Archive for 2014

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[ecrea] American Society for Theatre Research -- Dancing on the Edge CFP

Wed May 07 05:40:19 GMT 2014



Abstracts are invited for a working session at the annual conference for the American Society for Theatre Research, held in Baltimore, MD November 20-23.


Dancing on the Edge: The Queer/Techno/Digital/Cyborg/Post/Present/Material/Effervescent Body

Conveners: Jessica Berson (Independent Scholar) and Kirsten Pullen (Texas A&M University)

>From two robotic vacuums performing Beckett to Stelarc’s electronically controlled suspension performances to tweens enthusiastically Wii-dancing, boundaries between embodied, disembodied, and virtual dance continue to blur. While technology makes it possible for non-humans to perform and especially to dance, the embodied ephemerality so central to many definitions of performance seems to disappear. How do we dance on the edge of the material, the embodied, the real, and the human? Clearly, the conference theme of the post-human poses particular quandaries for dance and movement scholars: we often find ourselves trying to steer conversation to the more human, toward the fundamental and underwritten phenomena of embodiment. But at the same time, the questions implicit in the theme productively trouble our ideas about the meanings and mechanics of embodiment in performance.

Moving away from questions of embodiment qua embodiment, this working session invites participants to investigate questions of the virtual and the human and the material and the digital body through a wide range of potential sites, including dance, performance art, screendance, visual art, web-based performance, and video games. Papers that address these or other, related questions, are especially welcome.

* How do contemporary technologies challenge our sense of the material realities of the body? * What happens to the immediacy of embodied experience when it becomes implicated in digitization and virtuality? * What can considerations of the post-human offer to discourses around embodiment, somatics, and practice? * How do “post-human” technologies offer new opportunities to recreate and archive embodied experience? * How might discussions of the post-human become useful to considerations of embodiment in hybrid performance forms? * How do digital representations of the body reconfigure somatic experience? * How can the fantastical figure of the cyborg illuminate the diurnal lived experiences of actual bodies? * How do popular performance forms engage with these questions differently from the avant garde?


The seminar uses a blog (hosted on the ASTR site and open to all ASTR members) to structure preconference dialogue. Beginning in late summer each member will post at least twice to the blog. While the blog is essential to the seminar’s preconference dialogue, the posting schedule is flexible and no previous blogging experience is necessary. The first post introduces individual topics through a visual image, and the second indicates a “research tangent” not covered in the seminar paper but relevant to its argument and the goals of the session. At the end of preconference dialogue, each member of the seminar will produce a 10-12 page paper to circulate among the group one month prior to the conference (or no later than Monday, October 20, 2014). Working session members will be paired, and each will prepare a short abstract of their partner’s paper as well as questions that specifically link their research with their partner’s and with the session themes. At the ASTR conference, the co-convenors will use these questions to develop discussion between participants and the audience.

Please submit a 250-word abstract, paper title, and short biography to Kirsten Pullen ((kpullen /at/ tamu.edu)) and Jessica Berson ((jberson /at/ gmail.com)) via email on or before June 1, 2014. NB: ASTR guidelines ask that individuals apply to only one working session.
Dr. Kirsten Pullen
Ray A. Rothrock '77 Research Fellow
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Performance Studies
Director, Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts
Texas A&M University
TAMU4240
College Station, TX 77843-4240
(kpullen /at/ tamu.edu)
979.845.2899



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