EASTAP Annual Conference 2025: Decentre | Distribute | Democratise
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About this event:
- Category:
- Research
- Event type:
- Booking required | In-person
- Admission:
- Conference Fee: £130 (£70 for Emerging Scholars only) EASTAP membership required
- Location:
- Guildhall School of Music & Drama
Call for Contributions
Decentre | Distribute | Democratise
Deadline for submissions: 28 February 2025
To submit a proposal, follow the link here.
We are delighted to announce the EASTAP (European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance) Annual Conference 2025, hosted by Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, under the theme Decentre | Distribute | Democratise.
As host city, London has been a questionable centre for (among other things) commerce, business and finance; empire and rubrics of imperialism; popular expression and democratic governance; and theatre and the performing arts. What does it mean, now, to think of decentring, distribution and democratising? We ask this question not only in relation to our geo-political situation (in a major metropolis that is outside the European Union in a moment of global refiguring). It applies no less to our disciplinary areas – theatre, drama, performance, cultural production – and to Guildhall School itself, and its place in a Higher Education ecosystem as a training institution that conducts research, and a conservatoire invested in both continuity and change.
Our three key terms are linked together in recognition of their inherent overlaps in contemporary performance and cultural production. Decentring involves distribution, and arguably it democratises access, participation and consumption. Distribution might (or might not) envisage a centre, but it specifically involves a movement across and into different locations (decentring). Democratisation deliberately engages people across wide representational fields and is to do with popular agency – which arguably then allows for decentring, and onward distribution of ideas and effects.
Taken together, our headline terms address a contemporary situation of pronounced flux. We observe an increasingly hybrid, cross-media and interdisciplinary arts scene. We find theatre and performance in an array of settings, including immersive and site-specific events, concerts, festivals, galleries and museums, cruise ships, digital platforms, corporate functions, and civic celebrations and memorialisation. Government funding for the arts has been systematically reduced in some areas, while crowd-funding and pop-up venues and productions offer different models of economic organisation. In many places, conflict and censorship refigure what is possible in cultural production.
Power is in some instances increasingly concentrated, and yet new formations challenge the status quo. Changes that address equity and representation are reshaping leadership models, the subjects of artworks and the ways in which stories are shared. The curriculum may (or may not) have been decolonised, but the work of pluralised awareness across regions, subject positions and modes of expression continues. Historical situations are questioned, and paradigms reinterpreted or revoked. Collisions between old and new; tensions between continuity and rupture; wide interconnections on the one hand, fierce expressions of the particular on the other; movements away and impacts from afar – these appear to shape the dynamics and discourse of our times.
Each term not infrequently brings to mind its opposite: so, with ‘decentring’ we also imagine tendencies to centralise; with ‘distribution’ we also recall protected access or inadequate sharing; with ‘democratisation’ we are all too familiar with situations that are undemocratic. Again, the overlaps here are pertinent – hence the aspiration expressed in our call – to decentre, distribute, democratise.
Taken separately, we suggest some questions concerning theatre and performance that arise from our key terms:
- What does it mean to decentre?
- What is the notional or actual centre that lies behind such an impetus – and what’s wrong with it (if decentring is necessary)?
- What are the benefits of decentring?
- What models (organisational, processual, creative, socio-economic) are in play?
- How have representations (and performance-makers) moved to extremes (and/or radical positions)?
- Does decentring mean de-hierarchising, or something different?
- Are we done with decolonising, or do we require a new impulsion?
- What is the relation of decentring to concerns about localism, globalism, nativism, populism and so forth?
- What of related concepts of dissolving, or de-solving, or dissolution, or disillusion?
- What does socially engaged practice-research in/through theatre and performance bring to questions of decentring, distribution and democratising?
- What about centring? Is there a case for new centres, or for recentring and regathering?
- Where do we find productive models of distribution (of resources, labour, artistic outputs)?
- How does contemporary distribution operate in an international arts scene? And in a specifically local and/or national scene?
- What do we learn from historical models?
- How might we understand distribution in and through the scope and networks of social and broadcast media?
- Who is doing the distributing (where there is distribution), and for whom and to what end?
- What are the modes, opportunities and pitfalls of dissemination?
- And, likewise, delivery (whether by an actor, an organisation or a postal service)?
- What do we understand by delegation in this context, or by delegated performance?
- How can we identify and enhance relations between distribution and equity?
- To what extent can conceptualising and materialising infrastructure as culture support a liveable planet?
- Do creative processes require further democratisation? (Does democracy require a director?)
- What distinctions do we observe between ‘democratic’ situations for performance, and ‘undemocratic’ or ‘non-democratic’ situations?
