8am-9am Arrival and registration
Venue: Room 327 Sir Robert Webster Building
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
University of New South Wales
GETTING TO UNSW
Please see bus travel guide here
Please see general travel information here
DIRECTIONS ON CAMPUS
Please see printable campus map here [building G14]
Or interactive map here [type in Sir Robert Webster]
*DRAFT PROGRAM*
Session #1 9am-9.40: Approaches to performing trauma
Keynote: Helena Grehan (Murdoch University)
Aalst: acts of evil, ambivalence and responsibility
Panel: 9.40-11am
Professor Michael Balfour (Griffith University)
No place like home: the (re)creating of identity in refugee performance
Xris Reardon (Third Way Theatre)
No right, no wrong: silencing or voicing disruptive truths; working with communities of memory
Jeff Stewart (University of Sydney)
With Others
Sarah Woodland (Griffith University)
Theatre, Autobiography and Trauma
MORNING TEA 11am-11.20am: lobby space Robert Webster Building 327
Session #2 11.20-12.20: Community, Memory, Geography
Keynote: Urban Theatre projects Roslyn Oades, Tim Carroll and Alicia Talbot
Title TBA
Panel: 12.20-1.30
Russell Rodrigo (UNSW)
Cultural Trauma & Urban Performance: Ground Zero, ‘Tribute in Light’ & the Spectacle of Memory
Sam Spurr and Adrian Lahoud (UTS)
Post-traumatic urbanism
Lycia Trouton (COFA)
The Linen Memorial as a 'national apology' and as architectonic and interactive, within the context of post-conflict (but still conflicted) Northern Ireland
LUNCH 1.30-2pm: lobby space Robert Webster Building 327
Session 3 2pm-2.40: Prosthetic memories and popular culture
Keynote 3: Paula Hamilton (UTS)
Title TBA
Panel: 2.40-4pm
Angela Campbell (Murdoch University)
Performance, Trauma and the Archive: Georgiana Molloy and the Code of Modernity
Emily Blayney
‘Waking up the Colours’: Trauma and performativity in Iranian rap
Louise Malcolm (UNSW)
Affective Intertext: films, performers and spectators
David Williams (University of Sydney, Version 1.0)
Deeply personal national traumas: the “disgusting and opportunistic farce” of version 1.0’s From a distance… (2006)
AFTERNOON TEA 4pm-4.30pm: NIDA (National Insititute of Dramatic Art)
4.30pm Remembering Nick Enright Book Launch with Professor Peta Tait (La Trobe)
5.30pm informal drinks at a venue nearby [TBA]
Welcome
Welcome to the After Effects Symposium blog-website. Please scroll down for information on the draft program, UNSW orientation, travel, accommodation, and other information you may need for the day.
Registration and participation
There is no registration fee for this event and the event organisers welcome non-presenting participants. Please send us an email indicating your interest in attending.
Date
Friday November 28, 2008
Venue
Level 3, Room 327
Sir Robert Webster Building
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
University of New South Wales
Sir Robert Webster Building
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
University of New South Wales
Program
8am-9am Arrival and registration
Lobby, Level 3
Robert Webster Building
Session #1: Approaches to Performing Trauma
Keynote 9am-9.40am Helena Grehan (Murdoch University)
Aalst: acts of evil, ambivalence and responsibility
Panel: 9.40am-11am [discussant Helena Grehan]
Professor Michael Balfour (Griffith University)
No place like home: the (re)creating of identity in refugee performance
Xris Reardon (Third Way Theatre)
No right, no wrong: silencing or voicing disruptive truths; working with communities of memory
David Williams (University of Sydney, Version 1.0)
Deeply personal national traumas: the “disgusting and opportunistic farce” of version 1.0’s From a distance… (2006)
Sarah Woodland (Griffith University)
Theatre, Autobiography and Trauma
MORNING TEA 11am-11.20am
Lobby, Robert Webster Building 327
Session #2: Community, Memory, Geography
Keynote 11.20am-12.20pm Urban Theatre Projects
(Roslyn Oades, Tim Carroll & Alicia Talbot)
UTP, Community Engagement and Performing Trauma
Panel: 12.20pm-1.30pm [discussant Meg Mumford]
Russell Rodrigo (UNSW)
Cultural Trauma & Urban Performance: Ground Zero, ‘Tribute in Light’ & the Spectacle of Memory
Sam Spurr and Adrian Lahoud (UTS)
Post-traumatic urbanism
Jeff Stewart (University of Sydney)
With Others
LUNCH 1.30pm-2pm
Lobby, Robert Webster Building 327
