CFP: JDTC SPECIAL SECTION FOR SPRING 2021, #PERFORMATIVE

The annual SCUDD conference will take place online on Thursday 24th and Friday 25th June 2021.

The aim of this conference is to bring together artists, academics, and students to think together about the politics of inclusion: its opportunities, challenges, and limits. The conference begins with a sense that institutional work on diversity and inclusion has tended to rearrange the deckchairs but leave the ship intact and on course for disaster. This conference seeks to identify and interrogate inequalities of access, safety, and opportunity across experiences of exclusion. The purpose here is to identify both the specificities of lived experiences of structural and systemic exclusion but also to look across exclusory practices and phenomena to build resistive solidarities. Moreover, the conference will debate what it might mean to shift the conversation away from inclusion, which retains a sense of the centre enveloping the margin, and instead think through the possibilities for our campuses and our industry to become sites of anti-exclusion.

The Standing Conference of University Drama Departments (SCUDD) represents the interests of Drama, Theatre and Performance in the Higher Education sector in the UK. SCUDD acts as a mediator with bodies such as funding councils, the AHRC and the Arts Councils and is consulted by such organisations when matters of future policy are discussed and decided. Its annual conference concerns topics, issues and debates relevant to those working in drama, theatre and performance in HE. This year’s conference will make space for reflections on working in our field during covid-19 and will continue discussions around advocacy for – and threats to – the discipline. As part of the conference, SCUDD’s AGM will take place.

Hosts: This year’s conference will be hosted online by Theatre and Performance Studies and the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures at the University of Warwick. Organising the conference are Dr Anna Harpin, Dr David Coates, Dr Ronan Hatfull and Alice Golisano from Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick.

Registration: The conference will take place on Zoom. To register for this event, click here. This link should take you to our Eventbrite registration form. A Zoom link will be sent to all delegates 24 hours before the conference begins.

Programme: A full programme with paper titles, speaker bios, abstracts and so on can be viewed using the button below:

Joining Instructions: The conference panels and events will be held on Zoom. All registered delegates will be sent a link to join the day’s session within 24 hours of the conference starting. There will be a different Zoom link per day of the event. A third zoom link will be used for the AGM.

Annual General Meeting (AGM): The SCUDD AGM is held as part of the conference. This will take place on Thursday 24th June from 4-5.30pm. This meeting will be available by a separate Zoom link, which has been circulated to all SCUDD Reps and to all registered delegates.

Protocols and Accessibility: The Zoom sessions will be set up as ‘meetings’ rather than ‘webinars’. This means that you’ll be able to control your own microphone and camera settings. You’ll also be able to see and hear other delegates, to give the sense that we’re all sharing the same space. We ask that delegates turn their cameras off while presenters are speaking and that they only turn microphones on when they are presenting or asking a question. Sessions will not be recorded and shared after the event.

All speakers will provide a very brief audio description of their appearance for any delegates who have visual disabilities. Live captioning will be turned on throughout. Speakers and delegates are asked to put their pronouns in their Zoom names if that feels helpful for them or others. We are also giving you the option to ask questions either by raising your digital hands or by using the chat function, to support those who may, for various reasons, prefer one method over another.

If you have any access issues that you would like to make us aware of, please don’t hesitate to contact us ahead of the event to let us know. Please use [email protected].

Performance: We are very excited to be able to share an exclusive documentary film of Still House’s fantastic piece SESSION, made in collaboration with Steppaz and Empire Sounds. All registered delegates can access the piece using the link circulated via email.

This dance party, gig, and social was led by an ensemble of young dancers who move across hip hop, contemporary folk, and Afrobeats to celebrate community, youth, and belonging. Please watch this in advance of the live event on Thursday.

At 7.30pm on Thursday evening we will be joined by the artistic director of Still House and the artists involved in the company’s current project In the Letting Go – a dance exploration of masculinity, power, and love. The evening event will comprise a screening of work-in-progress sections of the show and live discussion with the creative team about dance, politics, race, and patriarchy. We look forward to seeing you there.

Coffee and Lunch Breaks: During coffee and lunch breaks, you’re encouraged to socialise with fellow delegates on Wonder.me. Wonder.me is an online platform where you can ‘meet’ with individuals or small groups, or you can join a ‘room’ and talk with all others who share that space. Full instructions on how to use this are supplied on the SCUDD conference webpage.

You can login to this page in advance of the conference, to see how it works using the link and password circulated to all listed delegates. Please be aware that it is not compatible with the Safari browser. Take a look at the document below for extended instructions on how Wonder.me works: