Oceanic Performance Biennial 2015 & PSi #21 Fluid States 

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS DUE DATE: OCTOBER 30, 2014

GET PDF VERSION OF CALL HERE: OPB_Call_2015_VOct30

SEE FLUID STATES bLOG HERE: http://www.fluidstates.org/page.php?loc=53&id=55

SUBMIT ABSTRACT VIA THIS LINK: http://www.jotform.co/OPB15/abstract

The Oceanic Performance Biennial is a platform established by the Emergent Ecologies Lab to engage multiple publics in critiques and re-imaginings of the cultural, social, political and environmental ecologies of this region: performance operates as a multi-modal tool that attracts, connects and communicates in playful or affective ways. The Biennial program incorporates free public performance events and workshops and a performance hui that brings together performance practitioners, activists and academics to address Oceanic ecologies.

As an expanded field of flows, Oceania includes those countries and cultures on the ‘edge’ with Pacific Islands at its liquid ‘centre.’ Hosted by different island nations, the Biennial aims to build local capacity and develop Pacific performance and environmental networks.

SEA-CHANGE: PERFORMING A FLUID CONTINENT

The 2015 Oceanic Performance Biennial focuses on the sea as a performative site and changing ecology and calls for work – performances, film, events, installations, performance focused workshops, panels, papers – that address Pacific oceanic ecologies. As the Oceanic region’s contribution to Performance Studies international’s world-wide conference Fluid States, the Biennial links to into a global body of performance work addressing themes of fluidity and change.

Fluid States

Fluid States is Performance Studies international’s year-long globally dispersed conference: PSi is a performance-focused interdisciplinary association that aims to promote exchange among artists, thinkers, activists and academics. Fluid States regional clusters will stage a series of events, actions, meetings and performances throughout 2015 that follow a ‘trajectory from global concerns to local issues’. The global is indexed through the image of the world ocean as a delimited, contested and stratified site that problematizes boundaries and continually redefines limits.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding. Oceania is hospitable and generous. Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Ocean is us. We are the sea, we are the Ocean, we must wake up to this ancient truth … … Epeli Hau’ofa

“… suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange” William Shakespeare

As a liquid continent Oceania images itself through the ocean, te Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa, a connective space of currents, vortices, drifts, suspensions, sediments, tides, foams, and flows that resists fixity, performing in-flux. Oceania, that collection of large-ocean nations, is particularly sensitive to the effects of anthropogenic and highly politicized climate change: as the sea warms, acidifies and plasticizes, sea levels rise and storm energies intensify so the ecologies and economies, the social, political and architectural structures, as well as the geographical limits of islands come increasingly under threat. Yet there is also, now, a sea-change: as communities affirm their place in the ecosystem of the planet and adopt ecologically sensitive practices, as materials begin to be designed or utilised as resource flows within closed loop systems, as low-carbon energy systems begin to power vehicles and buildings, and green infra-structures and urban agricultures start to contribute to a more ecological urbanism, so our contemporary cultures shift.

In this second Oceanic Performance Biennial, Sea-change: Performing in a Fluid Continent, we ask how Pacific-oriented performance studies and practices can disturb, provoke and extend thought and action in relation to the seascape and it’s attendant social and biotic communities.. Performance acts here as a lens through which to see-change, a public presencing through performativity. We call for performance practices – actions, performances, events, installations, exhibitions, films, workshops – that foreground the rich and strange, that focus or activate change in our thoughts, actions or relations. We explore the ocean as origin, immersive medium, life-support system, and mirror – Ocean is us.

CALL DETAILS

COORDINATED FLUID STATES SUBMISSION DATE: OCTOBER 30 2014

Notification of acceptance: November 14 2014

We call for ABSTRACTS for the performance programme and performance hui/symposium.

All submissions should be by the following linkhttp://www.jotform.co/OPB15/abstract

(Note you can load text, images [maximum of 2MB size] and provide links to urls etc)

PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME:

23 July – August 1 2015: Rarotonga

stage 2 detailed proposal due: January 20 2015

stage 2 peer-review and notification: January 25 2015

Abstract: Please submit a 300 word or so short abstract for performance, installation, &/or event proposals using the jotform link above.

Please outline the minimum technical requirements and funding plan.

PERFORMANCE HUI/SYMPOSIUM:

23-25 July 2015: Rarotonga

stage 2 full papers etc due: April 2015

stage 2 abstracts peer-review and notification: April 2015

Abstract:

Please submit a 300 word or so short abstract for full papers, kora [pecha-kucha style presentations], round tables/panels/workshops.

Full papers: these should be submitted subsequent to acceptance of a 300 word abstract and will also be peer-reviewed. Papers will have 20-minute presentation slots within the symposium event with discussion thereafter. More informal or performative methods of presentation are encouraged.

Kora [pecha-kucha style presentations]: 6 minutes or so of still or moving images.

Round tables / panels / workshops: Panels and round table discussions will have 90 or 120 minute time slots within the symposium event.

Virtual: online presentations or digital installations will be considered for inclusion in the event program.

Publication: after the event selected full papers and short papers on performances, panels or round tables will be invited to submit for inclusion in a Journal special issue. These will be subject to double-blind peer review.

QUERIES TO: kiaora@emergentecologies.net or Amanda.Yates@aut.ac.nz

www.emergentecologies.net/OPB