Theatre and Performance Research Association

 
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Theatre and Performance Research Association

Organisational Statement

TaPRA is a new British research association founded in order to foster and sustain research in all theatre, performance and related areas in British and Irish Universities and allied institutions.

This initiative is, in part, a response to the competitive, and divisive, climate that has developed incrementally over the past decade within British theatre research as a result of the RAE and other government policies.

TaPRA has also been set up in recognition of the fact that in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, in not having a 'local' umbrella forum dedicated exclusively to research, we have not been able to reap the intellectual and other benefits that such association provides, nor been able to facilitate regular scholarly exchanges between the research communities.

Above all this initiative is based in a positive desire to meet with fellow 'local' scholars in the field and exchange research, challenges, questions and anxieties, and to explore synergies and diversities.

 

TaPRA Conference 2008

Wednesday 3rd to Friday 5th September 2008

This year's TaPRA conference takes place at the University of Leeds on Wednesday 3 to Friday 5 September 2008. The conference is jointly hosted by the Workshop Theatre and the School of Performance and Cultural Industries

Presentation of research at the TaPRA conference happens through one of the established working groups within the organisation. For information about currently constituted working groups, and their plans for the TaPRA 2008 conference browse the relevant pages on this site.

For 2008, there is an open themed exchange to facilitate discussion across TaPRA working groups. To complement the Working Group sessions, we are planning two Themed Open Exchange sessions.

Conference Organisers:
Helen Iball, Joslin McKinney and Lourdes Orozco

Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it


POSTGRADUATE BURSARIES AWARDED ***********************

TaPRA Conference 2008: Postgraduate Bursaries
TaPRA has awarded four postgraduate bursaries for the 2008 TaPRA conference in Leeds (3-5 Sept). The bursaries cover the conference fee and a year's membership.

Professor Viv Gardner
Martin Harris Centre for Music & Drama
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 2PA

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Postgraduate Essay Competition Winner!
TaPRA is delighted to announce the winner of our new competition to encourage and reward postgraduate writing. The prize is to be formally announced at the TaPRA conference at Leeds on the evening of Wednesday 3rd September.


Natalia Theodoridou

with an essay titled

‘Hysteria and Trance: Shared Ground’

Natalia is a MRes student at Royal Holloway College, University of London


The runner up was Catherine Curtin, a PhD student in the Department of Drama, Trinity College, Dublin, with her essay titled ‘Recovering the Body and Expanding the Boundaries of Self in Hijikata Tatsumi’s Butoh’.


The prize for the winner is £100 worth of books from Palgrave and MUP, a year's free membership of TaPRA, as well as publication of the essay in Contemporary Theatre Review.

Jury
Professors Paul Allain (University of Kent, UK), David Bradby (Royal Holloway, UK), Marvin Carlson (CUNY, USA), Joanne Tompkins (University of Queensland, Australia).



With the generous support of:


For details on how to apply for next year's competition, visit the Postgraduate Committee page.

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Themed Open Exchange

The driving forces of TaPRA are its working groups, and the annual conferences their primary forum. At TaPRA 2007 conference in Birmingham it became clear that the specialist focus of these groups enabled a particular and vibrant approach to plenary discussion for the full conference. Indeed, questions posed by each working group for discussion by the others inspired a plenary that addressed theatre, performance and ethics from the particular perspectives the groups represent.

Last year's conference started an interesting discussion that this call for contributions to the two full-conference ‘themed open exchange’ sessions hopes to continue. It also provides an opportunity for delegates to present at TaPRA without and/or within an affinity to a named working group.

At this year's conference, participants will present short (10 minute) presentations/provocations on the theme of theatre, performance, and ethics, to facilitate discussion across the conference. We aim to constitute panels representing a range of specialist interests and to be inclusive of participants at all stages from post-graduate to professor. Drawing on matters arising from the 2007 conference, papers consider:

(re)thinking and/or (re)theorising links between ethics and aesthetics – and between ethics and archives and performance re/construction…

How do we decide what is acceptable in the theatre? And what is expected of audiences?

To what degree does political efficacy rely on theatrical affectiveness?

Theatrical truth and/as provisionality, authenticity, witness…

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TaPRA is pleased to announce that the 2009 Annual Conference will be hosted by the Department of Theatre, Dance and Performing Arts, at the University of Plymouth

Monday 7 September - Wednesday 9 September, 2009

Conference organizers:

Roberta Mock, Lee Miller, and Victor Ramirez Ladron de Guevara

Further information and a Call for Papers will be circulated early in 2009.

www.plymouth.ac.uk/arts/theatre

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