[Candrama] SOUTH AFRICAN THEATRE CONFERENCE IN BRUSSELS/EXTENDED DEADLINE CFP

[Marc Maufort]

NEW STAGE IDIOMS:

SOUTH AFRICAN DRAMA, THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE 

IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

An international conference organized by the Université Libre de Bruxelles
(ULB) 

May 11-13, 2017

FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS

PLEASE NOTE EXTENDED DEADLINE SUBMISSION: SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

 

In the years that followed the end of Apartheid, South African drama,
theatre and performance were characterized by a remarkable productivity,
which entailed a process of constant aesthetic reinvention. In the
post-apartheid period, South African playwrights and theatre makers sought
to come to terms with the traumatic legacy of the pre-democratic past.
Witness thereof are performance works documenting the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission hearings. After 1994, the “protest” theatre
template of the apartheid years morphed into increasingly more diverse forms
of stage expressions, detectable in the works of Mike van Graan, Craig
Higginson, Zakes Mda, Lara Foot, Paul Grootboom, Omphile Molusi, Fatima
Dike, Nadia Davids, Aubrey Sekhabi, Magnet Theatre, Yael Farber, and Neil
Coppen to name only a few. This conference will seek to document the various
ways in which the “rainbow” nation has forged these new stage idioms,
inviting contributions about different forms of performance modes. In order
to foreground theatre, the keynote speakers will be active figures from the
contemporary post-apartheid stage: Mike van Graan, Craig Higginson, Greg
Homann, Nadia Davids, and Omphile Molusi. Here is a list of potential topics
for consideration:

--Contemporary theatre makers working in English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa,
and/or other African languages. How can Indigenous playwriting be defined? 

-- New thematic and aesthetic trends in playwriting.

-- Impact of globalization on South African playwriting and stage practices.

-- Theatre making from marginalised voices (expressing gender, social or
ethnic differences; LBGT voices on the stage; playwriting by women) and
other issues of identity representation.

-- Contemporary township and community theatre. 

-- Reinterpretations of European classics for the South African stage;

-- How are of issues of trauma, violence and cultural memory/amnesia enacted
on the contemporary stage?

-- New forms of political theatre.

-- Alternative dramaturgies (installation art, site-specific performance,
contemporary dance).

-- The politics of festivals; politics of funding.

A selection of conference presentations will be considered for publication.
Prospective participants should send a short proposal and a brief vita to
the convenor, Professor Marc Maufort, Université Libre de Bruxelles, by the
extended deadline of September 26, 2016 ( <mailto:mmaufort at ulb.ac.be>
mmaufort at ulb.ac.be). Notifications of acceptance will be sent in late
October 2016.

Confirmed keynote speakers: Mike van Graan, Craig Higginson, Greg Homann,
Nadia Davids, and Omphile Molusi. 

An evening of readings from these playwrights’ and theatre practitioners’
works will be held during the conference.

 

 

 

Marc Maufort

Professor of English, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Rédacteur/Editor, Recherche littéraire/Literary Research

http://www.ailc-icla.org/site/?page_id=57

++32-(0)2-426-04-37

 

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