1999 PSi5 "Here Be Dragons: Mapping The Undiscovered Realms Of Performance Studies: Boundaries, Hinterlands And Beyond"

University of Wales, Aberystwyth, U.K.

Organized by PSi president, Richard Gough. Huge attendance of more than 500 people. Excellent performances.

The announcement read that the conference will create an opportunity for performance studies to encounter other disciplines (Cultural Studies, Human Geography, History, Archaeology, Anthropology, Theatre Studies) and practices (of theatre, live art and performance). "With the Performance Studies Conference (1999) in Aberystwyth, PSi is hoping to merit its name and open itself to an international community of scholars and artists."

Heike Roms: "Aberystwyth was the first proper membership conference of the newly founded association, and the first PS conference to take place outside of North America. Richard and I were keen, therefore, to take seriously PSi’s aspiration tomake the organisation relevant to a diverse membership. One of the themes of the conference was to investigate how performance theory has ‘travelled' (in Said’s sense) from the US to other places over the past two decades as well as evaluating the different histories, genealogies, geographies and politics that have shaped performance studies as it is practiced in a variety of contexts. We made a big effort therefore to enable the participation of delegates from a diversity of backgrounds. Diversity to us, by the way, was not limited to geography, but also meant greater inclusion of artists, non-affiliated scholars, students, etc. .... I also want to stress that two other factors were just as important to us as that of diversity: that the conference would not sacrifice its support of PSi’s core constituency, the people who in the past had an investment in and commitment to the discipline, many of whom are based in the US and UK; and that the conference was deeply rooted in local concerns, in our case our (subsequently successful) attempt at the time to establish a PS degree in Aberystwyth which reflects the cultural specificity of its Welsh context. In terms of increasing diversity, we did this by, for example, involving an international advisory board, by raising funds for travel bursaries, and by offering a variety of presentational formats which included, apart from the usual panels and paper presentations, also roundtables, case studies, practical workshops, artists discussions etc."

GEOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN of REGISTRATIONS
Countries of Residence, Registered Participants, (Brackets: Presenters) -
excluding artists at performance programme.

(33 countries total)