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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">IFTR FEMINIST RESEARCH WORKING GROUP<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">IFTR World Congress 2026<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">6-10 July 2026, Melbourne, Australia<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">CALL FOR PAPERS<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></b></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Dear feminist friends, <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The theme for the 2026 IFTR World Congress is “What Theatre Does.” As the conference CFP notes, “</span><span lang="EN-AU">Theatre, dance, and other cultural performances all </span><i><span lang="EN-AU">do</span></i><span lang="EN-AU"> things.
A key tenet of Theatre and Performance Studies (TaPS) is that these practices are, in themselves, <i>ways of</i> <i>doing</i>…. Over time and across cultures, performance has variously been said to beguile, celebrate, empower, entertain, exalt, instruct, oppress,
provoke, purify, moralise, remember, subvert, transfigure, and welcome. But are we as TaPS scholars happy to leave it there? Can we afford to?” (The full call is reproduced below.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
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<span lang="EN-AU">In line with this call to reconsider the public efficacy and activist potential of theatre and performance in a burning, increasingly authoritarian world, the Feminist Research Working Group invites papers that consider the conference theme
with special attention to these questions:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU">1.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">What
does theatre and performance do, today, for women around the world? How does it mobilize; how does it represent; how does it uplift; when and how does it create change?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:
normal;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU">2.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">What
do feminist theories do for theatre and performance studies (TaPS) today? How have developments in theoretical perspectives (feminist and other) over the last 40+ years shifted the way TaPS scholars understand the labour of feminist performance praxis?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:normal;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU">3.<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">How
might we define feminist theatre today? What has changed over the last four decades? What changes do we see coming?</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-AU"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium;"><b><span lang="EN-AU">To submit a paper to the Feminist Research Working Group, please follow the general conference submission timeline:<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span lang="EN-AU">1
November:</span></b><span lang="EN-AU"> Abstract submissions open. Abstracts can be submitted to the IFTR conference platform which is accessed via the IFTR </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="http://www.iftr.org/">webpage</a></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><b><span lang="EN-AU">8
December:</span></b><span lang="EN-AU"> Abstract submissions close<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">Please <u>note</u> that
you have to be a member of the IFTR to submit an abstract. To join or renew your membership, visit the IFTR </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="http://www.iftr.org/">webpage</a></span><span lang="EN-AU"> from 1 October.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.4px; font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN-AU">Questions? Reach the FRWG convenors, Professor Kim Solga and Dr Mallarika Sinha Roy, at </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="mailto:ksolga@uwo.ca">ksolga@uwo.ca</a></span><span lang="EN-AU">and </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="mailto:mallarikasinharoy@yahoo.com">mallarikasinharoy@yahoo.com</a></span><span lang="EN-AU">. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></b></p>
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><br clear="all" style="break-before: page;">
</span></b><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: medium;"></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.4px; font-size: medium;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">IFTR World Congress 2026</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">What Theatre Does</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">6-10 July 2026 <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The University of Melbourne, Australia <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB">Call for Papers<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Theatre, dance, and other cultural performances all </span><i><span lang="EN-AU">do</span></i><span lang="EN-AU"> things. A key tenet of Theatre and Performance Studies (TaPS) is that these practices are, in themselves, <i>ways of</i> <i>doing</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium;">
<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium;"><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">For Elin Diamond, performance is ‘a doing and a thing done.’ Diana Taylor channels artistic insights from Latin America to add that it is also
‘redoing,’ and ‘a thing done to and with the spectator.’</span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></span><span lang="EN-AU">In recent years, diverse scholars have taken these ideas in fresh directions. Writing about indigeneity in
Hawaii, Stephanie Nohelani Teves argues that ‘the performance of aloha…</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: rgb(20, 20, 19);">does something to and for Kānaka Maoli.’ This includes a ‘practice of insurgent world-making that exceeds the limits set by the
colonial order of things.’ In his ‘Manifesto for Queer of Color Life’, Joshua Chambers-Letson asserts that ‘[p]erformance doesn’t just rehearse a different world, it makes it anew, again and again.’ </span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, </span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">the