Session #3: Postmemories and Popular Culture
Keynote 2pm-2.40pm Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan)
The Anarcha Project: Disability Culture, African-American Culture, Medical History, and the Performance of Memory
See: http://liminalities.net/4-2/
Panel: 2.40pm-3.50pm [discussant Petra Kuppers]
Angela Campbell (Murdoch University)
Performance, Trauma and the Archive: Georgiana Molloy and the Code of Modernity
Louise Malcolm (UNSW)
Affective Intertext: films, performers and spectators
Emily Blayney
Waking up the Colours’: Trauma and performativity in Iranian rap
INFORMAL DRINKS & BOOK LAUNCH 4pm
'Remembering Nick Enright' with an appearance by Tony Sheldon Nancy Fairfax Foyer, NIDA
Nick Enright: An Actor's Playwright by Anne Pender and Susan Lever (Rodopi, 2008)
Lobby, Level 3
Robert Webster Building
Session #1: Approaches to Performing Trauma
Keynote 9am-9.40am Helena Grehan (Murdoch University)
Aalst: acts of evil, ambivalence and responsibility
Panel: 9.40am-11am [discussant Helena Grehan]
Professor Michael Balfour (Griffith University)
No place like home: the (re)creating of identity in refugee performance
Xris Reardon (Third Way Theatre)
No right, no wrong: silencing or voicing disruptive truths; working with communities of memory
David Williams (University of Sydney, Version 1.0)
Deeply personal national traumas: the “disgusting and opportunistic farce” of version 1.0’s From a distance… (2006)
Sarah Woodland (Griffith University)
Theatre, Autobiography and Trauma
MORNING TEA 11am-11.20am
Lobby, Robert Webster Building 327
Session #2: Community, Memory, Geography
Keynote 11.20am-12.20pm Urban Theatre Projects
(Roslyn Oades, Tim Carroll & Alicia Talbot)
UTP, Community Engagement and Performing Trauma
Panel: 12.20pm-1.30pm [discussant Meg Mumford]
Russell Rodrigo (UNSW)
Cultural Trauma & Urban Performance: Ground Zero, ‘Tribute in Light’ & the Spectacle of Memory
Sam Spurr and Adrian Lahoud (UTS)
Post-traumatic urbanism
Jeff Stewart (University of Sydney)
With Others
LUNCH 1.30pm-2pm
Lobby, Robert Webster Building 327
Session #3: Postmemories and Popular Culture
Keynote 2pm-2.40pm Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan)
The Anarcha Project: Disability Culture, African-American Culture, Medical History, and the Performance of Memory
See: http://liminalities.net/4-2/
Panel: 2.40pm-3.50pm [discussant Petra Kuppers]
Angela Campbell (Murdoch University)
Performance, Trauma and the Archive: Georgiana Molloy and the Code of Modernity
Louise Malcolm (UNSW)
Affective Intertext: films, performers and spectators
Emily Blayney
Waking up the Colours’: Trauma and performativity in Iranian rap
INFORMAL DRINKS & BOOK LAUNCH 4pm
'Remembering Nick Enright' with an appearance by Tony Sheldon Nancy Fairfax Foyer, NIDA
Nick Enright: An Actor's Playwright by Anne Pender and Susan Lever (Rodopi, 2008)
Information on the keynote presenters
Dr Helena Grehan
Helena Grehan teaches in the English and Creative Arts Program at Murdoch University. She is the author of Mapping Cultural Identity in Contemporary Australian Performance. Helena’s research interests include: performance, spectatorship and representation, race and interculturalism and questions of ethics and responsibility. Her current book Performance, Ethics and Spectatorship in a Global Age will be published in early 2009.
Aalst: acts of evil, ambivalence and responsibility
This paper takes the symposium's title 'After Effects' as its point of departure to consider both the possibility and the complexity of a response (or set of responses) to the performance Aalst. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas I explore the concepts of witnessing, responsibility, ambivalence and ethics and consider how spectators attempt to make sense of, or judge, such difficult and potentially manipulative work. Through a detailed reading of Aalst, larger questions about the possibility of a theatre that attempts to 'bear witness', about the relationships between witnessing and spectatorship, and about the role of theatre more broadly are raised. These are questions central to the discipline in these uneasy times, and questions that are channeled through an engagement with spectatorship, as an involved and, at times, radically ambivalent activity.
