Conference call for papers: Invisible Presences, April 2011

So many lovely conferences, so little time...  D:

Invisible Presences: Translation, Dramaturgy, and Performance
Queen's University Belfast/ Out of the Wings
Contact: k.taroff at qub.ac.uk

‘Invisible Presences’ is presented under the aegis of Out of the Wings, an AHRC-funded project exploring Spanish theatre in English translation, in association with the Melbourne Dramaturgies Project, the Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research, and the Dramaturgs’ Network

Drama and Film Centre
Queen’s University Belfast
18-20 April 2011.

This international conference will explore the dramaturgical processes of translation in performance practice, whether across language and culture or the translation of ideas into material production. Rather than seeing the processes of writing (whether collaborative or single-authored), translation, rehearsal, production, and audience reception as separate and discrete, the conference will engage approaches that view the process as more of a continuum, one that is perpetually at work. In this way the conference offers the opportunity for dialogue between contemporary practitioners, both translators and theatre makers, and for new insights into dramaturgy and translation that seek to map the growing convergence between theatre practice and translation.

Areas for discussion include, but are not limited to:

● Translation and its metaphorical apprehension of text
● Translation and its audiences
● Translation and the contingency of performance
● Collaborative translation processes
● The limits of translation
● Dramaturgy as translation/ translational process
● Visual theatre: dramaturgies and translations of light, sound, space
● Technology: new relationships with audiences in online productions
● The dramaturgical process in different contexts: Case studies from practitioners and scholars exploring the issues and particularities of each context, such as community arts, theatre for young people, cross-art collaboration processes and facilitation, ‘postdramatic’ dramaturgies, queer dramaturgies, disability arts, collaborative writing processes, etc.

The conference will feature:

● A range of eminent keynote speakers, including Mary Luckhurst, Lawrence Venuti, Peter Eckersall and Paul Monaghan.
● Practical workshops exploring issues of dramaturgy and translation
● Performances
● Panel sessions
● Round table discussions

Proposals addressing the themes of the conference are invited in the forms of:

20 minute paper presentation
2-hour workshop

Please submit proposals of 300-500 words, with 150-word biography, by 30 September 2010, to the organisers:
Alyson Campbell: a.e.campbell at qub.ac.uk
David Johnston: d.johnston at qub.ac.uk
Kurt Taroff: k.taroff at qub.ac.uk