Embodied/Embodying Performer Training: Practices and Practicalities

TaPRA Performer Training Working Group Interim Event

24th April 2019, University of South Wales, Cardiff Campus, The ATRiuM

Call deadline: March 15th

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Call for two Training Grounds Editors: Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, Routledge

Now in its 9th year, the Journal of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training runs to three issues annually and attracts contributions from scholars and practitioners across the globe. As part of our tenth birthday celebrations, we are planning to grow to four issues per year and these two appointments reflect our expansion both in ambition and audience reach. The journal’s co-editors Professor Jonathan Pitches (University of Leeds) and Dr Libby Worth (Royal Holloway, University of London) are seeking to recruit two Training Grounds Editors to work closely with them and with the rest of the Training Grounds (TG) editorial team, on this very successful journal, published by Routledge.

We seek two highly creative, motivated, organised and collegiate individuals with demonstrable specialisms in theatre, dance and/or performer training to join the rest of the TG team at this exciting moment in the journal’s growth. For the last nine years, we have been proud of the diversity of materials and innovation of writing forms offered within the pages of Training Grounds and with this set of appointments we hope to build on this track record, taking the spirit of the experimental backpages section into the journal’s main body. Continue reading

New Blog Artist Awards

Following the success of the first TDPT Blog Artist Awards, we are delighted to announce a call for a new round of these awards.

The first TDPT Blog Artist Awards were launched to help artists, practitioners, students and freelance performance-makers to engage with the blog.  We aimed to mitigate the financial barriers facing those who did not have the institutional support that university academics are accustomed to.

Accordingly, with the generous support of Routledge and the Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal, we were able to offer small pots of money (£50-150) to support artists who contributed to the site by investigating an area of performer training of interest to the wider community. Continue reading

The S Word: Stanislavski in Context – Symposium at the University if Malta

Organised by The Stanislavski Centre and The Department of Theatre Studies (University of Malta) in collaboration with The University of California Riverside.

Dates: 5th, 6th, 7th April 2019

Venue: The Valletta Campus of the University of Malta, Valletta, Malta

Keynote speakers: Prof. Laurence Senelick (Tufts University)
Prof. Vicki Ann Cremona (University of Malta)

Co-conveners: Dr. Paul Fryer (The Stanislavski Centre)
Dr Stefan Aquilina (University of Malta)

Creative Adviser: Prof. Bella Merlin (University of California Riverside)

Following on from the past three successful editions of the Symposium, we are very pleased to announce the Call for Papers/Presentations for the fourth major event of The S Word project. Continue reading

Call for Contributions: Performer Training in Community and Applied Theatre Contexts

The Theatre Dance and Performance Training Blog is creating a new section to investigate the role of training in applied and community theatre. We are looking for contributions from practitioners, scholars, teachers and others interested in exploring the intersection between training and community for instance, how training might be used in relation to theatre for social change, the relationship between training and some of the prominent themes of applied practice, or how we train for working in the community.

Augusto Boal discusses training bodies in the practices of Theatre of the Oppressed as a form of consciousness raising. He describes using theatre to train the body of the participant:

That is, to take them apart, to study and analyse them. Not to weaken or destroy them, but to raise them to the level of consciousness. So that each worker, each peasant understands, sees, and feels to what point his body is governed by his work (Boal 104).

Training allows the participant to become aware of how alienation has impacted upon her body: how economic, cultural and social structures mark the body. Training is a training in noticing how the world marks the body and accordingly changes the subject’s relationship to the world.

Through the blog we want to explore the complicated relationship that training has to practice in non-professional settings, considering the broader questions that this practice raises in terms of representation, cultural recognition, power and domination and social change. On the one hand, following Boal, training can be an act of consciousness raising, re-distributing skills and resources and accordingly giving participants the means of the production (bodily and vocal production). On the other, training can be a homogenising practice, eliminating cultural difference and perpetuating certain dominant ideas of ‘correctness’. The blog will explore the complexity of training, neither dismissing it as culturally domineering, nor fetishizing its value or social good. Continue reading

Call for Proposals for Global Improvisation Initiative Symposium 2019: “Awareness”

In sectors across the business and creative worlds, old models of cause and effect are becoming obsolete. We are beginning to acknowledge the complex and chaotic nature of the systems that surround us. Flexibility, fluidity, spontaneity and real time responsiveness are the essential qualities needed for this accelerated world. The future will belong to those who can improvise best.

      –  Lee Simpson & Phelim McDermott, Artistic Directors Improbable

The Global Improvisation Initiative (GII) was launched in 2016 to activate an international exploration into the art and impact of improvisation in depth and collectively, appreciating the rich history and diversity within our field in order to best serve the infinite possibilities of our future. The first GII Symposium took place in 2017 at both University of California at Irvine and Chapman University and served as an intellectual and artistic nexus for sharing, producing, and documenting new knowledge about improvisational processes happening within the performance arts industries and beyond. The first symposium brought together an international gathering of scholars, practitioners, educators, activists, and players all promoting the evolution and advancement of improvisation for future generations. Continue reading

Reminder – Call for a co-editor of this Blog – Deadline 9 April

Dear All,

Applications for a co-editor for the TDPT Blog close this Monday, 9 April.  Please apply or pass on to those who might be interested.

It might be particularly of interest to those Early Career Researchers looking to develop their networks of academics and practitioners.

Wee look forward to hearing from you!

Best Wishes,

James

View the original advertisement here

Call for a co-editor of this Blog

We are currently seeking a new member to join the editorial team of the TDPT Blog, www.theatredanceperformancetraining.org.

Associated with the influential journal, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, published by Routledge, the blog’s interactive presence is designed to encourage a growing community of artists, academics, practitioners and researchers to share practice and debate issues that are currently alive within the disciplines of theatre, dance and performance training.

Now entering its third year, our blog has been highly successful in engaging new audiences for the TDPT journal, creating an online space that promotes spontaneous and productive conversation and debate. As we grow further it will represent a productive and discursive teaching ‘tool’ – or forum – within all levels of education and training preoccupied with dance, performance and theatre.

This opportunity will offer the chance to develop your own networks with scholars and practitioners, as well as contribute to the shape and direction of contemporary discussions on training.

We invite applications from researchers from any stage of their career, but especially Post-Graduate Research Students and Early Career Researchers who are actively seeking to develop their research and practice networks.  We also encourage those with an active interest in Practice-based research and/or Live Art, and those who have familiarity with editing audio-visual material.  As we are seeking to broaden our outlook and audience, we are interested to connect with scholars who reside outside England but above all we are looking for a team member who is highly organised, can work well in a team, and has a passion for the field of theatre, dance, and performance training.

The successful applicant will participate in regular Skype meetings with the Blog team to discuss the administration of the site and curation of posts.  They will also seek out new content from practitioners and scholars and liaise with these authors throughout the content-making process.  Such content may take the form of writing, photo essays, audio-visual files, and/or other innovative approaches. Applicants should be comfortable with editing and curating such content.

For further information, please contact blog editors, James McLaughlin, [email protected] (University of Greenwich), Bryan Brown, [email protected] (University of Exeter), or Maria Kapsali, [email protected] (University of Leeds).
To apply, please send a one-page statement of your relevant skills, interests and aspirations for the journal with an accompanying CV to James McLaughlin, [email protected] by Monday, 9 April, 2018.