[Candrama] CATR 2026: Performance, Migration, and Nationalism Working Group - CALL FOR PAPERS

[Yana Meerzon]

Call for Papers
 Performance, Migration, and Nationalism Working Group
CATR 2026 conference

Inheritances in Transition: Rehearsing Change for Theatre and Performance Futures.
 Time and place for the WG meeting: June 12-13, 2026 (Act II), Online

Abstract (250 words) submission deadline: March 15, 2026
CONTACT and SUBMISSION EMAIL: SHEETALA BHAT at bsheetal at yorku.ca
Deadline to share a draft of your conference paper: May 1, 2026

The CATR 2026 conference invites us to reflect on the inheritances of our field at a moment of profound political and cultural transition, marked by rise of right-wing nationalisms, climate change, polarizing technologies, forced displacement, and shifting geopolitical power. Theatre, dance, and performance practitioners engaging with questions of migration have long negotiated inherited traditions and national belongings, while simultaneously rehearsing new futures and (re)making communities.
The CATR WG Performance, Migration and Nationalism responds to this call by focusing our 2026 sessions on practices and dramaturgies of migration. Performance has historically functioned as a space where lived experience intersects with artistic form. In migration contexts, rehearsing for the future becomes a process of embodied negotiation, adaptation, and cultural exchange across borders. By foregrounding the practice of rehearsal, we seek to illuminate the creative labour, ethical stakes, and collaborative methodologies that inform performance-making in migration contexts, and to consider how such practices intervene in the politics of mobility, belonging, and representation.
Proposals may address, but are not limited to, the following:

  *   Reflections on creating or participating in performance projects concerning migration
  *   Analyses of collaborative processes involving migrant, displaced, or refugee communities
  *   Considerations of how performance challenges nationalist or exclusionary narratives and fosters inclusive imaginaries of community and belonging
  *   Studies of dramaturgy, aesthetics, and politics in site-specific, community-based, or participatory works
  *   Methodological approaches to researching, documenting, and archiving migration-related performance practices
  *   Explorations of intersections and tensions between artistic and academic pedagogies, particularly with respect to artist-researcher identities.


Our aim is to convene practitioners, participants, and researchers to propose new interdisciplinary approaches to migration in and through performance, and to demonstrate the role of the arts in shaping public discourse on inclusion, sanctuary, academic freedom, free speech, and citizenship.
The 2026 meeting will take place online and will provide an opportunity not only to present work but also to collaboratively workshop ideas toward publication. We particularly encourage proposals that bridge scholarship and practice and welcome contributions from across geographies, disciplines, and migration experiences.

We are looking for your proposals

Sheetala Bhat, Yana Meerzon, Steve Wilmer (co-conveners of the group)




Yana Meerzon

Professeure titulaire| Full Professor

Directrice des études théâtrales | Director of Theatre Studies

Département de théâtre | Department of Theatre
Université d’Ottawa | University of Ottawa
135 Séraphin-Marion, bureau 304B
Ottawa (ON), Canada, K1N 6N5

https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/members/270

Editor. Critical Stages/Scènes critiques<http://www.critical-stages.org/19/the-essay-section-la-section-des-essais/>
Co-Editor. Palgrave Studies in Performance and Migration (book series)<https://www.springer.com/series/17066>






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