TaPRA 2026: Performer Training

Deadline: Monday 9 March 2026

2026 Theme—Repurposing In/Through Performance Training
This year’s call for contributions considers what repurposing can offer performance training, and the role performance training can take in repurposing — conceptually, pedagogically, institutionally, socially, and artistically.

There is a rich history of repurposing within the field of performance training. Practitioners have long reworked materials, spaces, and lineages to respond to shifting cultural, political, and environmental conditions. For example, within actor training several practitioners (e.g. Grotowski, Meyerhold) repurposed the ideas of Stanislavsky within their own practices. A further example of repurposing can be seen in the work of somatic practitioner, Mabel Elsworth Tod (1937), who transformed anatomical knowledge and kinaesthetic imagery into new pedagogical tools for performer training.

The idea of repurposing might also be considered in relation to interdisciplinarity. Following the 2025 conference, the working group has undergone a shift in name – from Performer Training to Performance Training. This change, while subtle, was made in recognition of the work of colleagues who are training directors, producers, writers, teachers, lighting designers and a range of other contributors to the field of theatre and performance. Considering this, we are interested in examining how these different disciplines might borrow and ‘repurpose’ training approaches from each other.

We might also consider work that applies performance training approaches in other settings as an act of repurposing. This might include the circulation of training practices within community arts practice, dramatherapy and healthcare settings, or the repurposing of performance training for use in technological or business contexts.

The discussion of repurposing is also pertinent in light of the ongoing climate emergency and sustainability in training settings (Pitches, Worth and Kapsali, 2024). The timeliness of this discussion is furthered by increasing resource constraints within both the arts and higher education, and the ‘repurposing’ that navigating this can demand.

We can also think about training for acts of repurposing, such as the work of, for example, Geraldine Pilgrim in training site-specific performance or programmes that train applied theatre practitioners. Therefore, for this year’s working group we invite contributions that consider acts of repurposing in and/or through performance training. This might include processes of:

Reconsidering where the boundaries lie (or do not lie) between:
● Distinct disciplines and traditions within performer training
● Performance training and other academic, artistic, or professional fields/the wider world
● Past and Future Performance Training(s)
● Performance Training and Participatory Arts Contexts

Reclaiming that which is lost or abandoned, such as:
● The value of embodied human presence in the age of AI
● Working with abandoned or non-traditional spaces (for example, through training for site-specific performance)
● Reawakening historical trainings (for example, through archival practices, ethnographic, or practice-led methods)
● Marginalised practices (for example, by decentring canonical practices position in the curriculum)

Reimagining the possibilities of:
● Using and adapting traditional practices for contemporary performances/performance ecologies
● The institutional structures/pedagogical models/assessment frameworks that we train within
● Rearranging existing hierarchies and student/teacher power dynamics

We also welcome contributions that consider other forms that repurposing might take within performance training and encourage presentations/practice/alternative formats that engage with themes of repurposing in their form.

References:
Pitches, Jonathan, Libby Worth, and Maria Kapsali. “Editorial.” Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 15, no. 3 (2024): 339–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2024.2404803.
Todd, M.E. (1937) The Thinking Body: A Study of the Balancing Forces of Dynamic Man. New York: Paul B. Hoeber. Republished 1968, Brooklyn, NY: Dance Horizons, Inc.

Please note: only one proposal may be submitted for a TaPRA event. It is not permitted to submit multiple proposals or submit the same proposal to several Calls for Participation. All presenters must be TaPRA members, i.e. registered for the event; this includes presentations given by Skype or other media broadcast even where the presenter may not physically attend the event venue.