TaPRA 2025 Performer Training CFP
Deadline: Monday 10 March 2025
27-29 August 2025, University of Warwick
Theme: Training Beyond (Established) Techniques
The UK higher education theatre and performance field is unstable – with drama schools ‘particularly hard hit by the previous government’s decision to cut funding for arts subjects to prioritise STEM subjects’ (Weale and Hattenstone, 2025), several universities closing or condensing drama departments over the last few years in response to these cuts, reduced applications, and reduced intake of international students. Given these circumstances, engagement with elements of training that go beyond the survival and delivery of courses risks being deprioritised.
The QAA (2024) benchmarks direct the focus of performing arts training to building skills, critical thinking and imagination. They urge trainers to consider ‘the ways in which the discipline addresses wider social goals specifically in relation to: equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI); the requirements of disabled students; education for sustainable development (ESD); and enterprise and entrepreneurship.’ As Lisa Peck and Evi Stamatiou write in the introduction to Critical Acting Pedagogies: Intersectional Approaches ‘there is an orientation towards transferable skills that promote an awareness of individualised and relational aptitudes – communication, leadership, flexibility, problem-solving, empathy, creativity’,which provides ‘fertile terrain for acting pedagogies’ (2024).
The current challenges of the UK higher education arts sector are reflective of a devaluing of arts education – as evidenced by a 47% drop in students choosing arts subjects at GCSE level since 2010 (Chamber, 2024). This demonstrates not only a lack of acknowledgement of the value of professional performance, but also of the societal and cultural value of the skills that arts education provides. Transferable skills also hold an increased importance when considering employability in a precarious industry, student resilience in a challenging global political context, and the ever-shifting demands on the actor with regard to new technologies and modes of performance.
Given this, we invite contributions that consider what it is we are training beyond (established) techniques. This encompasses what students are learning asides from the performance techniques themselves, training students for new and emerging techniques and forms (e.g. motion capture), training for ‘portfolio careers’ and training for self-growth, self-awareness and self-advocacy.
Contributions may, for example, address:
- Training interpersonal and communication skills
- Training self-awareness/understanding of the individual ‘inner life of the actor’
- Training for self-growth (e.g. personal development, empathy, acceptance)
- Training for physical/mental health and wellbeing (e.g. mindfulness, yoga)
- Training for new technologies (e.g. mocap, video games, virtual reality)
- Training for self-advocacy (e.g. understanding and communicating access needs, knowledge of workplace rights, etc.)
- Training as a process (rather than towards a product)
- Training for portfolio careers (e.g. facilitation skills, producing skills)
- Training for activism and change-making
We welcome discussion of these training(s) in relation to topics of widening participation, employability, performers as ‘engaged citizens’ (Henry Giroux, 2021), training and agency, and the sustainability of performing arts careers. Through this, the working group will examine how training may both equip students for new developments in the industry, but also support the individual as a whole person through this
Submit your abstract here by 10 March 2025
How the TaPRA conference works:
Our conference has two types of sessions: whole group sessions for all delegates and parallel panels of papers, performances, and interventions streamed by “working group”. The working groups focus on specific research interests and disciplines and set their own themes for each conference. This is detailed in CFPs like this one. There is also an opportunity to exhibit practice research in a gallery.
A complete list of our 13 working groups is available here on the TaPRA website. Most delegates choose a working group that aligns with their interests and use this group as their base for the conference, attending most or all of their slots as the working groups meet multiple times. These sessions host presentations from long-standing members and new colleagues. However, you can attend sessions hosted by any other working group throughout the conference. The programme also includes open panels where attendees are encouraged to visit working groups sessions other than their own.
To speak, present, or perform TaPRA, you will need to identify your preferred working group and submit a proposal that speaks to their theme. You apply to one working group. You can also indicate that you are willing for your paper to be considered by other working groups.
Conference environment:
In addition to whole group sessions, working groups, and open panels. the Practice Gallery and publisher stalls are open for most of the conference, and there are more social events at various moments including the conference dinner.
Access:
The 2025 annual TaPRA conference at the University of Warwick will be a hybrid event, facilitating participation by online delegates alongside those attending in-person. Since our 2021 conference we have been able to experience benefits of online conferencing, such as increased opportunity for international presenters, lower financial costs to participate, and greater accessibility for those with caring responsibilities. The 2025 conference at Warwick aims to retain the wider opportunities for engagement that online platforms offer, whilst also maintaining a space for in-person engagement and social interaction.
Key dates:
- Applicants will receive decisions on their proposals on 11 April 2025
- Conference registration opens 12 May 2025
- Early bird registration closes on 30 June 2025
- Presenter registration deadline is 18 July 2025
- General registration closes 12 August 2025
Bursaries:
Each working group has one bursary available for postgraduate and early career researchers. The bursary includes free conference registration and £300 towards conference travel and accommodation, to be disbursed after the event on showing proof of spend. If you would like to be considered for a bursary, please tick the relevant box on the ‘Abstract Submission Form’, when submitting your abstract.
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.