Associate Professor Petra Kuppers
Petra Kuppers is a disability culture activist, a community artist, Artistic Director of The Olimpias (www.olimpias.org) and Associate Professor of English, Theatre and Dance and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge (Routledge, 2003), The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Arts (Minnesota, 2007) and Community Performance: An Introduction (Routledge, 2007).
The Anarcha Project: Disability Culture, African-American Culture, Medical History, and the Performance of Memory
This paper presents an overview of a US community performance project, the Anarcha Project, which interrogated issues of racialisation, disability, inequality and history. In the 1840s, a gynecologist experimented on slave women in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2006/7/8, contemporary disability culture activists, black activists, artists, healers, students and scholars came together in community residencies across the nation to remember the intertwined histories of slavery, medicine, race and disability definitions, and to witness their ongoing reverberations in our lives. Performance, art practice, and creative writing became the tools to imagine pasts, presents and futures differently. For web performance traces of this project, see Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, http://liminalities.net/4-2/
Urban Theatre Projects and BYDS
Alicia Talbot, Roslyn Oades, and Tim Carroll
Urban Theatre Projects creates distinctive new performances for Australian and international audiences that reflect stories and images of contemporary life. Engaging with diverse cultures and communities, the company explores new territory in contemporary arts practice and collaborative processes, through a synthesis of artists, sites, ideas and public dialogue. Collaborators Roslyn Oades and Tim Carroll will join UTP artistic director Alicia Talbot in a discussion on their individual approaches to work made in consultation and dialogue with communities.
UTP, Community Engagement and Performing Trauma
Roslyn and Tim are known for their use of extensive recorded interview process, which has led to the creation of two innovative verbatim theatre projects. Using a paperless writing process, audio scripts are constructed from carefully edited interviews with community members. The audio script is then performed by actors wearing headphones, embodying those real-life stories word for word and with absolute precision, including every cough, stumble and interruption. A new work, Stories of Love & Hate, aims to provide genuine empathy and access to the hearts of Sydney residents directly affected by the Cronulla riots - as well as a candid dialogue between some of the ongoing conflicting emotional issues at its core.
Alicia's body of work traces an ongoing cycle of trauma and healing, and offers an insight to the dreaming and despair of individuals. A key feature of Alicia's theatre-making process is devising new works with a professional team of artists, in consultation with community members. Community consultants are positioned as experts within the process and invited to critically feed back and contribute to the material created by the artistic team. Her work includes the trilogy The Cement Garage, The Longest Night (both part of the Adelaide Festival 2002), and Back Home (Sydney Festival 2006). Her most recent work The Last Highway premiered as part of the Sydney Festival 2008.
Helena Grehan teaches in the English and Creative Arts Program at Murdoch University. She is the author of Mapping Cultural Identity in Contemporary Australian Performance. Helena’s research interests include: performance, spectatorship and representation, race and interculturalism and questions of ethics and responsibility. Her current book Performance, Ethics and Spectatorship in a Global Age will be published in early 2009.
Aalst: acts of evil, ambivalence and responsibility
This paper takes the symposium's title 'After Effects' as its point of departure to consider both the possibility and the complexity of a response (or set of responses) to the performance Aalst. Drawing on the work of Giorgio Agamben, Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas I explore the concepts of witnessing, responsibility, ambivalence and ethics and consider how spectators attempt to make sense of, or judge, such difficult and potentially manipulative work. Through a detailed reading of Aalst, larger questions about the possibility of a theatre that attempts to 'bear witness', about the relationships between witnessing and spectatorship, and about the role of theatre more broadly are raised. These are questions central to the discipline in these uneasy times, and questions that are channeled through an engagement with spectatorship, as an involved and, at times, radically ambivalent activity.
Associate Professor Petra Kuppers
Petra Kuppers is a disability culture activist, a community artist, Artistic Director of The Olimpias (www.olimpias.org) and Associate Professor of English, Theatre and Dance and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge (Routledge, 2003), The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Arts (Minnesota, 2007) and Community Performance: An Introduction (Routledge, 2007).
