Call for Proposals

Theatre Faculty of Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno is pleased to invite you to the 9th Conference of Doctoral Studies in Theatre Practice and Theory. This year's topic is Experience as a Research Method in Performing Arts. The conference will be held 22 – 23 November 2019 in Brno, Czech Republic.

The conference provides a platform on which different concepts of doctoral studies and research in the field of theatre practice and theory can be contrasted. The event has been attended by over one hundred doctoral students from Europe, Africa, North as well as South America and Asia who have come here to introduce their research in progress to an international audience and discuss common methodological issues. Not only Ph.D. students but also their supervisors and other teachers from their institutions are welcome to take part in the conference as observers.

This year we would like to examine the issue well-known to all students and young researchers in theatre and other art practice – the issue of research, its methods and especially the methods which might be traditionally perceived as “unconventional”. Whether it is challenging the limits of research by employing methods from other branches of science (neuroscience, optics, and others) or looking for the limits of presentation of one's research by narrative or visual techniques, we are interested in topics dealing with the contemporary trends in researching theatre, radio, television and visual arts.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

1. The identity of students of doctoral programmes in performing arts. Who are those artists/researchers? What possibilities do the unique combination of creating arts as well as researching them offer?
2. The position of performing art academies and related institutions among the universities. What can we as the researching artists offer to the “hard science” and what can it provide to the artists?
3. The limits and methods of “artistic research”. What does artistic research mean? When does one research artistically and how does this method influence artistic creation? Does the institution you are studying at provide funding, environment or other assistance with your artistic research and how?
4. The development of young artists. How to create art, which would provide an opportunity for personal development of both the creator and the spectator? How to work authentically and how to prevent (and if to prevent) the creation of art for art's sake? Can experience become a research method?
5. Difference between information, knowledge, and skill. What do these three concepts mean for artistic creation? How do these shape the researching artist?
6. Looking for new vehicles of expression. The usage of non-theatrical elements in theatre, as well as non-dramatic genres on stage, radio, and others.
7. Dramaturgy versus curatorships. How do universities and academies of performing arts respond to the current turn in the power relations in the arts? Does the system of education change?
8. Ph.D. in the time of globalization. Methodologies of international exchanges, internationalization, and multiculturalism in theatre practice and theory.

The main goal of the conference is to create a space for sharing one's research questions, ideas, and methodologies. To facilitate this exchange, round table discussions and speed-geeking panels will be organized.

Students and recent alumni from the fields of theatre direction, dramaturgy, management, and education, as well as scenography, radio and television dramaturgy, screen-writing, and other related areas, are welcomed to send their proposals in one of these formats:

Paper presentations (20 min)

Work demonstrations (up to 60 min)

Performative lectures (20 min)

Poster presentation (5 min).

Practical Information

Please submit your proposal of no more than 300 words and your brief CV before 19 May 2019. You can register here. Regarding the acceptance, the authors will be notified by 30 June 2019. The refined abstracts and CVs will be posted on the conference website prior to the event.

Please note that all participants are expected to send full texts of their papers and performative lectures or scenarios of their work demonstrations to the organisers in advance by 15 October 2019.

Selected papers/lectures will be peer-reviewed and published by JAMU in a collective multimedia monograph reflecting the topics of the conference. Regarding the selection, the authors will be notified by 30 November 2019. The selected papers should be submitted for the peer-review process by 31 January 2020.