CFP - CATR Session - Blogging in/and Performance: Breaking Boundaries and Blurring Borders

[Emily A. Rollie]

***Apologies for cross-posting***

* *

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

CALL FOR PROPOSALS*

*Session Title:  *Blogging in/and Performance: Breaking Boundaries and
Blurring Borders
*Session Organizers: *Michelle MacArthur (Grande Prairie Regional College)
and Emily Rollie (Monmouth College)



>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)—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 email further questions and proposals to seminar organizers Michelle
MacArthur (mmacarthur at gprc.ab.ca) and Emily Rollie (
erollie at monmouthcollege.edu) by 13 January 2014.  Theatre scholars and
practitioners (including graduate students and early career scholars) from
Canada and abroad are encouraged to submit.



*Link to CATR website and CFP: *http://catracrt.ca/conference/**
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