TaPRA 2024 Audience, Experience and Popular Practices working group
Deadline: Wednesday 10 April 2024
Experiencing Comfort & Discomfort
This year the Audience, Experience, and Popular Practices WG are inviting 15 minute responses of any kind to the theme of comfort and discomfort.
What does it mean to experience sensations of comfort or discomfort – whether as researchers, theatre-makers, practitioners, historians, students, performers, or scholars?
We are eager for this exploration of dis/comfort to be as broad as possible. For example: your approach to this topic could be around issues of method: perhaps by raising urgent considerations about the ethics or epistemologies of a particular methodological approach. Alternatively, it could be about the feelings provoked by a piece of performance itself: whether that’s contemporary artistic work, or a historical event, or a popular form of practice. It could interrogate issues around intimacy or affect, asking for instance whether sensations of comfort or discomfort create particular audience/performer relationships? It could also raise questions about what it means to work both as artists and as academics within our contemporary landscape of precarity and uncertainty. We are also very interested in exploring relations of power, such as whose comfort gets to be prioritised and whose discomfort often goes unacknowledged.
We understand ‘performance’ and ‘practice’ in their broadest possible terms: whether that’s everyday practices of performative identity, stage performances from the popular to the avant garde, or representations circulated via mass- or social-media. In Northumbria, what we want to encourage is a holistic analysis of what it means to experience practices – of making performance, of being an audience, of doing research, and of living in the world. We are eager to welcome work in progress at any stage: whether you want to talk through ideas for a brand new project, or to discuss preliminary findings, or to deliver a fully-developed presentation. More than anything else, we are working to carve out a space for supportive, generative, and helpful conversations. In light of the challenges of the past few years especially, our goal is to foster a home for safe sharing.
We invite diverse modes of sharing research, including, but not limited to, short provocations, practice demonstrations, performative presentations, formal papers, etc. Please indicate your preference of format clearly in your proposal, with a specific breakdown of any technical requirements. We will endeavour to accommodate all requests, but please be aware that we are working within finite resources and we may need to suggest alternative formats.
Conference structure
Northumbria University will host the TaPRA 2024 annual conference in central Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) as a hybrid event from 4 to 6 September 2024. We welcome online and in-person delegates.
Process for submitting a proposal
Please email a submission with the following elements by midnight on 10 April 2024 to the Working Group convenors at aepp@tapra.org:
- 300-word max abstract
- 100-word max biography
- Confirmation on whether you plan to attend online or in person
- Any specific requirements relating to space or AV technology
Please note: You may only submit a proposal to one working group (or to the TaPRA Gallery) for this conference, proposals submitted after the deadline will not be considered.
Timescale
TaPRA will inform you whether or not your proposal has been accepted in mid-May 2024. Registration will also be open from mid-May 2024, which will ask for accessibility and dietary requirements. A draft schedule will be ready by the end of June 2023. Registration will close on 1 August 2024. Accommodation options in central Newcastle with special rates will be available to all delegates.
Conference costs
There are two main delegate types (standard and concession, definition below) and all fees include one-year TaPRA membership of £35 (standard) or £17 (concession). Early bird rates only apply to in-person full conference fees.
In-person fees: (early bird/late bird)
- Full conference fee: £250/£300 (standard) and £180/£230 (concession)
- Day rate: £130 (standard) and £100 (concession)
- WG Convenors and Exec: £198 (standard) and £17 (concession)
- Life members: £163
Online fees:
- Full conference fee: £110 (standard) and £90 (concession)
- WG Convenors and Exec: £108 (standard) and £17 (concession)
- Life members: £73
A day rate is not available for online delegates.
Concession definition
Concession rates apply to all students, postgraduate researchers (MA or PhD), unwaged, unaffiliated, and retired researchers, and staff on contracts of either less than 0.6FTE or else fixed for less than 12 months. These categories apply to the delegate’s circumstances on the first day of the conference.
Bursaries
Each Working Group manages a bursary to cover the fee and some expenses, offered on a competitive basis. Preference will be given to those without access to any institutional funds. This process is open to accepted presenters only and will be managed by the Working Group convenors post-confirmation of acceptance.
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.
