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<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center>ASTR/CORD Conference
Seattle, November 18-21, 2010</P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><B>Working
Group:</B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><B>Negotiations of
Power - A History of Collective Creation</B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><B>Call for Papers:
</B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><B>We invite authors
to submit proposals for essays on aspects of the international development of
the Collective Creation movement, <BR></B></P>
<P style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=MsoNormal align=center><B>from the early
twentieth century forward.</B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Aims:</B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"> The aim of
this working group is to produce and publish a history of the international
development of Collective Creation from the early twentieth century
forward.<SPAN> </SPAN>The goal of this proposed volume is to provide a
more historically systematic overview than has hitherto been attempted, and to
contribute a significant piece to a broader consideration of the relationship
between institutional and aesthetic practices </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>We are interested in studies of particular companies,
overviews of the historical development of Collective Creation in particular
regions of the world, and considerations of Collective Creation’s varied
manifestations (ideological, institutional, aesthetic, etc) at different
historical moments and in distinct cultural contexts. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>For additional information on content, please see
“<B>Themes</B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">” and “</SPAN><B>Working
Definition</B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">” below.</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Rationale: </B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">Despite
its significant, ongoing, global impact, Collective Creation remains
underdeveloped as an object of scholarship.<SPAN> </SPAN>We are aware of
only a very small selection in-depth studies in English, including <I>The Lives
and Deaths of Collective Creation</I></SPAN> (Vox Teatri, 2008), and
<I>Collective Creation, Collaboration and Devising</I><SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: normal"> (Playwrights Canada Press, 2009)</SPAN><I>.</I><SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: normal"><SPAN> </SPAN>While these constitute a
significant step in the field, neither claims to offer an international,
historical overview.<SPAN> </SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Working Method:</B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"></SPAN></P>
<UL>
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></SPAN>E-mail exchange
(June–November), to test ideas and share resources;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></SPAN>Contributions to working
bibliography exchanged early July;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></SPAN>Drafts exchanged early
October;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"></SPAN>Revisions submitted subsequent
to ASTR session; date TBD.
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></SPAN>ASTR session will be
structured as discussion, with break-out working-groups to:</LI></UL>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in" class=MsoNormal>1.<SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN>Refine the
working definition of Collective Creation, taking into account intersections
with related forms, including studio, laboratory, devised and post-dramatic
theatre, as well as cultural divergences and convergences;</P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in" class=MsoNormal>2.<SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN>Re-define
the scope of the proposed volume based upon contributions; identify critical
gaps; create a plan to address gaps; </P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in" class=MsoNormal>3.<SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN>Discuss ways
of bringing drafts into fuller harmony with aims of the proposed volume;</P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in" class=MsoNormal>4.<SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN>Produce
draft book proposal;</P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.75in" class=MsoNormal>5.<SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN>Lay out
schedule for completion.</P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.25in" class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Contact: </B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">Please send
an abstract of 250 words or more, and brief bio emphasizing your interest in
Collective Creation to: Dr. Kathryn Syssoyeva, <A href=""
target=_blank>syssoyeva@gmail.com</A></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Deadline:</B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"> May 15,
2010</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>For further guidelines and information, please go to: <A
href=""
target=_blank>http://www.astr.org/Conference/WorkingSessionsGuidelines/tabid/128/Default.aspx</A></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Themes:</B><SPAN style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Our overarching aim is to map Collective Creation’s
crisscrossing temporal, spatial and cultural trajectories. Within this
framework, themes we wish to see addressed include, but are not limited to:</P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<UL>
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"></SPAN>Diverse structures of artistic
authority/cooperation proposed by collective theatre groups over the century;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>The role of
particular institutional structures in facilitating/foreclosing upon
particular aesthetic possibilities – and vice versa;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN
style="FONT: 7pt 'Times New Roman'"> </SPAN></SPAN>Intersections with
related forms of theatrical experimentation;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"></SPAN>Collective creation as social
protest;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"></SPAN>The politics of political
disengagement;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>Imploding utopias
and failed collectives;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>Extra-theatrical
impetuses (political, ideological, philosophical, etc) to collective creation;
<LI><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: Wingdings"></SPAN>The roots the theatrical
collective in pre-twentieth century practice.</LI></UL>
<P class=MsoNormal><B></B> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><B>Working Definition: </B><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal">Collective Creation is a theatrical movement
characterized above all by the nature of the creative process – in its essence,
a group of persons collaboratively developing a theatrical work from conception
to performance.<SPAN> </SPAN>Typically, that collaborative method
eliminates or decentralizes the role of the director, accentuates the creative
contribution of the performer, emphasizes democratic or consensual
decision-making, and redistributes traditional designations of
responsibility.<SPAN> </SPAN>Collective Creation is here understood to be
an artistic movement with broader socio-political implications: a considered
intervention into normative power dynamics of hierarchically structured
institutions, by practicing and modeling institutional alternatives. The
movement’s impulses are thus understood to be at once aesthetic and
political.<SPAN> </SPAN>The nature of that politics, however, is
open-ended.<SPAN> </SPAN>Historically, the particular “politics” of
particular performance collectives run the gamut from the engaged political
activism that typified the U.S. collectives of the 1960’s, to utopian theatre
communities such as Jacques Copeau’s “Copiaus” (established in 1924), to the
politics of political refusal, such as we find in the work of Stanislavsky and
his collaborators in his final Studio in the 1930's, which may arguably be
understood as constituting a radical (for its time and place) retreat from
political oppression through committed engagement in collective
imagination.</SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>While a flowering of Collective Creation occurred in the 60’s
and 70’s, its roots can be traced to collaborative theatre practices developed
earlier in the century.<SPAN> </SPAN>Meyerhold, for instance, introduced
the term “collective creation” in Russia in 1906; Copeau and Saint-Denis
deployed collective creation methods in France in the nineteen-twenties and
thirties. Similarly, as Jane Baldwin, Jean-Marc Larrue and Christiane Page argue
in <I>The Lives and Deaths of Collective Creation</I><SPAN
style="FONT-STYLE: normal">, the movement’s impact continues to be felt
globally.<SPAN> </SPAN>Indeed, the programs of many theatre schools, the
subject matter of many conference talks, the intensifying scholarly interest in
such related categories of practice as “devising,” “laboratory,” and
“post-dramatic” theatre - all suggest a resurgence of interest in collective
practices, in the form of broad diffusion; arguably, collective creation is
experiencing a migration from margin to center. </SPAN></P><BR clear=all><BR>--
<BR>Kathryn Mederos Syssoyeva, PhD<BR>Stanford Department of Drama and the
Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>________________<BR>Jane Baldwin, Ph.D.<BR>Editor
of Theatre: The Rediscovery of Style and Other Writings<BR>For more
information about the book, please visit:<BR><A
href="http://www.routledge.com/books/Theatre-The-Rediscovery-of-Style-and-Other-Writings-isbn9780415450485">http://www.routledge.com/books/Theatre-The-Rediscovery-of-Style-and-Other-Writings-isbn9780415450485</A></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>