Earth Matters On Stage ~ May 21-31, 2009 ~ U of Oregon

Symposium on Ecology and Performance 2009

Keynote Speakers:

• Una Chaudhuri, author of Staging Place: the Geography of Modern Drama

• Rachel Rosenthal, Performance Artist

Call for Papers and Proposals -- February 15, 2009: Extended Deadline!

Ecology is at the heart of burgeoning creativity and interdisciplinary scholarship across the arts and humanities. This Symposium, together with the concurrent Festival, invites artists, scholars and activists to share their work, ideas, and passions with one another and with the larger community who attend the Festival.

We welcome creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings that explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological relationships in general.

The form and format is wide-open and we will schedule and shape the Symposium around the types of proposals received and selected. We encourage proposals that go beyond a recitation of ideas or positions, and instead bring presenters and participants together as they engage the driving question of how theatre has or might function as part of our reciprocal relationship with ecological communities.

Some possible topics for exploration include: land and body in performance; representations of bioregionalism; eco-literacy; representation of/and environmental justice; green theatre production; old cultural narratives/new stories; indigenous performance; community-based performance/ecological communities; sensing place/staging place; the ecologies of theatrical form and/or space; animal representation; and application of ecocriticism to plays, performance and culture.

Please send a one-page proposal and/or abstract by February 15, 2009 to:

Earth Matters Symposium 2009
Theresa May, Director
Theater Arts, VIL 216
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403

Please include:

• Type of session & title;
• Your preferred type of space (classroom, theatre, studio, or outdoors);
• Time-length (60 min; 90 min; 2+ hours; half-day);
• Ideal or maximum number of participants;
• Short bios.

We encourage proposals that include more than one presenter; however, single person proposals are accepted and will be combined with others as themes and formats allow.

For those unfamiliar with the creative work and scholarship in this area, we suggest the Related Articles as a place to begin.  For more information on the festival: www.uoregon.edu/~ecodrama.

We look forward to your Proposal!