March 2015 International Conference on Intercultural Theatre and Performance

NUI Galway will host a major international conference on ‘Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions?’ from 10-11 April. The conference will feature leading scholars in intercultural theatre and performance studies from Australia, Canada, the United States, the UK and Turkey.

The conference is being organised by NUI Galway’s Dr Charlotte McIvor, NUI Galway Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies, and Dr Jason King, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Moore Institute, as part of an Irish Research Council funded project on ‘Interculturalism, Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland’ at NUI Galway.

International experts such as Professor Rustom Bharucha from India, Professor Ric Knowles from Canada, and Professors Julie Holledge and Joanne Tompkins from Australia, among others, will give lectures about interculturalism, theatre and performance during the conference.

Dr Charlotte McIvor’s new book, entitled Staging Intercultural Ireland: New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives, which she co-edited with Dr Matthew Spangler, an Associate Professor of Performance Studies at San José State University in California, will also be launched at the conference by Professor Patrick Lonergan, Director of NUI Galway’s Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance. The edited collection contains eight plays with critical introductions, and six interviews with migrant and Irish-born theatre artists who are producing work at the intersection of interculturalism and inward-migration in Ireland during the first decades of the 21st Century. The book offers a contribution to transnational migration studies, as well as intercultural theatre research in a global context.

Dr McIvor said: “We are so excited to be welcoming some of the most distinguished experts from around the world to the campus and to Galway so that they can experience and visit Ireland’s most intercultural city. It is especially fitting that Staging Intercultural Ireland is going to be launched at the conference, which brings together the most distinguished experts in the field. It will help them get a sense of how intercultural theatre and performance have developed in Galway in Ireland.”

During the conference, Stories of a Yellow Town will be performed by The Gombeens on Friday, 10 April from 4.30 – 6.30pm in the Bank of Ireland Theatre on campus. The play is based on an intertwining of true personal stories told in the words of the Brazilian and Irish people living in Gort, Co. Galway.

The conference, launch of Staging Intercultural Ireland: New Plays and Practitioner Perspectives, and Dr Charlotte McIvor and Dr Jason King’s ongoing work on the Irish Research Council funded “Interculturalism, Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland” project all attest to the cutting edge research at NUI Galway on intercultural theatre and performance in Ireland.

For more information or to register for the conference, contact Dr Jason King at Jason.king@nuigalway.ie. Registration fees will cost €30 for Faculty/Salaried and €15 for Postgraduate/Unsalaried.

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