Full Name: Stephen Greer
Annual Conference Theme (if applicable): Performance, Futurity and Progress
What were the main points that emerged from your WG this year?
This year’s theme on ‘Performance, Futurity and Progress’ built on the group’s ongoing discussions regarding questions of precarity, affect and temporality which appeared as central in the group’s 2019 interim event ‘On Cruel Optimism and Cruel Nostalgia’.
In the first panel ‘Utopian and Dystopian Imaginaries’, papers from Trish Reid, Paola Botham, Ian Farnell and Katheryn Owens with Chris Green explored the intersections of theatre with utopias and dystopias through discussions drawing on the work of Raymond Williams (reading dystopia as a ‘structure of feeling’), feminist theatre’s rendering of ‘frightening’ futures, the post-apocalyptic as a means of re-imagining the future and – in welcome reparative turn – the status of friendship as a place to ‘practice our political selves’.
Day two’s panel ‘Politicizing Pasts and Futures’ extended these threads by orienting on the question of how the past and future become politicized, drawing examples from theatre and performance to examine how the affects of progress and nostalgia might intersect. As in the first panel, this involved a dialogue between a number of different concerns. Tony Fisher’s opening paper laid the foundation for this session by asking ‘what makes a work political today?’ while drawing on Chantal Mouffe, Foucault and other philosophers to proposes new ways of understanding the efficacy of political art. Tom Cornford’s provocation asked us to consider what might be involved in shifting from a non-racist to anti-racist position, and in doing so re-politicise race for the future. Focusing on British theatrical imaginings of Europe, Marilena Zaroulia invited us to consider how performances of the 1990s might be reassessed in order to (re)claim a radical politics for the future. In turn, Philip Hager offered Blitz Theatre Group’s
Late Night (2012) as a means of thinking about how nostalgia for a ruined Europe might yet rehearse ‘temporalities of hope’.
Later that afternoon, our third panel continued the group’s ongoing engagement with questions of ‘labour, precarity and value’ – with Nadine Holdsworth considering theatrical/dramaturgical strategies used in representing the ‘precariat’ on stage, and the capacity of those representations to suggest alternative social values. Louise Owen’s paper addressed the question of money directly to suggest how recent stagings of
The Merchant of Venice (Almeida 2014) and
Timon of Athens (National Theatre 2012) might inform our understanding of how certain conceptions of value and exchange become universalised. In the afternoon’s final presentation, David Calder led the discussion away from theatre spaces to address how contemporary French street theatre – particularly the inaugural event of the 2017 street theatre festival in Aurillac – might model potentially utopian possibilities for being collectively precarious.
The group’s packed open panel session on the conference’s final morning brought together papers from Helen Nicholson, Julia Peetz, Gemma Edwards and Gareth Evans to explore ideas of ‘Nationhood and Imagined communities’. Helen’s paper offered a reflection on her involvement in the National Theatre’s Public Acts programme alongside her research with amateur theatre companies to address how theatre-makers may (mistakenly) imagine themselves as agents of change within non-professional communities. Julia invoked the work of Lauren Berlant to assess how nostalgic performance by progressive Democrats, particularly Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, might invoke and reframe the New Deal as a means of legitimating contemporary political goals; Gemma’s paper offered a reading of E.V.Crowe’s
The Sewing Group (Royal Court, 2016) that challenged the (mis)conception of the rural as the regressive remnant of capitalist progress, and Gareth closed the presentations by addressing the queer performative potential of a renewed Welsh language theatre historiography suggested by Islwyn Ffowc Elis’
Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd (A Week in Future Wales).
In our closing panel ‘Identity, Futurity and Progress,’ Ally Walsh considered Tavia Nyong’o’s concepts of ‘Afro-fabulation’ and ‘queer temporality’ in relation to Mamela Nyamza’s performance
Black Privilege and raised significant questions with regards to reconceiving the spectacle of blackness in performance. In a similar spirit, Lisa Woynarski’s paper also highlighted the importance of situating oneself in relation to de-colonization narratives of ‘extinction’ which seem to erase indigenous people’s experience of the present. Louisa Hann focused on questions of temporality and AIDS nostalgia in Mathew Lopez’s
The Inheritance (2018). At the end of the session, Gerry Harris addressed the slightly unenviable task of responding to the panel – and the group’s conversations over the past few days – by reminding us that in talking and thinking about performance, ‘it’s important to realise that some things are not a metaphor and it doesn’t help to treat them as metaphors’. She also stressed the importance of re-discovering old ideas end consider the potentialities of circular rather than linear methodologies.
What was discussed at your business meeting?
We discussed the future of the PIC group in relation to conversations about decolonisation and diversity that had recurred across the conference. Given the specific remit of our group, did we want to orient our next year’s work – or in the longer term – on the question of how our research might drive and inform decolonization and diversity? The following conversation raised a number of issues, including the practical question of sharing teaching materials and course plans, the relationship between this issue and institutions (recognising that a number of our members are independent scholars) as well as examples of good practice which are already under way. We also briefly discussed the possibility of an interim event in 2020 – the event at BAC in London had been extremely successful and very well-attended, but it was agreed that it we’d want to discuss other accessible venues. The group was also conscious that not all groups hold an interim event every year: if we did meet, we’d want a compelling reason. We also extended a huge collective thanks to Adam and Marissia as outgoing convenors for all of their hard work and generous support to the group’s participants over the past three years.
Types of contributions:
Papers and short provocations, though much of each session was given over to discussion.
Number of formal contributors (those listed in book of abstracts) 21
Approx. overall number of delegates who attended your WG Sessions 25 on average, though many more for our open session.
Composition of WG (PG, ECR, etc.)
50/50
Did you have any non-UK participants? Yes
If your WG hosted an Open Panel, do you have any feedback?
The open panel was very well-attended – and a much appreciated opportunity to put our group’s work in conversation with the rest of the conference.
Any additional points or feedback not covered above?
Adam and Marissia will be stepping down as convenors. We’re excited to share that Ally Walsh and Leni Goddard will be joining Steve as the group’s new co-convenors.
