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AUTHORING THEATRE
An international conference
Theatre and performance have long been preoccupied with the problem of
authorship. In recent years we have seen a ‘return to writing’: not only
with the phenomenon of ‘new writing’ – Kane, Ravenhill, Crimp, amongst
many others – but also the return to writing within performance work as
instanced by practitioners including Claudia Castellucci with Societas
Raffaello Sanzio, Robert Lepage with Ex Machina and Tim Etchells with
Forced Entertainment. Beyond the return of the author narrowly conceived,
debates about authorship have been ongoing in all areas of theatrical
production: isn’t, for instance, the sceno-graphic inscription of the stage a
form of authorship? What of choreo-graphy? Not to mention the rise in
autobio-graphical performance? And what forms of authorship are being
innovated via the appropriation of social networking platforms, new
technology and the involvement of non-theatre participants in performance
work by companies such as Blast Theory, Rimini Protokoll and The Builders
Association?
The aim of this conference is to raise an old question, but in a timely and
relevant fashion – once again we ask: what is an author?
Proposals are invited that address the themes of the conference. The
precise meaning of the terms ‘Authoring’ and ‘Theatre’ are open to
interpretation by contributors.