Call for Proposals

Theatre Faculty of Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno is pleased to invite you to the Conference in Theatre Practice and Theory. This year's topic is The Ever-expanding Horizons of Theatre. The conference will be held on 25 - 27 November 2021 in Brno, Czech Republic.

The conference was supposed to take place on 12 - 14 November 2020 but despite the number of abstracts received, the uncertain situation of the upcoming autumn and the continuing restrictions of international travel forced us to postpone the conference to November 2021. 

The conference provides a platform on which different concepts of research in the field of theatre practice and theory can be contrasted. The event has been attended by over one hundred professional artists, researchers and doctoral students from Europe, Africa, North as well as South America and Asia who have come to Brno to introduce their research in progress to an international audience and discuss common methodological issues.

This year we would like to examine the ever-expanding and changing horizons of theatre as well as theatre research. In 2020, the idea of theatre outside the designated theatre building is nothing new, yet the academic viewpoint tends to focus on the purely dramaturgical and directional matters of such projects. Being an academy of performing arts, we would like to examine this phenomenon not only from the perspective of the changing thematic focus, but also from the view of theatre management, light and sound technology, or stage design. During our conference, we would like to bridge theatre practitioners and academics and offer a think tank, where everyone can share their opinion on the theatre horizons. We invite doctoral students as well as experienced theatre-makers.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

1. Theatre outside theatre buildings – challenges of its staging (especially lighting design, scenography, theatre management, local laws etc.)
2. Staging “the classics” in the present day – possibilities of deconstruction
3. Theatre installation between visual and performative art
4. Immersive and site-specific theatre – the shift and change in both theory and practice
5. Theatre in the time of climate crisis – reusing and recycling stage
6. Theatre and landscape
7. Theatre in the digital era (video art, theatre in VR and AR, etc.)
8. Theatre and precariat, theatre as a social experiment
9. The performative features of sport, politics, and everyday life

Theatre professionals, enthusiasts, researchers, teachers, as well as 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 presentation (20 min)
• Work demonstration (up to 60 min)
• Performative lecture (20 min)
• Poster presentation (5 min)

Roundtable discussion should be a regular part of every conference day, with a concluding one closing the conference on Saturday.

Practical Information

Please submit your proposal of no more than 300 words and your brief CV before 15 May 2021. You can register here. Regarding the acceptance, the authors will be notified by 30 June 2021. 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 organizers in advance by 31^st October 2021.

Selected papers/lectures will be peer-reviewed and published by JAMU in a collective multimedia monograph reflecting the topics of the conference.