How do objects and spaces perform? What role does the material world play in performance? On March 29-30, 2014, scholars and artists will gather for a symposium titled “Objects, Environments, and Actants: Intersections in Material Performance.” The symposium will take place at the new Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs Center, and is hosted by the Ballard Institute and the UConn Theatre Studies program.
This symposium asks us to think across disciplinary boundaries about objects and environments and their interactions with humans in performance. Drawing on recent scholarship in thing theory, material culture studies, puppetry studies, and object-oriented ontology, we will consider how puppets, props, costumes, masks, physical environments, and human actors intersect in performance.
The symposium will include scholarly papers, performances, roundtable discussions, and a tour of Jerry Rojo’s historic Mobius Theatre environmental performance space at the University of Connecticut’s Dramatic Arts Department.
Schedule (subject to change):
Saturday, March 29
9:00-9:30 Coffee
9:30-10:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks
10:00-11:25 Panel 1: Action and Automata
John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry & Department of Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut), “Robots and Performance: the Persistent Theatricality of Machines”
Nick Knouf (Cinema and Media Studies, Wellesley College), “Noise, Parrhesia, and the Enunciative Potentials of Performing Objects”
Thomas Meacham (Theatre Studies, University of Connecticut), “The Boxley Rood of Grace as Actant: Puppetry and Object-Oriented Ontologies of Iterative Affective Performance””
11:35-1:00 Panel 2: The Thing Chosen: How Objects Influence Performance
Elisha Conway (Department of English, McGill University), “Living Objects: Questions for Design and Acting in the Use of Puppets”
James Mirrione (Theatre Department, United Arab Emirates University),“Concerning the Concealed: the mask and puppetry art of Louay Assaf with United Arab Emirati Female Students in Measure for Measure”
Anna Fitzgerald (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut), “A Thing Performed: Why and How to Choose an Inanimate Object on Stage”
1:00-2:00 Lunch
2:00-3:00 Performance and Discussion:
Adelka Polak (Artistic Director, SOVA Theater), “Environmental Entanglement”
3:05-4:35 Panel 3: Subjects and Objects in Performance
Jane Shaw (Independent Artist), “Performing The Real Thing”
Theodora Skipitares (Pratt Institute), “Rituals of the Performing Object”
Dawn Brandes (University of King’s College), “Looking Back: The Puppet’s Gaze in Neville Tranter’s The Seven Deadly Sins”
4:35-5:00 Free time
5:00-6:00 Tour of the Mobius Theatre at UConn’s Dramatic Arts Department
Led by Bart Roccoberton (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut) and Jerry Rojo (Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut, emeritus)
6:10-7:30 Dinner
8:00 Performance of Goblin Market
Directed by Penny Benson (Puppet Arts Program, University of Connecticut)
Sunday, March 3o
9:00-9:30 Coffee
9:30-11:00 Panel 4: Space, Place, and Scale
Lindsay Cummings (Theatre Studies, University of Connecticut), “How to Do Things with A Tuft of Grass: Theatre, Ecology, and the Non-Human Actor”
Jemma Alix Levy (Artistic Director, Muse of Fire Theatre Company), “Achilles’ Tent—A Place Within A Place”
Beth Milles (Department of Performing and Media Arts, Cornell University), “Occupation and Object: An Investigational Distillation—Over/taking Space and the Moment in Performance”
11:00-12:00 Richard Schechner (Performance Studies, New York University),
“Environmental Theater and the Performance Group: A Conversation with Richard Schechner” (via Skype from Abu Dhabi)
12:00-12:30 Wrap up
12:30-1:00 Goodbyes
DETAILS:
To register for the symposium, follow this link to our registration form: Spring 2014 Symposium Registration Form
Completed forms can be sent to bimp@uconn.edu or mailed to:
Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry
Attn: Emily Wicks
1 Royce Circle, Suite 101B
University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT 06268
Contact information for local hotels can be found here: Places to Stay Near UConn
Objects, Environments, and Actants is organized by Lindsay Cummings, Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies at UConn; John Bell, Director of the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry; and Emily Wicks, Program Assistant at the Ballard Institute. Sponsored by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, the UConn Theatre Studies program, and the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut.