01/05/2017
ART@IU’s 5th Annual Graduate Symposium in Theatre and Performance Studies
Performing Intersections
March 31st and April 1st 2017
Indiana University, Bloomington
In Patricia Hill Collins’ 2016 book Intersectionality she defines the titular concept as “a way of
understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experience.”
ART@IU’s Graduate Symposium will provide generous intersectional space in which scholars
and practitioners from various disciplines can converge.
Proposals for papers, performances, and round table discussions might address questions of:
• Artist activism and identity politics
• Combatting culturally defined standards of beauty and/or interlocking oppressions
through performance
• Creating and engaging communities through performance
• Dance scholarship and practice
• Feminist strategies in theatre and performance studies
• Interdisciplinary approaches to theatre scholarship and practice
• Navigating borders, intersections, and pathways in performance
• Performing ability, age, culture, gender, identity, race, religion, sexual orientations
• Solo performance, spoken word poetry, and/or stand-up comedy as sites of resistance
• Theatre historiography and archival explorations in intersectionality
Abstract Submission: Please submit a bio and a 250 word abstract to Bridget Sundin
[email protected] by the deadline of January 18, 2017. Although this is a Graduate
Symposium, undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty are encouraged to submit.
Keynote Address, Solo Performance, and Writing Workshop – Kelly Tsai
Kelly Tsai is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work as a performance poet has been
featured at over 700 venues worldwide including the White House, HBO, and MTV Iggy. Her
work as an interdisciplinary performance artist has been
developed and presented at New York Live Arts, Brooklyn
Museum, HERE, Ars Nova, and the Culture Project. Her current
work spans screen, print, live performance, and new media.
Kelly Tsai will deliver a keynote speaker address, lead a writing
workshop, and perform her original solo show FORMOSA.
FORMOSA is a surrealistic romp through beauty, body, culture,
and Barbie which combines spoken word, movement,
multimedia, and fictional characters, jumping into
Tsai's imaginary encounters with a Taiwanese factory worker
who makes the dolls, an 8-year old Chinese adoptee girl who
loves the dolls, and a Nicki Minaj-wannabe Asian American
female hip hop MC who just might be turning into a doll.