Towards Tomorrow? CPR International Gathering, 7-10 April 2005, Aberystwyth, UK - Call for X,Y and Z

Mon Nov 22 06:28:57 EST 2004

If you are having problem reading the call within the email please view the
pages at

www.thecpr.org.uk/projects/towardstomorrowcall.htm

Antony Pickthall
Marketing & Development Director
Centre for Performance Research (CPR)
6, Science Park, Aberystwyth, SY23 3AH
Tel: +44 (0) 1970 621571
Fax: +44 (0) 1970 622132
E-mail: aop at aber.ac.uk         www.thecpr.org.uk

Towards Tomorrow?

An International Gathering Exploring

y = v practice2 (1- performance2 / theatre2)

7-10 April 2005

Centre for Performance Research
University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK

theatre X performance

    Let's purge this choler without letting blood:    This we prescribe,
though no physician;    Deep malice makes too deep incision;    Forget,
forgive; conclude and be agreed;    Our doctors say this is no month to
bleed.                                             King Richard II Act 1,
Scene 1

Call for x,y and z

(where z = Discussions, Provocations, Polemics, Experiments, Manifestos,
Papers, Confessions, Screenings and Demonstrations)

As part of the programme of this event there will be panels addressing
aspects of performance and theatre that relate to broad themes of risk and
failure, the future and generations, events and institutions and practice as
research.

There will be a platform, soapbox, and propaganda station In Extremis:
Fundamental(ist)s of Performance, for the promulgation and dissemination of
extreme enthusiasms, radical obsessions, pristine lies and rotten truth. It
will be a space to present ideas contemporary, anachronistic, contentious
and conformist.

A programme of talk back sessions are planned where artists and performers
address scholars who have explored their work; reversing the direction of
enquiry and facilitating dialogue between practice and criticism.

We encourage proposals to lead enquiries relating to the concerns of this
event, either following the themes suggested below, or generating different
areas of enquiry. Also proposals for individual presentations or papers
within these panels are invited, each should include a 300 word abstract for
a presentation of 20 minutes duration.

Possible themes may include:

Before the age of Performance

Transformation/Transmission/Transmutation

The Weave of Performance

Staging Play: The Future of the Field

And where were you on the evening of
?: Artists and Practitioners
interrogate Theorists

The Dangers of Failure: risking performance

 Disturbing PerformanceThe Doing, Re-Doing and Undoing of Performance
Please send proposals and/or abstracts, or register interest in talk back
or fundamental(ist)s sessions by 10th January 2005, (we will respond by
24th January) to Dr Daniel Watt ,The Centre for Performance Research, Unit
6, Science Park, Aberystwyth, SY23 3AH, Tel: + 44 (0)1970 622133, Fax: +44
(0)1970 622132 dpw at aber.ac.uk***

At this major gathering of key practitioners and scholars from around the
world the conference programme will comprise:

·                     Performances  from Wales, Europe and beyond

·                     Expositions  understanding the state of play

·                     Workshops  drawing from the crucible of cutting-edge
practice

·                     Panels and Debates  to challenge and cultivate new
directions

·                     Interrogations and Enthusiasms  Strategic open
sessions

·                     Feasts  where food becomes event

·                     Excursions  taking advantage of our local landscape

As The Centre for Performance Research (CPR) celebrates thirty years of
work, this conference will build upon and extend the dialogues and debates
that CPR has forged over its long journey from research laboratory to
research centre. Towards Tomorrow? will examine the complex relation
between performance and theatre: the past, present and future of
performance and theatre and their aesthetic practices.

CPRs anniversary publication Testimony from the Future, Evidence of the
Past will be launched at this gathering and a complementary publication is
planned to emerge from Towards Tomorrow? with a range of international
contributions that seek to reorient the discipline of performance and to
demonstrate its increasing relevance in many areas of cultural studies,
philosophy and the arts.

Towards Tomorrow?

Temporalities: Then, Now, To Come

Then: Theoretical discourse has structured and transformed the environments
of theatre and performance. Towards Tomorrow? provides a FORUM for both a
critical reflection on performance and the nature of cultural theory and to
assess its future both beyond and within the academy.

Now:   The event of performance, its practice and presence will be explored.
There will be OPPORTUNITIES for practitioners to interrogate theorists and
for the statement of radical agendas and manifestos.

To Come: The development of the future of the field belongs to another
GENERATION. This gathering will not determine such a future, but it will be
determined to keep open all possible transformations, evolutions and
revolutions that may be on their way.

Trajectory

Towards Tomorrow? will explore the relation between theatre and performance,
risk and failure, events and institutions to understand how the
possibilities of performance, and the history of organisations such as CPR,
might be considered?

Is there a fractal structure (a finite area bounded by an infinite distance)
to the discipline, its manifestation as practice and its future, as yet
unknown, transformations? What are the issues of survival: of a discipline
and its practice, its organisations, and the relationship with the academy?

How does the spiritual aspect of performance  space, body, time and
imagination  integrate and challenge both the formal and the theoretical
articulations of work? Does such a consideration generate its own
eschatology; if so, what is the apocalypse of performance?

Some Operations
..

 Towards Tomorrow?  includes In Extremis: Fundamental(ist)s of Performance a
platform, soapbox, and propaganda station, for the promulgation and
dissemination of extreme enthusiasms, radical obsessions, pristine lies and
rotten truth. A space to present ideas: contemporary, anachronistic,
contentious and conformist.

Towards Tomorrow? will offer a programme of performances and workshops
alongside numerous presentations of archive photographic and video material
from theatre companies and performers from across the world.

The schedule for each day will include KEYNOTES (confirmed contributors
include: Philip Auslander, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Jane Goodall, Dragan Klaic,
Michal Kobialka, Jon McKenzie, Susan Melrose, Marion Pastor Roces, Freddie
Rokem, ,Rebecca Schneider and Stelarc), PANEL SESSIONS, a PRACTICAL or
RESEARCH ENQUIRY element and the opportunity for artists and performers,
from key phases of experiment over the past 40 years, to talk back to
theorists and commentators who have addressed their work.

Questions of tomorrow must also be concerned with generations, the potential
of youth and the energy and vitality it will provide performance in the
future. Towards Tomorrow? will include Generation24  Our panel of young
practitioners of the future, from schools and colleges in Wales and
internationally, who will observe and intervene in the proceedings with the
interruptive urgency of the futures call.

Continuing the CPR tradition for high quality events staged in an individual
way

Throughout the event care is taken to forge links between people and ideas
and to create formal and informal opportunities for people to exchange
information about current and future projects. CPRs long history of
bringing together international performance practitioners and scholars in a
potent spirit of debate/friendship, argument/opposition also serves as the
occasion to highlight and focus work at the forefront of future developments
in the field.

30 + 10: Throughout 2004/5 CPR will be celebrating 30 years of work

and 10 years in Aberystwyth.

Antony Pickthall
Marketing & Development Director
Centre for Performance Research (CPR)
6, Science Park, Aberystwyth, SY23 3AH
Tel: +44 (0) 1970 621571
Fax: +44 (0) 1970 622132
E-mail: aop at aber.ac.uk         www.thecpr.org.uk

For the curious...opening up worlds of performance
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