Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions?

Featuring Rustom Bharucha, Leo Cabranes-Grant, Emine FiÌÉåÙek, Jason King, Ric Knowles, Julie Holledge, Daphne Lei, Charlotte McIvor, Prathrana Purkayastha, Victor Ramirez Ladron De Guevara, Brian Singleton and Joanne Tompkins Interculturalism has long been one of the most vigorously debated theoretical keywords in the field of theatre and performance studies. Intercultural performance depends on the hybrid mixture of performance forms from different cultures (typically East and West), but in whose interest, to whose ends and on what terms? Is intercultural performance a utopic ideal or coercive construct as it has most stereotypically been associated with ‰Û÷Western’ appropriations of ‰Û÷Eastern’ forms? Is it irreparably weighted down by histories of colonialism, cultural imperialism, and structural inequality that have often set its production conditions? Or can conscious and politically engaged work by artists/activists exceed and/or transform this history without negating the power of its living memory by manipulating the ideals and flows of intercultural performance in new ways?’Performance and Interculturalism Now: New Directions?’ brings together international leaders in the field to respond to a recent resurgence of critical activity around this term that has multiplied rather than limited its contemporary resonances. This symposium will explore historical approaches to intercultural performance, Asian and other oppositional models of interculturalism that challenge (and/or reify) Western hegemonies, the use of interculturalism within migrant performance cultures, and interculturalism as aesthetic practice and social policy in the European Union and Canada among other themes. Why return to interculturalism and what can it mean for how we study performance now?To register, please email Jason King at jason.king@nuigalway.ie.Faculty/Salaried: ‰âÂ30Postgraduate/Unsalaried: ‰âÂ15

Schedule

Friday April 10th:

9:00-9:30am. Registration and Coffee

9:30 -10:15am. Welcome and opening address, Jason King and Charlotte McIvor

(National University of Ireland, Galway).

Chair: Dan Carey

10:15 – 11:45am. Panel 1: Brian Singleton (Trinity College, Dublin), ‰Û÷Censorship and Sensitivities: The Representation of Otherness on and off the British Stage’Emine FiÌÉåÙek (BoÌãåÙazi̤i University), ‰Û÷Interculturalism, Humanitarianism, Intervention: Th̢̩tre du Soleil in Kabul’

Chair: Patrick Lonergan11:45am -12:00pm. Coffee and biscuits.12:00pm – 1:30pm. Panel 2: Julie Holledge (University of Oslo) and Joanne Tompkins (University of Queensland), ‰Û÷Rethinking Interculturalism using Digital Tools’1:30- 2:30 pm. Lunch.2:30pm-4pm. Panel 3: Ric Knowles (University of Guelph), ‰Û÷New Modernist Mediations and the Intercultural Theatre of Modern Times Stage Company’Lizzie Stewart (University of St. Andrews), ‰Û÷”The Future Market and the Current Reality”: Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Black Virgins and Interculturalism in the German Context’

Chair: Tanya Dean

4 – 4:30pm. Coffee and biscuits4:30-6:30pm. The Gombeens present Stories of a Yellow Town (Jonathan Gunning and Miquel Barreto) and talkback session moderated by Jason King and Charlotte McIvor. Saturday April 11th: 9-10:30am. Panel 4: Prarthana Purkayastha (Plymouth University), ‰Û÷What’s with the Red Dot on the Forehead? Intercultural Marking in Hetain Patel’s TEN’Victor Ramirez Ladron De Guevara (Plymouth University), ‰Û÷Traduttore, Traditore: The “Thorny” Issue of Translation in the Creation of Autoethnographic Intercultural Performances’

Chair: Miriam Haughton

10:30-10:45am. Coffee and Biscuits.10:45am – 12:15pm. Panel 5: Yvette Hutchison (University of Warwick), ‰Û÷Accessing the “zone of occult instability where the people dwell” – South African engagement with colonialism and ethnography in the intercultural/ postcolonial/ global context’ Daphne Lei (University of California, Irvine), ‰Û÷Can You See Yellow?: Rescuing Interculturalism in Post-racial Orientalism’

Chair: Muireann O’Cinneide

12:15pm – 1:15pm. Lunch1:15pm – 3:45pm. Panel 6: Rustom Bharucha (Jawaharlal Nehru University), ‰Û÷Interculturalism and Its Discontents: New Directions in Rethinking Intercultural Performance Practice Today’ Leo Cabranes-Grant (University of California, Santa Barbara), ‰Û÷Towards a New Historiography of the Intercultural Experience’

Chair: Ian Walsh3:45-4:45pm. Closing remarks and discussion.

Chair: Charlotte McIvor and Jason King4:45PM. Launch of Staging Intercultural Ireland: Plays and Practitioner Perspectives (co-edited by Charlotte McIvor and Matthew Spangler) Launch and wine reception

Launched by Patrick Lonergan

Sponsored by the Irish Research Council, the Moore Institute, the School for Humanities, and Drama and Theatre Studies.