terms gathered in <i>The Routledge Companion to Performance-Related Concepts in Non-European Languages </i>describe myriad ‘doings’ of performance, from Lina Saleh’s interpretation of the Arabic </span></span><i><span lang="EN-AU">ma</span></i><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">ṯṯ</span></i><i><span lang="EN-AU">al</span></i><b><span lang="EN-AU"> </span></b><span lang="EN-AU">as
‘continuous transformation in representation’, </span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">to Zeami’s </span></span><span lang="EN-AU">‘interval of doing nothing’ (<i>senuhima</i>), as considered by Yamashita Yoshiteru (see references below).</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"> </span></p>
<p class="paragraph" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; font-size: medium;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;">These insights reflect performance knowledge long enacted by practitioners throughout the world. Over time and across cultures, performance has variously been said to beguile,
celebrate, empower, entertain, exalt, instruct, oppress, provoke, purify, moralise, remember, subvert, transfigure, and welcome. </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But are we as </span><span lang="EN-GB">TaPS scholars happy to leave it there? Can we afford<i> </i>to? </span><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Climate change, competition for resources, and the rise of polarising new technologies are leading to complex and sometimes violent realignments of global political power and ideology. This impacts what kinds of performances are being made
in the present, and how we should understand them historically. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Australia, where our conference will be held, </span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB">artists, audiences and researchers alike are tussling with specific iterations of these issues. These include the significance and future
vitality of Indigenous performance cultures and their intersection with the cultural legacies of settler-colonialism; new forms of intercultural belonging in an Asia-Pacific setting</span></span><span class="eop"><span lang="EN-AU">; and how</span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB"> commercial,
community and cutting-edge performances alike can respond at the human scale to major global challenges.</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In response, we invite you to a conference called ‘What Theatre Does’ that is deliberately, open-heartedly, inclusive. </span><b><span lang="EN-GB">Come</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">: come on over and tell everyone else what the theatre,
dance and performance you know best did, does, or might yet do.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB">But a conference called ‘What Theatre Does’ also harbours a demand. Our conference will take place in Melbourne, known as Naarm by the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation on whose unceded land the city stands. Here, <i>wominjeka</i>, the
Aboriginal Woi-wurrung welcome that Traditional Owners offer, means ‘come with purpose.’ </span><span lang="EN-GB">It is a welcome that all visitors, whether new or of long standing, must earn, especially during </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="https://www.naidoc.org.au/"><span lang="EN-GB">National
NAIDOC Week</span></a></span><span lang="EN-GB">, which ‘</span><span lang="EN-AU">celebrates and recognises the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’, and will coincide with our conference. </span><span lang="EN-GB">What
is <i>our</i> purpose? </span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">What Theatre Does</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> will not ask you to frame your existing expertise around a novel theme or topic, but to interrogate the basis on which you make claims about the performance practices you study, and extend
their scope. </span><span lang="EN-GB">Which orthodoxies no longer hold? How much of our scholarship is wishful thinking? Are our methods and theories fit for purpose? </span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">What Theatre Does </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">will ask these hard questions in service of rigour, not critique; imaginatively, not instrumentally. In answering them, your presentation might touch on one or more of the following broad
themes:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Creation and Speculation</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">: how is performance made and what does that make possible? </span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• How performance-makers use the creative process to achieve effective theatre </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• How performances express cultural and geographical location, including relations to sovereign land </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What kinds of world-making theatre and performance are good at and what kinds of futures they help us imagine </span></span><span class="eop"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What the limits of theatre and performance are, or how we can imagine these forms other than they currently appear</span></span><span class="eop"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<b><span lang="EN-AU">Experience and Aesthetics</span></b><span lang="EN-AU">: what do participants get out of performance events, and how? </span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• The relationship between organisational, technical and production practices and how they shape performance aesthetics </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• The bases for the claims we make about reception and how audience research is changing our understanding of theatre, dance and performance </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• The best ways to describe or analyse performances </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What a contemporary poetics or aesthetics of performance might involve </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Methods and Theories</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">: what are they good for, and can we do them better?