CFP: Blogging in/and Performance: Breaking Boundaries and Blurring Borders (CATR 2014)

[Michelle MacArthur]

*Call for Seminar Participants: Blogging in/and Performance: Breaking 
Boundaries and Blurring Borders

*Canadian Association for Theatre Research / Association Canadienne de 
la Recherche Théâtrale Conference, 24-27 May 2014, Brock University


/Apologies for cross-posting. Please distribute widely./

 From heated online debates, to tweet seats, to crowd-funding campaigns, 
blogging and its ADHD offspring, micro-blogging (tweeting), are pushing 
the boundaries that define how we create, teach, and talk about theatre. 
Web-savvy companies like Toronto's Praxis Theatre are harnessing the 
power of the Internet by using audience tweets as a dramaturgical tool 
to develop their work. Moreover, audience members can now use their 
smartphones to make their views public before the curtain falls on 
opening night, while artists can speak back to their critics---amateur 
and professional---in a more direct and dialogic way than they could 
before.The blogosphere is also pushing on the geographic and temporal 
boundaries of theatre, making the performance event and the discourse 
surrounding it accessible to participants across and beyond physical 
borders, and inviting dialogue both before and long after the 
performance occurs.

The theatre blogosphere provides scholars with exciting opportunities 
for research and collaboration; however, it has been under-theorized and 
documented both in the Canadian context and internationally. Neal 
Harvey, Helena Grehan, and Joanne Tomkins' study on Australian theatre 
blogging, for example, is one of the few studies that attempt to survey 
the landscape of this virtual territory. The power and pervasiveness of 
theatre blogging in Australia, they argue, suggests that, "researchers 
need to find a methodology to engage with this practice as part of their 
analysis of live theatre production and reception" (110)[1] 
<#_ftn1>---their call must be equally taken up by Canadian scholars, 
particularly in an increasingly connected, globalized society.

This seminar invites brief (5 to 7 page) position papers or case studies 
that explore the role of the blogosphere -- from blogs to tweets and 
beyond -- in theatre production and reception.A few months before CATR 
2014, selected participants will share and discuss their position papers 
and case studies via the medium under discussion: a shared blog.Using 
this blog as a spring board, the participants will develop larger 
questions and generate further discussion about the relationship between 
the blogosphere (in all of its iterations) and theatre performance, 
pedagogy, and reception, and these findings will form the framework for 
the session at Brock University in 2014.As part of the panel, we will 
set-up a live Twitter feed, selecting and publicizing a hashtag in 
advance so that artists, scholars, audiences and critics across Canada 
might join our conversation during and after the conference.

Please submit a 250-word proposal and brief bio to seminar organizers 
Michelle MacArthur (mmacarthur at gprc.ab.ca) and Emily Rollie 
(erollie at monmouthcollege.edu <mailto:erollie at monmouthcollege.edu>) by 
January 13, 2014. Theatre scholars and practitioners (including graduate 
students and early career scholars) from Canada and abroad are 
encouraged to submit.


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[1] <#_ftnref>Harvey, Neal, Helena Grehan, and Joanne Tompkins. "'Be 
thou Familiar, But by no means Vulgar': Australian Theatre Blogging and 
Practice." /Contemporary Theatre Review/ 20.1 (2010): 109-119. 
/Informaworld/. Web. 17 May 2011.

-- 
Michelle MacArthur
PhD Candidate
Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies
University of Toronto

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