Performance Research

Volume 13, No. 2 (June 2008) ‘On Choreography’

Issue Editors: Ric Allsopp & André Lepecki

CALL FOR PAPERS

In the contexts of European performance arts in particular, choreography as a term and as a field of activity has shifted radically since the 1990s. Stable and historical definitions of choreography as inscriptions of movement characterized through compositional approaches to bodily movement in time and space, have moved towards choreographic approaches that question such normative relationships between movement, composition and the production of dance, and expand the notion of choreography as an art that includes a wider range of conceptual tools, materials and strategies.

This shift towards the conceptualization of choreography in terms other than or additional to the arrangement of bodily movement, has produced a range of performance work (inclusive of such diverse practitioners as Alice Chauchat, Jerome Bel, Marten Spangberg, Vera Mantero, Xavier Le Roy, Meg Stuart, Thomas Lehmen, Matthew Goulish, BADCo, Jonathan Burrows, William Forsythe) that suggests that choreography is a field of contemporary arts practice that provides not only vectors for new forms of trans-disciplinary arts research but also a locus for questioning the orthodoxies of contemporary art work and practice. Through this work choreography can now be seen to invoke, recuperate and incorporate other forms of cultural practice (both historical and contemporary).

If choreography begins to challenge conceptions of how bodily movement produces dance as an object, then it also asks a number of questions which challenge assumptions about dance and body-based education: Where is the space of choreography? What concepts of dance, of performance, are proposed by particular choreographic ideas? How does choreography relate to notions of language, critical theory, theatricality, textual practice, performance, digital media, the exploration of cognitive and physical states? How is choreography informed through engagement with other critical vocabularies, for example walking, exhaustion, immateriality, assemblage, haunting, stillness, speech, joy, mis-guiding, mimicry, power, silence or dust?

‘On Choreography’ invites artists, practitioners and theorists to submit critical articles, documents, or artist’s pages which position choreography in relation to the contexts and discourses of contemporary culture, to expanded and open concepts of performance and performance-making and in relation to an expanded view of what choreography might mean now as a generative, productive, or even redundant term.

Deadlines for issue 13:2 are as follows:

Proposals: September 7th 2007

Draft manuscripts: December 2nd 2007

Finalised material: February 1st 2008

Publication Date: June 2008

Please note that the transfer of the Administration of the Journal from Dartington to Aberystwyth will be effective from July 2007. Hence, ALL proposals, submissions and general enquiries should be sent direct to:

Sandra Laureri
Administrative Assistant - Performance Research
Centre for Performance Research (CPR)
Aberystwyth
SY23 3AJ
Wales, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1970 628716
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622132

Email: performance-research@aber.ac.uk
Web: www.performance-research.net

Editorial enquires should be directed to Ric Allsopp ricallsopp@mac.com or André Lepecki Andre.lepecki@nyu.edu

General Guidelines for Submissions http://www.performance-research.net/pages/guidelines.html

Performance Research is MAC based. Proposals will be accepted in hard copy, on CD or by e-mail (MS-Word or RTF). Please DO NOT send images electronically without prior agreement.

Please note that submission of a proposal will be taken to imply that it presents original, unpublished work not under consideration for publication elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, the author(s) agree that the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article have been given to Performance Research.