The CSPA organizes annual convergences that gather industry leaders, educators, students and the general public to share ideas and celebrate the years innovations. We gather at existing or established conferences, festivals and events to create direct response projects that help to visualize and sometimes problematize various forms of impact.
2020 CONVERGENCES
April 23rd – 25, 2020 // Ecosomatics Symposium
Pierce Cedar Creek Institute in Michigan
The symposium invites creators/critics of performance, movement, somatic training, writing, and visual/social practice related to emergent genres such as solarpunk, climate fiction, eco-arts, and interspecies dialogue, and their relationships to social justice organizing and experimental practice. The academic aims of this project make interventions into disabled futurities (Kafer, 2014), kinship networks (Haraway, 2016), and organizing (brown, 2017), and extend the discussions begun in our Movement,Somatics and Writing symposium (2010) and in the collection Somatic Engagement(Kuppers, ed., Chainlinks, 2011).
The symposium hopes to be a training ground and a research site where we figure out how participatory and artistic practices can allow us to feel things and livelinesses differently, and how we can invent new appreciation and embodiment practices for human and other eco-diversities. We will be in praxis together. Thus, we are not looking for papers, finished performances, portfolios, or readings; we plan to experiment. Come and share the excitement of your creative and critical research, and present an (indoor or outdoor) generative workshop, exercise, or technique session based on your passions. Keep in mind that our host is a nature centre, environmental education centre, and biological field station, and won’t have particular performance technologies. We will provide disability access (please let us know of your needs).
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/05/27/ecosomatics-symposium
2018 Convergences
April 20-22, 2018 // Earth Matters On Stage
Anchorage, Alaska
The mission of EMOS’ Ecodrama Playwrights Festival is to call forth and foster new dramatic works that respond to the ecological crisis, and that explore new possibilities of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. The Festival is ten days of readings, workshop performance/s, and discussions of the scripts that are finalists in the Playwrights Contest. Some readings and workshops will be followed by facilitated talkbacks with the playwrights. In addition, a symposium on the second weekend of the Festival includes speakers, panels and discussions that will advance scholarship in the area of arts and ecology, and help foster development of new works.
https://www.earthmattersonstage.com/
2014 CONVERGENCES
February 2 -5 // Staging Sustainability 2014
Staging Sustainability 2014: People. Planet. Profit. Performance will be an international conference from February 2-5, 2014 hosted at three exciting downtown Toronto venues, the MaRS Discovery District, 99 Sudbury, The Theatre Centre, and streamed to satellite locations across Canada.
Staging Sustainability 2014 will introduce you to ground breakers working across Canada, on Broadway, in London, in community gardens, as well as all points in-between, to remake the way we work in the performing arts. It will be the largest gathering of innovative sustainability practitioners in the world to focus on ways in which performance can positively affect our planet. We invite performing arts professionals including producers performers, technicians, funders, decision makers, and anyone interested in how the performing arts can support sustainability efforts, to attend Staging Sustainability 2014.
Performance has always been about how the work affects people. Now we are ready to look at how our performances can affect a sustainable world.
http://www.stagingsustainability.ca/
2013 CONVERGENCES
SEPTEMBER 5 – 15 // WORLD STAGE DESIGN 2013
Cardiff, Wales, UK
These workshops and presentations are for anyone interested in considering the issues of sustainability within their work. Curious about how reused and eco-materials impact design and construction? Or the future of new energy efficient lighting technology? Intrigued by new work that explores issues of social justice and the environment? Interested in tools and best practices to monitor the carbon footprint of your facility or productions? Perplexed by how these tie together? Join us for a cross section of programming that highlights performances, place and interconnectedness in the wider world.
http://www.wsd2013.com/scenofest/people-profit-planet/
2012 CONVERGENCES
APRIL 25-MAY 6 // FUSEBOX FESTIVAL
Austin, TX
The Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts is partnering with the FUSEBOX festival to creatively evaluate and explore both the environmental and cultural impacts of producing a festival. The project will involve all members of the festival’s community: artists, audiences, local business, and staff, and will gather information through both direct surveys and external study. The result will be a live, interactive, dynamic data visualization that will be accessible online and in the festival hub.
APRIL 30- MAY 1 // Sustainability in Theater: People, Planet, Profit, Purpose
Minneapolis, MN & Online
The first U.S. national Sustainability in Theater conference was presented by the Minnesota Theater Alliance and the Twin Cities Sustainable Theatres Group at Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis, April 30 and May 1, 2012. The event was Webcast live by QwikCast on April 30, and 11 breakout panels were live online for interactive participation through Google+ Hangouts on May 1.
Locally, there were 90 attendees, including many individual artists, and representing 60 different organizations. Online, there were 30 attendees representing 20 different organizations, 9 U.S. states, and 4 countries.
http://minnesotatheateralliance.org/sit/about.html
SUMMER 2012 // Earth Matters On Stage
Pittsburgh, PA
The mission of EMOS Ecodrama Playwrights Festival is to call forth and foster new dramatic works that respond to the ecological crisis, and that explore new possibilities of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. The Festival is ten days of readings, workshop performance/s, and discussions of the scripts that are finalists in the Playwrights Contest. Some readings and workshops will be followed by facilitated talkbacks with the playwrights. In addition, a symposium on the second weekend of the Festival includes speakers, panels and discussions that will advance scholarship in the area of arts and ecology, and help foster development of new works.
https://www.earthmattersonstage.com/
2011 CONVERGENCES
June 2011 // Prague Quadrennial
Prague, Czech Republic
Our auction of used materials from the entire Prague Quadrennial will take place on 26 June, starting at 1pm in the Lecture Hall of the Veletržní Palace. We will be auctioning off everything that was on display at the exhibition and that might find some use, to that we don’t have to throw away any material: furniture, decorations, mannequins, fibreboard, barrels, carpets, accessories and curiosities… everything for the taking for your home or studio! The bidding starts at zero crowns. Come and use our stuff so it doesn’t end up in the trash!
http://www.pq.cz/en/pq-auction-pq-recycles.html
2009 Convergences
May 21 – 31 // Earth Matters On Stage
Eugene, OR
The mission of EMOS’ Ecodrama Playwrights Festival is to call forth and foster new dramatic works that respond to the ecological crisis, and that explore new possibilities of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. The Festival is ten days of readings, workshop performance/s, and discussions of the scripts that are finalists in the Playwrights Contest. Some readings and workshops will be followed by facilitated talkbacks with the playwrights. In addition, a symposium on the second weekend of the Festival includes speakers, panels and discussions that will advance scholarship in the area of arts and ecology, and help foster development of new works.