</span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• When methods and theories are useful, and where they fall short </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What forms of knowledge theatre and performance embody </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• How culturally specific understandings of what theatre does expand the field </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What specific contributions theatre and performance can make to broader interdisciplinary enquiry </span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Impact and Efficacy</span></b><span lang="EN-GB">: what does performance demonstrably achieve, with what results? </span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="eop"><span lang="EN-AU">• The distinctive force of performance in everything from ceremony to community to new technological environments, and as a mechanism for </span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">renewal, regeneration,
and reparation</span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• Who the stakeholders in theatre and performance are, and what they want </span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• How theatre and performance <i>really</i> effect social and political change </span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU">• What theatre achieves as a creative industry</span></span><span class="normaltextrun"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p>
<p class="xmsonormal" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<strong><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0cm;">In addition to IFTR’s standard General Panels, Working Groups and New Scholars Forum, our conference will include a dedicated First
Nations Circle</span></strong><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36);">. Hosted in Naarm (Melbourne) on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nations, this closed circle recognises </span><strong><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0cm;">First
Nations and Indigenous</span></strong><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36);"> peoples as part of global, sovereign networks of knowledge, practice, and kinship. It brings relational ways of working—across Country,
desert, river, and ocean—into dialogue </span><strong><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36); border: 1pt windowtext; padding: 0cm;">beyond conference tracks and national borders</span></strong><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36);">.</span></b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; color: rgb(36, 36, 36);"> Aware
that these relations are shaped by colonisation, displacement, extractive economies, and imposed borders, the Circle refuses isolation and centres Indigenous-led performance as a site of connection, resurgence, and knowledge-making.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU">Abstracts of between 200-250 words</span></b><span lang="EN-AU"> are invited from scholars, teachers, researchers, artists, and students of theatre arts, theatre studies, performance studies, and related disciplines. If you are applying
to present on a General Panel, please include an explanation of how your paper will address the conference theme of what theatre does.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> You may wish to reference one of the four sub-themes: Creation and Speculation, Experience and
Aesthetics, Methods and Theories, or Impact and Efficacy.</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: normal; font-size: medium; background: white;">
<span lang="EN-AU"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium;"><b><span lang="EN-AU">Note the submission timeline<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-18.0pt;line-height:normal;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">1
November: Abstract submissions open. Abstracts can be submitted to the IFTR conference platform which is accessed via the IFTR </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="http://www.iftr.org/">webpage</a></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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normal;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">8
December: Abstract submissions close<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family:
Symbol">·<span style="font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-width: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-AU">Please <u>note</u> that
you have to be a member of the IFTR to submit an abstract. To join or renew your membership, visit the IFTR </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="http://www.iftr.org/">webpage</a></span><span lang="EN-AU"> from 1 October.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; font-size: medium;"><b><span lang="EN-AU"> </span></b></p>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU">Questions?</span></b><span lang="EN-AU"> Write to us on </span><span lang="EN-AU"><a href="mailto:IFTR2026-enquiries@unimelb.edu.au">IFTR2026-enquiries@unimelb.edu.au</a></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The IFTR World Congress 2026 will take place on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne. It is convened by Dr </span><span lang="EN-AU">Sarah Balkin, Dr Lindsay Goss, Dr Margaret Harvey, and Professor Paul Rae (all from the School
of Culture and Communication) and Dr Robert Walton (Victorian College of the Arts).</span><span lang="EN-AU"></span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB">We </span></i><span class="normaltextrun"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="background-image: none; background-position: 0% 0%; background-size: auto; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-origin: padding-box; background-clip: border-box;">acknowledge
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of the unceded lands on which we work, learn and live. We pay respects to Elders past, present and future, and acknowledge the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the Academy.</span></i></span><i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
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