9th Biennial New Perspectives in Flamenco History and Research Symposium
In conjunction with the National Institute of Flamenco and
the University of New Mexico Department of Theatre and Dance
Albuquerque, New Mexico
CONFERENCE DATES: October 2-4, 2024

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Deadline for Proposals: May 17, 2024 at 11:59 pm MST

The New Perspectives in Flamenco History and Research Symposium is an in-person and virtual gathering of theorists, practitioners, artists, and members of the public that provides a unique opportunity to examine various aspects of flamenco and related hybrid, diasporic art forms. The Symposium promotes the exchange of research, history, and theories, and it supplements traditional means of education with new and diverse ideas in the ever-evolving world of the arts. Faculty, staff, and students of higher education, artists, independent researchers, K-12 educators, community leaders, administrators, non-profit partners, and other professionals are invited to participate. The New Perspectives in Flamenco History and Research Symposium proudly facilitates and fosters international, multi-disciplinary exchanges that critically engage with the histories and contemporary issues of diasporic art forms, including flamenco, as they are practiced around the world.

CONFERENCE THEME
In its various iterations, flamenco is about community and emotional expression. Whether practiced in informal gatherings, or on public stages by professional artists, community and connection remain key elements of this art form. The underlying myriad emotions residing in flamenco music and dance such as sadness, fury, pain, joy, and hope join people together in communities. The emotions that inherently exist in the collective memory of music, dance, and community meld in gatherings where flamenco takes place. This same memory and melding manifests in other related music and dance forms, particularly those practiced by, for, and about marginalized peoples and communities. In flamenco and similar hybrid music and dance forms from around the world, practitioners converge around the feelings that bind them through shared experience, poetry, and sound.

Flamenco’s communal, highly emotive, and interactive nature necessitates coexistence and cooperation. This year’s conference seeks to explore the ways in which flamenco and related forms address trauma, communal healing, and creative expression. We welcome proposals that investigate how practices of flamenco music and dance, and other related forms, can initiate radical healing. Proposals may examine how artistic expression is crucial to place-making and the creation of collective healing spaces, whether those be hyperlocal and contemporary or across continents and generations. In considering these topics, proposals may explore and analyze how diasporic forms, including flamenco, can function as practice of self- and community-care and a salve for ancestral and generational trauma. How do cultural practices sustain communities, and conversely, what does it mean for communities to care for, transmit, and sustain these embodied practices?

PROPOSALS
We welcome submissions from practitioners, researchers, culture bearers, and scholar/artists who examine the relationships and paradoxes that exist among flamenco and related forms, and ideas of artistic practice as physical, mental, emotional, community, and environmental healing. Additionally, we welcome proposals that engage interdisciplinary understandings of wellness, such as ecocritical, posthumanist, anti-racist, spiritual practices, and/or reparative perspectives on diasporic art forms’ past, present, and future, both within imperialist nation states and beyond.

Proposals should be relevant to the field of performing arts, broadly conceived, and supported by theory, practice, and/or research. Topics may relate to flamenco and other diasporic art forms, including their particular studies of dance, music, history, performance, pedagogy, criticism, and related ideas. Proposals and presentations in English and Spanish are welcome, and an English translator will be available for Spanish-speaking presenters.

GUIDELINES FOR PROPOSALS
Proposed presentations may be in any of the formats listed below. Only one presentation per applicant is permissible.

Formats for submission include:
1. Scholarly- and/or Practice-Based Research Presentation: Research and/or paper presentations must be designed for delivery within 15 minutes, including any audio-visual materials. A five-minute period for discussion and questions will follow each presentation.
2. Pre-formed Panel: Panels are 60 minutes in length (including questions and discussion) and should consist of between three and six presenters. Only one member of the panel should submit the panel proposal, but names of all members of the panel must be listed on the submission form. Panels will not be assigned an outside moderator, unless requested.
3. Lecture-Demonstration: Lecture-Demonstrations should be designed for delivery within 30 minutes (including questions and discussion) and should integrate oral and performative aspects. In your proposal, please explain why your presentation is best suited for the lecture-demonstration format and if you have any specific space or technical requirements.

Submit a proposal by completing the following electronic form: https://nifnm.formstack.com/forms/history
by May 17, 2024 at 11:59 pm MST.
No proposals will be accepted after this time.

For questions, please contact Amy Schofield, MFA at conference@nifnm.org.