Sean Metzger, University of California, Los Angeles
Kimberly Welch, University of California, Los Angeles
Ernst Bloch suggests that we live in the “not yet.” Following this provocation, José Esteban Muñoz has argued that queerness facilitates and describes a “forward dawning futurity.” Performance often expresses this dynamic, one that we might trace in a vast array of expressive cultural forms from insurgent actions to religious rituals to revolutionary projections.
The “transient performance” working session seeks to elaborate on the contingent performances that shape our lives now and in the past. How do we understand performance as a time-based art and/or practice? In what ways do new temporal configurations shift our understanding of the terms and contexts of cooptation or resistance? In what ways is transience a possible alternative to performance understood as either ephemerality or representation without reproduction? What material instantiations and lingering effects does performance enable? What is gained and/or lost in the transit of performance practices across spaces, both material and virtual? The “transient performance” working session welcomes proposals that treat any form of transient performance, including but not limited to: diaspora and migration, itinerant theatrical practices, performances of homelessness, riots and insurrections, and sexual subcultures. We are particularly interested in submissions that speak to the experiences of minoritarian communities in the US and around the world.
Because we seek a wide variety of topics and perspectives on these issues, the working session will run in two parts to which all participants must commit. The first is an online reading group which will include two online meetings and/or exchanges that will occur over the summer and early fall of 2016. To establish a common, but not exclusive, critical vocabulary for the participants in this year’s session, we will read together various selections from a list of works (2-3 readings per meeting) based on the participants’ work. The list of readings will be sent out with acceptance notifications.
To be considered for the working group, please submit an abstract (500 words max.) addressing transient performance. Accepted participants should expect to present/discuss a 10-12 page paper at the 2016 ASTR conference during our 3 hour working group session.
For any specific questions, please contact the working group convenors at smetzger@tft.ucla.edu and duke.kcw10@gmail.com. Please note that all submissions must be received formally through the ASTR website, at http://www.astr.org/page/16_WGSubmissions. The form will allow you to indicate second and third -choice working groups if you wish; if you do so, note that there is a space for you to indicate how your work will fit into those groups. The deadline for receipt of working group proposals is 1 June 2016 and we anticipate that participants will be notified of their acceptance no later than 30 June. As this is the first year of this new process, please contact the conference organizers at astr2016@astr.org if you have any questions about the process.
Submitted by: Transient Performance at ASTR