The Performance Studies International Conference #28 will be hosted at the Wits School of the Arts in Johannesburg in August 2023. Colleagues are encouraged to submit proposals and share the call with their networks.

CONFERENCE DESCRIPTION:

Performance Studies international (PSi), in collaboration with the Theatre and Performance and Drama for Life Departments at Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg, South Africa, invites responses to the call for proposals for the Performance Studies International #28 conference in 2023. This blended conference focuses on embodied wandering practices as Performance Studies modalities internationally, with specific reference to the African context. Uhambo is an IsiZulu word that translates to ‘a journey’. The phrase uhambo luyazilawula loosely translates to ‘a journey controls itself’. That is to say that while destinations may be planned, the act or process of journeying and the outcomes of that journey can never truly be controlled. To surrender to the journey connects us to ways of understanding and critiquing how we came to be through praxis and reflection. Performance Studies as a creative art and a research paradigm is a useful lens through which to contemplate and unpack the significance of journeying as embodied practices of movement, nomadism, migration, immigration and cultural exchanges, amongst its many other dimensions. Grounding the conference theme in the concept of ‘uhambo’ and ‘uhambo oluzilawuyalo’ centres African performance praxis and pedagogies as dynamic and unpredictable provocations which challenge conventional creative and scholarly research modes. These provocations have the potential to develop and transform performance practices and pedagogies in the field of Performance Studies, in Africa and around the world.

CLOSING DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 28 November 2022

We hope to receive proposals for panels, papers, articles, posters, performances/installations and laboratory workshops from researchers, teachers and practitioners in and across all disciplines in the liberal arts and the humanities.