Seminars

‘Addressing Contemporary Challenges Through Performance’
Online Research Seminar Series 2023–24, Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group, Brunel University London

Curated and Organized by PGRs Daniel Gonzalez and Ariel Whitfield Sobel under the guidance of Dr Katerina Paramana

You are cordially invited to attend the online Research Seminar Series ‘Addressing Contemporary Challenges Through Performance’ of the Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group. 

EVENT 1 (20 February 2024, 5pm-6:30pm GMT, online): Performance & Communities 

How Can Performance Reconfigure our Relationship to our Communities after the Covid-19 Pandemic? 

• Swati Arora, Lecturer in Performance and Global South Studies, Queen Mary University of London
• Annie Webster, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Cultural and Refugee Studies, The University of Edinburgh 

EVENT 2 (12 March, 5pm-6:30pm GMT, online): Performance, Gender & Technology 

How Can Performance Challenge our Understandings of Gender through Technology? 

• Christine Prevas, PhD Candidate, Gender & Sexuality in Media, Columbia University
• Vlad Butecea, Lecturer in Digital Theatre and Performance, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh 

EVENT 3 (20 March, 5pm-6:30pm GMT, online): Performance & Climate Crisis 

How Can Performance Reconfigure our Relationship to the Environment in the Midst of Climate Crisis? 

• Aylwyn Walsh, Professor in Performance and Social Change, University of Leeds 

To join us in any of these events, please use the passcode and link below:
https://bruneluniversity.zoom.us/j/91061288769     |     Passcode: ResSeriesP 

Previous events

‘Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century’
Online Research Seminar Series 2022–23, Brunel University London

Coordinated by Dr Katerina Paramana

This research seminar series’ main aim was to examine timely issues regarding the relationship between bodies, politics, and well-being through interdisciplinary dialogues between researchers, industry professionals, and stakeholders from the arts, politics, and health and well-being. It invited the following international speakers in three curated, interlinked, dialogical events: 

Event 1 (7 Dec 2022, 5pm-6:30pm GMT, online): Political Economy and Contemporary Performance Practices

This event examined the relation between contemporary performances practices and political economy, its effects, and the insights they can offer to one another.

• Alvin Li, Curator, Tate Modern
• Peter Thomas, Professor of Political Thought, Brunel University London
• Tara Fatehi Irani, Artist and Writer
• Louise Owen, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Birkbeck, University of London 

Event 2 (18 Jan 2023, 5pm-6:30pm GMT, online): Bodies and Racial Capitalism

This event examined how bodies are affected by racial capitalism at micro and macro levels.

• Erin Manning, Professor and Research Chair - Speculative Pragmatism, Art, and Pedagogy, Concordia University
• Kimberly Welch, J.D. Candidate at UCLA School of Law and PhD Performance Studies, UCLA
• Sean Metzger, Professor and Head of Performance Studies, UCLA 

Event 3 (29 Mar 2023, 5pm-6:30pm BST, online): The Growth Economic Paradigm, Human and Non-Human Bodies, and Well-Being

This event examined how the growth economic paradigm affects the well-being of human and non-human bodies (and strategies that can be employed to effect change).

• Stephen Butler, Professor of Health and Well-Being, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada
• Gareth Dale, Reader in Political Economy, Brunel University London
• Marina Gržinić, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria and ZRC SAZU, Institute of Philosophy, Ljubljana, Slovenia 

Interdisciplinary Performance Research Laboratories 2018
Shadows of the Dawn: Migration and the Indeterminacy of Community and Immunity

Coordinated by Johannes Birringer

Over the past two years, a few researchers at Brunel University London formed a working group – Transcultures-Survival (Hosts and Guests) – and began to network with others equally concerned with survival politics and a critical understanding of migration and hospitality.

The aim of the 2018 research workshops was to incite debate and knowledge exchange between fields – theatre, social works, education, human geography, political science, ethnography, media arts – on pressing questions regarding notions of imagined communities (originally argued in 1983 by Benedict Anderson) during the current resurgence of ethno-nationalism, exemplified by xenophobic hostilities, divergent responses to the so-called refugee crisis, Britain voting to leave the European Union, the election of Donald Trump, the rise of right wing populism on the European continent. During two symposia-workshops in April and June 2018, participant researchers and practitioners considered interlaced thematic focal points that deal with community and immunity.

• Natural History of Migration/Immunity and Biopolitics/Racism and Patriotism/ Institutional and Systemic Sexual Violence
• Security, Nationness, Ethno-futurism, and the Theatre of Resistance

The planned activities included scholarly presentations / shorter provocations, workshops and practice-based performances or fieldwork demonstrations (film) to be presented over the two symposia in April and June 2018. The format and compositional method of the Series were intended to be open and innovative as well: curatorial propositions will be solicited from invited guests and volunteer participants. The event was open to the public and anyone interested in the subject, and it was free of charge.

Performance Research Seminar Coordinator: Johannes Birringer 

All Research Seminars were co-produced with dance-tech.net and the special DAP-LabTV:

• Research Seminar playlist on youtube by Marlon Barrios Solano & Johannes Birringer.
• Research Seminar on Dance TECH TV LIVE
• DAP-lab.TV