International Conference: Utopia and Performance

Conference

Start date: Thursday 30 September 2021

Time: 13.06

End date: Saturday 2 October 2021

Time: 13.06

Theatre studies at Stockholm University, together with the Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars (ANTS) invite contributions and participants to the conference, 30 sept - 2 oct 2021. This conference was planned for 13 - 15 May 2021, but due to the pandemic it has been postponed to the fall this year.

Sensuous Governing Sensuous City. By: Sisters Hope Photo. Photo: Diana Lindhardt.

UTOPIA AND PERFORMANCE
Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars
Stockholm, 30 September to 2 October 2021

View the keynotes on live stream!

The keynotes and the panel discussion on “Utopia!” will be streamed live via Zoom. To join the webinars please click on the Zoom link of the specific event.

Opening Keynote Willmar Sauter, 30 Sept

Keynote Sean Metzger, 1 Oct

Panel Discussion with artists, 1 Oct

Keynote Susanne Foellmer, 2 Oct

The Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars conference 2021

See all information about the conference at the conference web page

It is nothing like a dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow.
(Victor Hugo)

Utopia is not a kind of free imagination. Utopia is a matter of the innermost urgency. You are forced to imagine it, it is the only way out, and this is what we need today.
(Slavoj Žižek)

The utopia for which I yearn takes place now, in the interstices of present interactions, in glancing moments of possibly better ways to be together as human beings.
(Jill Dolan)

The above quotes represent the main accesses to the concept of utopia that are relevant to both performance practices and critical discourse. While Hugo points to an imaginary future, a vision that will be materialized soon, Žižek argues from the point of view of crisis. And Dolan adds aspects of communality to the idea of utopia. Theatre and performance engage in proposing such utopian visions as a remedy, as a critical stance in times of crisis, as an imaginary flight from straight realisms, as practiced performativities potentially materializing different futures.

For the 2021 Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars (ANTS) conference we invite contributions which investigate all utopian aspects that demonstrate the relevance and also the urge to practice, discuss, rethink and envision theatre and performance in manifold ways. The Theatre and Dance Department at Stockholm University celebrates its 75th anniversary in 2021. With the proposed theme, we also celebrate the Utopian spirit of its foundation and its future.