The Anarcha Project: Disability Culture, African-American Culture, Medical History, and the Performance of Memory
This paper presents an overview of a US community performance project, the Anarcha Project, which interrogated issues of racialisation, disability, inequality and history. In the 1840s, a gynecologist experimented on slave women in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2006/7/8, contemporary disability culture activists, black activists, artists, healers, students and scholars came together in community residencies across the nation to remember the intertwined histories of slavery, medicine, race and disability definitions, and to witness their ongoing reverberations in our lives. Performance, art practice, and creative writing became the tools to imagine pasts, presents and futures differently. For web performance traces of this project, see Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, http://liminalities.net/4-2/
Urban Theatre Projects and BYDS
Alicia Talbot, Roslyn Oades, and Tim Carroll
Urban Theatre Projects creates distinctive new performances for Australian and international audiences that reflect stories and images of contemporary life. Engaging with diverse cultures and communities, the company explores new territory in contemporary arts practice and collaborative processes, through a synthesis of artists, sites, ideas and public dialogue. Collaborators Roslyn Oades and Tim Carroll will join UTP artistic director Alicia Talbot in a discussion on their individual approaches to work made in consultation and dialogue with communities.
UTP, Community Engagement and Performing Trauma
Roslyn and Tim are known for their use of extensive recorded interview process, which has led to the creation of two innovative verbatim theatre projects. Using a paperless writing process, audio scripts are constructed from carefully edited interviews with community members. The audio script is then performed by actors wearing headphones, embodying those real-life stories word for word and with absolute precision, including every cough, stumble and interruption. A new work, Stories of Love & Hate, aims to provide genuine empathy and access to the hearts of Sydney residents directly affected by the Cronulla riots - as well as a candid dialogue between some of the ongoing conflicting emotional issues at its core.
Alicia's body of work traces an ongoing cycle of trauma and healing, and offers an insight to the dreaming and despair of individuals. A key feature of Alicia's theatre-making process is devising new works with a professional team of artists, in consultation with community members. Community consultants are positioned as experts within the process and invited to critically feed back and contribute to the material created by the artistic team. Her work includes the trilogy The Cement Garage, The Longest Night (both part of the Adelaide Festival 2002), and Back Home (Sydney Festival 2006). Her most recent work The Last Highway premiered as part of the Sydney Festival 2008.
Call for papers
After Effects investigates the role of performance and performativity within contemporary trauma culture. In the field of memory and trauma studies there is now a substantial discourse on how to represent absence and violence and how to respond to these representations. Theories of performance and performativity supplement this discussion by foregrounding models of witnessing, embodiment and rehearsal to examine why and how artists represent memory and trauma and what these representations do in the world. For some, performance provides a social space in which to act out as well as work through personal memory and trauma. For others, performance facilitates processes of surrogacy and substitution: it is a place to create prosthetic memories and to produce proxy witnesses. We invite scholars to think through these issues across a wide range of performative, cinematic, visual, literary or architectural media.
As a symposium-masterclass, After Effects seeks to assemble both leading and emerging thinkers in trauma and memory studies for a day of discussion and debate. Panellists will be asked to present 10 minute versions of pre-submitted papers, to aid a workshop and dialogue process. We invite contributors to consider the performative effects of:
- national apologies;
- post-colonial and post-post-colonial perspectives;
- ceremonies of reparation and public memorials;
- documentary, verbatim, and testimonial aesthetics;
- ‘trauma porn’ and the memory rituals of popular culture;
- false memory, false witness, postmemory and perjury;
- fictocritical writing practices and prosthetic voices;
- witnessing in/as/through performance;
- states and sites of re-enactment;
- mediatised witnessing and global performance;
- archival remains, hidden histories;
- new modes of perception and spectatorship;
- posttraumatic modes of narration, narratives of terror;
- human rights theatre, communities of memory;
- narratives of trauma in the Global South;
- affective engagements;
- the contaminated logics of the postmodern and posttraumatic;
- the parallel fortunes of performance studies and trauma studies.
As a symposium-masterclass, After Effects seeks to assemble both leading and emerging thinkers in trauma and memory studies for a day of discussion and debate. Panellists will be asked to present 10 minute versions of pre-submitted papers, to aid a workshop and dialogue process. We invite contributors to consider the performative effects of:
- national apologies;
- post-colonial and post-post-colonial perspectives;
- ceremonies of reparation and public memorials;
- documentary, verbatim, and testimonial aesthetics;
- ‘trauma porn’ and the memory rituals of popular culture;
- false memory, false witness, postmemory and perjury;
- fictocritical writing practices and prosthetic voices;
- witnessing in/as/through performance;
- states and sites of re-enactment;
- mediatised witnessing and global performance;
- archival remains, hidden histories;
- new modes of perception and spectatorship;
- posttraumatic modes of narration, narratives of terror;
- human rights theatre, communities of memory;
- narratives of trauma in the Global South;
- affective engagements;
- the contaminated logics of the postmodern and posttraumatic;
- the parallel fortunes of performance studies and trauma studies.
