The presence of text in contemporary dance and theatre 
From the center to the margins of the scene 
International Conference – May 24-26, 2018, Lisbon 

CALL FOR PAPPERS

Throughout the 20th century, theatre has undergone multiple aesthetic and process-related transformations, specifically regarding the close and complex relationship between text and mise en scène.

Drama (between its crisis and emancipation) has been shaped by modernist and postmodernist avant-garde movements whose legacy was a re-invented theatrical practice. Directors and playwrights began engaging in a dialogue with other artistic genres—visual arts and dance, in particular—that pushed theatre to revisit its heritage as well as open up to new methodologies and creative practices promoted by the creators (and their followers) of a theatre that avoids the centrality of Aristotelian-Hegelian drama. Fragments, monologues, micro-fictions, text-sources, and other textual forms comprise, in our day and age, the corpus of a deeply renovated drama which no longer inhabits and contaminates the centre of theatrical processes and objects, but their margins instead.

The last century was not only a period of artistic renovation for the theatre, but also for other areas, such as dance. In Poetics of Contemporary Dance, Laurence Louppe offers that   contemporary choreography arises not from dance itself, but from the lack of it. Therefore, contemporary dance has opened up to new compositional paradigms, integrating in its repertoire literature and the writing of original scenic texts, among other source materials. Choreographers not only engender dance, but also speech. In the current scene of performative arts, a delicate and significant movement appears, influenced by the heritage of the 20th century: theatre distances itself from text, while dance grows closer to it.

This international conference seeks to offer an opportunity to reflect on this movement, through the study of processes, methodologies, theatrical and choreographic objects. With the purpose of fostering an exchange of perspectives and critical outlooks on the presence of literature—in its widest sense—in contemporary dance and theatre, the conference aims to strengthen the dialogue between these two artistic disciplines and their respective academic research, through the reflection on text and its place.

Suggested themes for paper presentation

-Processes of textual creation in postdramatic theatrical practices and contemporary choreography;
-Text(s): source materials for dance and theatre;
-The speaking body: the dancer as subject of enunciation;
-Theatre-Dance and Dance-Theatre today;
-Choreographer and dancers: literary authors;
-Choreographing based on a theatre work;
-Text materiality in-between artistic genres;
-Narrativity: gesture, movement and word.

Conference Calendar 

i) Call for papers on November 20th 2017;
ii) Abstract submissions deadline: January 5th 2018;
iii) Notification of the Executive committee’s decision by February 20th 2018;
iv) Final conference line-up by March 15th 2018;
v) Conference (Lisbon): May 24-26th 2018.

Submission Requirements: 

i) Abstract (500 words max.) including title, key words, author’s name and five bibliographic references at most;
ii) Author’s brief bio note (500 words max.);
iii) Submissions must be written in the same language as the proposed paper and in English. The official languages of the conference are Portuguese, English, French and Spanish;
iv) The submission must be email as a single pdf attachment to estudos.teatro@letras.ulisboa.pt.
(Please cc mickael.de.oliveira@vildt.pt) until February 2th 2018. 

Organizing Committee

Project Director: Micael de Oliveira
Secretary: Tatiana Dinis
Contacts: 217 920 000 / 910 315 374

Institutional support: Centro de Estudos de Teatro (Center for Theatre Studies) / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa (School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon)| Instituto de Etnomusicologia – Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (Institute of Ethnomusicology— Center for Music and Dance Studies) / Faculdade de Motricidade Humana da Universidade de Lisboa (Faculty of Human Kinetics, University of Lisbon).