TaPRA 2026: Bodies and Performance
Deadline: Monday 9 March 2026
2026 Theme—The Changing Body in Performance: Mourning, Shedding and Modification
At Warwick in 2025, we were struck by the emergence of two major themes: mourning and modification. Phoebe Patey-Ferguson considered the pleasure-dulling qualities of GLP-1s, and how their rapid promotion by the state and celebrity culture makes fatphobia a technique of fascism. Roberta Mock thought with late performance artist Danielle Abrams’ body of work, and how ‘gender, race and religion alchemically construct each other’ through her multiple personae. Broderick Chow, Paul Edwards and Eero Laine’s presentation prompted reflections on bulking and cutting in fitness cultures, and the role of patriarchal capitalism in sculpting what is possible for embodiment.
At Queen Mary in 2026, we invite proposals which consider the changing body in performance. Proposals might consider how mourning changes the performing body; the unequal apportionment of death in regimes of colonialism, apartheid, and genocide (Mbembe 2009; 2019); and how ‘certain forms of grief become nationally recognised and amplified whereas other losses become unthinkable and ungrievable’, as in Judith Butler’s Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (2004). Other proposals may probe how ‘instead of overcoming grief’, performance and art may teach us how ‘we learn to live with it’, as in Joshua Chambers-Letson’s forthcoming Unfinished Grief: Queer Love and Loss (2026). Others may consider the aesthetics and politics of agential body modification practices in performance, as in live art, fitness performance cultures, BDSM, drag and cabaret performance.
Whilst explorations of these questions may necessarily invite difficult and painful analyses, we heartily invite explorations of the themes of mourning and modification which approach them with pleasure, fun, and levity; for example, Zarina Muhammad’s recent writing on the ABBA Voyage holds reverence for fleshy bodies in performance and the comic absurdity of the loss of the body to hologram technology.
A list of possible themes and topics include (but are not limited to):
● Live art and body modification: piercing, blood-letting, tattooing, etc
● Shedding in performance: blood, tears, skin, mucus, sweat, hair, piss, shit as materials, as spectacle, as mundane, as costume, as set design, etc
● Letting go and hospicing
● Body building, weight training, physical cultures in/as performance
● Cabaret, drag, burlesque and strip-tease performance
● Performance and the aging body
● Cultural, spiritual and religious practices of transformation
● Costume: adornment, decoration
● Cultivation and shedding in performer training
● Performance and the nude body
● Gender affirming surgeries: trans surgeries, hair transplants, filler/botox etc
● Prostheses in performance
● Avatars and the digital body
● Gender classification and transinclusivity in sport
● Dr Who
● Retirement, reinvention and multi-hyphenate careers
We invite diverse modes of sharing research, including, but not limited to, provocations, practice demonstrations, performative presentations, formal papers. You are welcome to offer a full-length (approximately 15-20 minutes) of one of these forms, or a 5-10 minute ‘flakes and fluff’ or ‘micropresentation’ that offers an opportunity to test out early ideas. 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. Alongside traditional written abstracts, we welcome proposals in alternative forms to support your access, preference and pleasure: e.g. voice notes or videos up to 1.5 minutes in length.
Email bodiesandperf@tapra.org with any queries.
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.
