UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO CENTRE FOR DRAMA, THEATRE, AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES 28th ANNUAL GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE FESTIVAL OF ORIGINAL THEATRE (FOOT) Koffler Student Services Centre, Robert Gill Theatre: 214 College Street, 3rd floor & The Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse: 79 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada 1 FULL CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Description of Cover Image On a light blue background resembling water with sunshine seeping through it, the conference poster is positioned at the centre of the page. It features the conference theme (BODIES IN FLUX), its title (FOOT 2020), and its dates (February 27-28) written in the middle in bold white font. There is a light purple and blue horizontal brushstroke behind the text in the middle of the poster, and a photograph of a dark night sky with small swirling stars as the backdrop. This poster is framed with text written in dark blue: the university, department, and conference titles at the top of the page, and the conference address and venues at the bottom of the page. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS WELCOME FROM THE FOOT 2020 ORGANIZERS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..……4 ABOUT THE CONFERENCE…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….5 ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….……8 LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……9 MAPS: VENUES & LOCATIONS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…...10 ACCESSIBILITY PROTOCOL………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……18 TRAVEL & ACCOMMODATION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19 LOCAL RESOURCES FOOD & DRINK…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….21 VISITING TORONTO…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..……..….24 SCHEDULE-IN-BRIEF………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..27 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS KEYNOTE LECTURE: DR. REBECCA SCHNEIDER (BROWN UNIVERSITY)……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….31 FEATURED PANEL & MAGAZINE LAUNCH: THE INSTITUTE FOR DANCE STUDIES AND THE DANCE CURRENT…………..……………………………..32 FEATURED FACULTY LECTURE: DR. TERRY ROBINSON (UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO)……………………………………………………………………………………………….33 FULL SCHEDULE………………………………..…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..….34 PARTNERS & SPONSORS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..77 SPECIAL THANKS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...78 CONTACT US…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………79 3 WELCOME FROM THE FOOT 2020 ORGANIZERS Welcome to the 28th iteration of the Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT): BODIES IN FLUX. FOOT is the annual conference held by the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. The theme of FOOT changes every year, according to the research interests of the new artistic director and organizers of the conference, but its main yearly goal is to provide graduate students and the performing arts community an academic outlet to showcase, critique, review, perform, discuss, and analyze the changing world of drama, theatre and performance. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the many students and faculty who have helped make this conference possible by generously volunteering their time, efforts, and expertise toward the shaping of this event. Their work is evident in every aspect of the conference: in the exciting paper panels, workshops, performances, and special presentations that fill this schedule. With your help, we have been able to build a jam-packed and lively day-and-a-half of programming which speaks to the continued need for conversations around the ebb and flow of embodiment theories and practices in the performing arts. We sincerely look forward to chatting with all of you over the duration of the conference and learning more about your exciting research and creative projects which are molding the future direction of our industry. Please remember to join us on the evening of Thursday, February 27 at the Robert Gill Theatre for our Opening Remarks and a highly anticipated Keynote Lecture by Dr. Rebecca Schneider (Brown University), followed by a catered reception to celebrate this opportunity to connect over our shared interests. Thank you so much for your interest in BODIES IN FLUX: FOOT 2020. See you there! Warmly, Caitlin Gowans, Giorelle Diokno, Elif Işıközlü, Anna Paliy The FOOT 2020 Organizational Team 4 ABOUT THE CONFERENCE 1. OUR HISTORY: PAST ITERATIONS FOOT celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2017 with the theme Sounding the Inner Ear of Performance, an interdisciplinary exploration of the history and evolution of sound and aurality in theatrical and performative cultures. Two years ago, FOOT 2018: Supporting Bodies / Changing Minds explored the inquiry: “How can drama, theatre and performance studies contribute to a barrier-free society?” The organizing team made accessibility and accommodations a central concern of the conference, an approach we aim to carry forward with us during this and future festivals. Last year, FOOT 2019 titled the conference Equity and Diversity in Performance, and asked the question: What is the changing relationship of drama, theatre, and performance to practices which centralize equity through intersectionality? See some past iterations of FOOT here: FOOT 2019: Equity and Diversity in Performance: https://foot2019.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2018: Supporting Bodies/Changing Minds: https://uoftfoot2018.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2017: Sounding the Inner Ear of Performance: https://foot2017.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2016: Staging Realities: https://2016foot.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2015: Queer(ing) Performance on Stage and in Everyday Life: https://foot2015.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2014: Breaking the Body’s Boundaries: https://foot2014.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2013: Theatre & Technology: https://foot2013.wordpress.com/ FOOT 2012: Theatre & Learning: https://foot2012.wordpress.com/ 5 2. THIS YEAR’S THEME BODIES IN FLUX: FOOT 2020 seeks to address the following questions: How do we theorize bodies as a process: as a performance as well as a performer? How are bodies created and transformed through performances: through perceptions, receptions, and theorizations of them? We intend for bodies in the above question to be figured broadly. With advances in AI, multimedia, and digitization in performance it is increasingly becoming necessary to reevaluate how we perceive and understand both liveness and human-ness on stage. We are encountering new ways in which bodies are formed, transform, and perform on stage. In addition to the focus on live human bodies on stage in studies of drama, theatre, and performance, we also apply the term “bodies” to bodies of text, governing bodies, bodies of knowledge, etc. Additionally, popular theories and bodies of thought available to us are given the prefix “post” such as postmodern, postcolonial, postfeminist, posthuman. This conference will create a space in which we pause to consider how we have arrived in these theoretical milieus (if indeed we have). This conference will be an event in which scholars and practitioners who address the body in its many varied conceptions in research, artistic investigations, and other enquiries share their methods and findings with each other to uncover common ground as well as telling differences. The possibilities for being in and being as human bodies are radically changing in social, political, geographic, philosophical, and technological ways (to name only a few). This conference will provide the opportunity to pause in the midst of this flux to take stock of the ways in which we account for transforming corporealities in theory and in practice. The Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT) began as a graduate student-led initiative to showcase dramatic works. The conference has since grown to include not only performances but academic papers, panels, workshops, and working groups. FOOT welcomes both artistic and scholarly submissions of any type. These may take the form of performances, scholarly papers, workshops, working groups, studio working groups, pre-curated panels, roundtables, staged readings, works of art, installations, and any creative or embodied exploration of the annual theme. In the case of performances, we encourage submissions of low or no tech pieces. 6 This year, our call for proposals stated that possible topics might include but are certainly not limited to: • Bodies in performance and on stage • Bodies of text and bodies of knowledge and the ways in which they shift over time • Altern or othered bodies • Bodied and embodied work • AI and technology in performance • Augmented bodies in performance • Sexed and gendered bodies • Racialized bodies • Enhanced bodies • Post theories • Posthuman and transhuman bodies • Bodies in transit – migrating, traveling, or itinerant bodies • Cyborg or hybrid bodies • Trans* and queer concerns related to the study of bodies 7 ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS Hi everyone! We are the BODIES IN FLUX team, and we are very excited to bring FOOT 2020 to you this upcoming February. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions! We can be contacted by e-mail via [email protected]. Caitlin Gowans Giorelle Diokno Head Organizer Logistics and Venues Doctoral Candidate, PhD3 Coordinator Pronouns: She/Her Doctoral Candidate, PhD4 Pronouns: He/Him, They/Them Anna Paliy Elif Işıközlü Communications