[Candrama] CFP - Seminar Title: "Terra Nullius: Charting Paths To Settler--Indigenous Relationships through Theatre and Performance in Academic Contexts".

[Anne Louise Smith]

Call for Participants

 

Seminar Title:  "Terra Nullius: Charting Paths To Settler--Indigenous Relationships through Theatre and Performance in Academic Contexts".

 

Maragaret Kovach writes: 

              As an Indigenous presence surfaces within Western universities, it brings with it all that is Indigenous: thought, custom, culture, practice, and self.  This is causing the academy to pause for a number of reasons.  For some, the hesitancy reflects an active resistance to change, while for others it is born of a passive non-awareness.  Still others are uncertain as to how to include, without subsuming, Indigenous knowledges. . . . They know that 'add Indigenous and stir' is not a valid response . . .  (156)

 

This seminar offers participants the opportunity to present traditional papers that address their experiences, concerns and questions arising from their inclusion of Indigenous texts and performance in their research, teaching, and artistic practice.  How can our research, teaching, and artistic creation challenge the settler reality and history described by Paulette Regan as “The foundational myth of the benevolent peacemaker – the bedrock of settler identity” (2010, 11) (our italics)?  What can we learn from each other that will assist us in charting paths to becoming settler allies?  Following the paper presentations there will be an open discussion/workshop session where the presenters and curators will facilitate small group circles based on the issues raised in the papers.

 

Potential topics or perspectives:

 

• Challenges in audience reception of Indigenous plays.

• Building relationship with Indigenous communities in preparation for presenting Indigenous work.

• Respecting cultural diversity among students of different Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds.

• Resisting Pan-Indigeneity.

• The risks of subsuming Indigenous knowledges as cultural artifacts.

• The pitfall of academic authority: can we relinquish our control to Indigenous knowledge keepers?  How do we do this?

• Cross-cultural collaboration.

• How do we go about decolonizing settler theatre?

• How have Indigenous peoples been represented in settler theatre?

 

Paper proposals with title and a 300 word abstract should be sent to curators Lib Spry and Annie Smith by February 17, 2017.  The proposal should also include two or three discussion points that the presenter would like to facilitate in the following discussion/workshop session. 

 

Inquiries are most welcome.

 

Annie Smith

anismith at telus.net

 

Lib Spry

lib.spry at queensu.ca

 

 

Works cited:

 

Kovach, Margaret.  Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts.  Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 2009.

 

Regan, Paulette. Unsettling the Settler Within: Inside Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and

Reconciliations in Canada. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.

 

 

 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://artsservices.uwaterloo.ca/pipermail/candrama/attachments/20170204/17b0ecb8/attachment-0001.html>