- How can we navigate differences or tensions between cultural democracy and the democratisation of culture through theatre and performance?
- How can we understand ownership of production and dissemination, and narrate or facilitate wider engagement as appropriate?
- How might epochal but difficult change agendas (for example concerning the climate crisis or equity) be democratised in and through performance?
- How, now, is the ‘voice of the people’ performed, and to what effect?
- How does theatre manifest the demos in a scenario of digital and hybrid performance, and amid turns to authoritarianism and absolutism in political process?
- What do we make of protest as performance, and the efficacy of performance with regard to social and political change?
- How can developments in technology democratise performance and/or contribute to democratisation in and through performance?
Call for Proposals
We invite proposals that explore the shifting ground of decentring, distribution and democratising, whether in terms of the formal constitution of artworks; processes of conception, realisation, circulation and consumption; the audiences and participants within artistic exchange; the industrial and institutional arrangements for theatre and performance; regimes and systems of training and preparation; the effects and affordances of technologies; matters of identity and cultural definition (whether individual, regional or national); the role of theatre and performance in social, cultural and political transaction; questions of entertainment and pleasure; and concerns about agency and value (however defined).
We encourage interdisciplinary approaches however they are conceived. We also encourage monodisciplinary submissions, as colleagues prefer. While the conference aims to perform its own decentring, it will operate as a gathering ground for discussion, sharing and collaboration among colleagues.
The Emerging Scholars Forum gives early career researchers an opportunity to present their research in a supportive environment with room for debate and feedback. It is also a community for networking with other emerging scholars and will include a social event. Papers for the ESF can follow the call theme of Decentre | Distribute | Democratise or present a topic from the scholar’s own ongoing research. Each participating scholar will have maximum of 10 minutes for their paper/performance presentation to allow more time for discussion and feedback. We recommend that you focus your paper/presentation on a specific issue or problematic you would like to discuss, instead of presenting the general scope of your research. Keep contextualisation short and focus on a specific case, theory, methodology and/or concept; and the questions which you would like to raise in relation to this.
If you wish to participate in the Emerging Scholars Forum, please submit as indicated below, stating clearly in the headline or the header that your paper is proposed for the Emerging Scholars Forum.
Proposals are welcome for the following:
- Paper (15 minutes maximum)
- Performance presentation (5-10 minutes – please note that in this mode the presenter must be able to present within a standard conference format, i.e. at a lectern or in a confined space, without requiring additional technical support)
The conference will include curated keynote discussions and round tables.
In the spirit of decentring, distributing and democratising, we will also schedule one or more of the following formats, geared around collaboration and exchange: hackathon (a mix of discussion and problem-solving in response to a provocation); lab (as above, with the creation and presentation of an outcome); World Café Method session (series of facilitated short small-group discussions); Long Table (facilitated dinner-party-like discussion – with credit to Lois Weaver); soapbox (impromptu speech no longer than two minutes). Delegates are welcome to indicate whether they have preferences to be involved or present within particular formats.
To submit a proposal, follow the link here.
The conference will feature three Associate Artists. Each will curate an itinerary of visits to selected events in London (for example, plays, performances, exhibitions, installations). Each Associate Artist will address one of the conference’s three key terms. Delegates may follow the respective itinerary in full, or opt in and out of specific productions/exhibitions etc. Each artist will outline their selection in a video available to view in advance of the conference, to help you make choices about what to see. The conference will also provide an opportunity for the Associate Artists to discuss their own work.
The artistic programme will include events from Tuesday 2 - Sunday 7 September, for those who wish to attend events in London beyond the timeframe of the conference
The conference will also feature three Associate Academics.
The conference acknowledges the binarisation implied between artistic and academic work, and will trouble and work across this apparent separation.
- Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2025
- Notification of acceptance: 25 April 2025
- Registration deadline for presenters: 6 June 2025
- Finalisation of abstracts: 27 June 2025
- Publication of conference schedule: 11 July 2025
- Conference dates: 3-6 September 2025 (registration onsite open from Tuesday 2 September)
The conference fee is £130 (£70 for Emerging Scholars only).
The fee will include catering for the reception event, lunches and tea/coffee breaks.
Payment and registration will be through Eventbrite (registration and payment details will be available in March). Details will be given to accepted applicants via email.
NOTE: All conference contributors and attendants must be current members of the EASTAP European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance with an active, paid subscription. Annual regular membership fee is 80 EUR and 40 EUR for PhD students, or 200 EUR for institutional affiliation. Membership Information can be found at https://eastap.com/registration/
