[2/16] Grotowski: After - Alongside - Around - Ahead

When 15th June 2009
Deadline 16th February 2009

Grotowski: After - Alongside - Around - Ahead serve as an epilogue to the conference Jerzy Grotowski: Theatre and Beyond at the University of Kent (Canterbury, UK). This is the only event planned for the ‘Year of Grotowski’ that specifically focuses on an emerging generation of scholars, researchers and practitioners. The aims of this unique event will be:

• To provide a platform for a new generation of postgraduate students, emerging scholars and practitioners to present their research and encounter each others’ work.


• To develop and expand upon issues raised during the conference.


• To explore new approaches and original ways of articulating, conceptualising, analysing and criticising the practice of Jerzy Grotowski and his collaborators.


• To investigate the intersections with practical and discursive fields of research that have been shaped, influenced and/or engendered by the work of Jerzy Grotowski and his collaborators.

The structure of this symposium will reflect the relationships and productive tensions between the following areas: organicity/precision; memory/impulse; text/song; movement/action; theatre/ritual; intercultural/transcultural; tradition/research; sacred/profane. We invite proposals for academic papers, reflections on practice, work demonstrations, provocations, and creative responses lasting between 15 and 45 minutes.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• How — as performers, directors, writers, students, practitioners, researchers — do we ‘meet’ Grotowski’s creative practice and articulation of practice? What approaches, vocabularies, or modes of critique allow for such a meeting?


• What practical and/or theoretical tools arising from this field are of interest to those currently engaged with performance practice, performance research, and performance studies?


• How do we ‘read’ the texts and practical testimonies of Grotowski and his collaborators today?


• How have the interventions of Grotowski, his collaborators, and those who draw on their work impacted on the various fields of their research? How are Grotowski's insights and challenges being adapted to work in diverse locations and contexts?


• What possibilities exist for the productive exploration of Grotowski’s research through interaction with other disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, or psychology?

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Participants are invited to present at either or both of the above events. Please send a description (no longer than 300 words) of each proposal for the panel and/or the symposium and a brief CV by 16th February 2009 to Pablo Pakula pa67@kent.ac.uk

(Please be aware that there are some logistical limitations on performances and the presentation of practical work. Initial, informal enquiries regarding practice, and the length and possible formats of proposals are very welcome)

Organising committee: Pablo Pakula (UK), Duncan Jamieson (UK), Adela Karsznia (Poland) and Ben Spatz (New York). With the assistance of Professor Paul Allain (UK) and Dr Giuliano Campo (Italy).