formats, and no formats will be privileged by the conference committee. All proposals will be given equal consideration according to their merit.