Scholars and practitioners from the IDIERI 10’s Local Sections at Drama for Life, the University of the Witwatersrand and Bangkok University will be speaking in the following programme as part of the online conference, Friday 15th July.
All times are UK (GMT+1 time).
9AM -10.10AM
Local Section: Challenging political apathy in failing nations
Central to socially engaged performance practices is holding the belief that things can get better. How can our practice function and flourish during periods of political, social and economic upheaval? How do we, as applied performance practitioners, maintain the energy of our praxis while always quietly preparing for a life elsewhere?
This panel will investigate the practices that respond to the hardest times of the contemporary moment in South Africa and Thailand, hearing from the recent practice experiences of Local Section facilitators and speakers.
Chair:
Petro Janse van Vuuren
Speakers:
Thiptawan Uchai, Rubkwan Thammaboosadee, Ayanda Khala, Warren Nebe and Carol-Beck Carter.
Haven’t heard of the IDIERI 10 Local Section? Learn more about it here.
10:15AM – 11:30AM
Local Section: Boal’s forum theatre – uncritical or still relevant?
Boal’s methodologies are infamous within our field, often inherited from teachers to students and embedded throughout our industry. Forum theatre or rainbow of desire, for example, are part of a shared vernacular within drama and education, applied performance and drama therapy.
But in practice, how much do these methodologies differ from Boal’s original suggestions? Are we canonising Boal in the same way as we have Stanislavski? Would we be better to demarcate these as our own methodologies, developed for our specific contexts – or is there use in calling on Boal?
The Local Section facilitators and speakers will tackle these questions in this important panel that explores methodological inheritances in South Africa and Thailand.
Chair:
Ayanda Khala
Speakers:
Sonny Chatwiriyachai, Vipatsaya U-poon, Petro Janse van Vuuren and Les Nkosi.
10:15AM – 11:30AM
Local section: Caring for the applied theatre practitioner
This panel turns our gaze from the participant to the practitioner, suggesting new ways of looking after ourselves in the face of challenging physical and psychological work conditions. Applied theatre discourses were largely constructed with the view to exploring the heterogeneity of the participant group, paying little attention to the practitioner. While there have been explorations of the practitioner as an insider or outsider; artist or facilitator, very little attention has been paid to the practitioner’s wellbeing.
This panel sees Local Section facilitators and speakers investigate frameworks and methodologies that place the care of the practitioner at the centre.
Chair:
Lucy Draper-Clarke
Speakers:
Tanatchaporn Kittikong, Welma De Beer, Courage Chinokwetu and Tamara Gordon-Roberts.
1:35PM – 2:50PM
Local Section with IDIERI 10 organisers: A decolonial and/or sustainable conference model? Feedback from the Local Section
Join the scholars and practitioners leading the Local Sections to hear their honest feedback on supporting and being supported in the Local Section programme for IDIERI 10.
The Local Section was developed in response to rising challenges of isolation, immobility and financial loss faced by individuals in the Global South during the pandemic. This panel discussion will explore how it tackled decoloniality through engaging hubs of knowledge in the Global South; supported practice-driven innovation that was epistemologically significant to the context; and modelled approaches to move these knowledges to the centre for the international conference programme. Sustainability, in an environmental sense, will also be investigated in terms beyond the minimisation of carbon emissions.
Chair:
Limpho Kou, practitioner and scholar based at the University of the Witwatersrand
Speakers:
Petro Janse Van Vuuren and Jermaine Johnson,
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Rubkwan Thammaboosadee and Thiptawan Uchai,
Bangkok University, Thailand
The extended session will include an opportunity for Local Section Coordinator Claire French and Conference Convenor Rachel Turner-King to hear your views of the Local Section and how it may be improved for the challenges of our times.
2:55PM – 4:10PM
Local Section: The body in post-pandemic praxis
The pandemic has dramatically altered our bodies’ relationship to our homes, our streets, our workplaces and each other. How might this change create the impetus for new treatments of the body in performance practice? How might we better navigate the world kinetically and sensorially in a post-pandemic praxis?
This panel introduces the pandemic as an opportunity for a paradigm shift for conceptualising our bodies in relation to space, place and people. Local Section facilitators and speakers extrapolate on their investigations of the body in the shifting moments between pandemic and post-pandemic.
Chair:
Nawarit Ritiyotee and Ubonwan Moonkanta
Speakers:
Chaiwat Lochotinant, Namatshego Khutsoane, Hamish Mabala Neill and Lucy Draper-Clarke
4PM – 5:15PM
Local Section, South Africa: Articulating decoloniality for African practices
What are experiences and insights on tackling decoloniality within the African context? How are they perceived as different from the challenges faced by practices in the Global North such as the UK, Australia and the U.S.A? What dialogue should be happening, how should it be designed and who should lead it?
This panel will introduce examples of decolonial and decolonising performance, as articulated by specialists working within southern African contexts. Local Section facilitators and speakers introduce examples from their practices and pose answers to these critical questions of our time.
Chair:
Selloane Mokuku and Claire French
Speakers:
Amelda Brand, Sibongile Bhebhe, Munyaradzi Chatikobo and Selloane Mokuku.