The presence of the human body on stage, the relationship and contact between bodies, time and space structured by movement are all phenomena worth studying and nowadays the research topic of choice in new dramaturgy as well as other artistic and scientific domains.
Various sacred forms of movement, ritual and social dances, or the ones created for entertainment can tell us much about the culture and values of a community as well as the written or unwritten rules of behaviour governing it. The evolution and history of movement and dance and their relationship with arts and society are fertile grounds of study for various scientific fields such as anthropology, aesthetics, sociology, psychology, history of art, history of theatre, theatre studies and many more. In all its forms, starting from folk dances, through social dances, the more artistically elaborate classical ballet or contemporary dance, as well as works of dance theatre or events that are not so easily categorized (such as those initiated by Jérôme Bel), dance is not just performance or part of a performance, but it seems to be an elementary human need. Alongside its traditional performative forms, such as ballet, dance can be an organic part of other forms of performance like theatre, opera, operetta or film. The power of expression of a body in motion, be it solo dance, in a pair or a group can transcend cultural, social or linguistic barriers, communicating emotional content that would be difficult to convey in any other form.
The dramaturgy of movement and dance is a distinct field of creation and research that shed light on the history of the human body in our culture and its role in today’s world. The philosophical dimension of dance and movement has been intensely studied by both classical and contemporary theorists such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Maurice Merleau-Ponty or Gilles Deleuze. New dramaturgy, heralded by practitioners and thinkers like Marianne Van Kerkhoven, proposes the creative exploration of the possibilities of expression through movement and the analysis of its meanings.
In the Anthropocene era, in the context of an ever-increasing alienation from nature and the natural, dance is a form of communication and interaction which can connect us to the basis of our bodily existence in the unique physicality of movement that is loaded with sentiment.
Dance, movement and their new dramaturgy are the central concepts of the 23rd International Conference of Theatre Studies of the University of Arts in Târgu-Mureș. We invite researchers, creators, academics and students to participate in the discussion about this fertile subject. How is movement integrated into present-day performing arts? What new forms of expression can it generate on the stage? What is the artistic motivation of creators who have been exploring the dramaturgy of dance and movement in their theatrical events? Who are the artists that over time have placed the dramaturgy of dance and movement in a pivotal position?
The conference will take place between December 13-14, 2024 at the University of Arts in Târgu Mureș, with direct or online participation and will be held, in sections, in Romanian, Hungarian, English and French. Papers accepted through the peer-review system will be published in Symbolon magazine (symbolon.ro), indexed by ERIH PLUS, CEEOL, DOAJ, Crossref, and Google Scholar and classified in category B by CNCS.
We invite you to send abstracts of papers (maximum 400 words) in Romanian, Hungarian, English or French, together with the institutional affiliation of the authors, by e-mail (in Microsoft Word compatible format) to conference@uat.ro by of December 8, 2024.