PSi# 21 FLUID STATES & OCEANIC PERFORMANCE BIENNIAL
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: DUE OCTOBER 30, 2014
SEA-CHANGE: PERFORMING A FLUID CONTINENT (Rarotonga, Cook Islands, July 2015)
“Ocean is us” -- Epeli Hau'ofa
The Oceanic Performance Biennial is an emergent platform engaged in critiques and re-imaginings of the intersecting social, cultural political and environmental ecologies of this region. Performance operates here as a multi-modal tool that attracts, connects and communicates in playful or affective ways and publicly foregrounds ecological issues. The Biennial program incorporates free public performance events, workshops and a hui (gathering) that brings together performance practitioners, activists and academics to address the complexities of Oceanic ecologies (in an extended sense of the word). 2013’s Biennial was held in Auckland New Zealand with the theme of Isle&, and explored how in the Pacific islands may be understood in relation to the sea, where islands & sea form a connective and relational network.
The 2015 Oceanic Performance Biennial focuses on the sea as a performative site and complex changing ecology and calls for work – performances, film, events, installations, performance-based workshops, panels, papers – that address the performative ecological, sociocultural, and geopolitical nature of the Pacific as fluid continent, region within the global imaginary and contemporary site of change. As the Oceanic region's contribution to Performance Studies international's world-wide conference Fluid States, the 2015 Biennial links into an internationally dispersed body of performance work addressing site-specific themes of the unstable, mutable, adaptable, and fluid.
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 link http://www.jotform.co/OPB15/abstract
(Note you can load text, images [maximum of 2MB size] and provide links to urls etc)
See for www.emergentecologies.net/OPB for updates 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
VISITING CORRESPONDENTS:
The Call for Visiting Correspondents will be issued and application process managed through the Fluid States website (the LOG) end of June 2014.
PACIFIC STUDENT ROUNDTABLE and Performance Event:
The Call for students to participate in a roundtable will be issued in late February 2015.
QUERIES TO: Janine Randerson Masters of Performance and Media Arts programme leader AUT Technology jranders@aut.ac.nz
ORGANIZERS, INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS and SPONSORS
Oceanic Performance Biennial Creative Director:
Amanda Yates, Emergent Ecologies Lab [Auckland University of Technology]
Amanda.Yates@aut.ac.nz
CONTACT PERSONS and WEBSITE links
kiaora@emergentecologies.net
www.emergentecologies.net/OPB
