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This special issue on Carcerality, Theatre, Rights invites submissions exploring the role of theatre and performance in challenging and resisting incarceration in its various forms. In particular, this issue is interested in practice and scholarship that engages with rights discourse in order to highlight the role of theatre and performance in resisting pervasive logics and technologies of carcerality. What role can theatre and performance play in highlighting the rights of those experiencing state sponsored marginalisation, control and imprisonment? And what role can theatre and performance play in challenging the exclusionary structures of carcerality?

Carcerality
Within the context of mass incarceration and surveillance, carcerality is becoming an increasingly urgent interdisciplinary field of research and praxis. With etymological origins to the Latin ‘carcer’ for ‘prison’, carcerality today covers a wide range of ‘spaces’, from missions, reserves and residential schools established to contain Indigenous peoples, to immigration detention centres, and the use of ‘black sites’ or secret prison facilities used to detain enemy combatants in the global war on terror. Carcerality also involves considering how surveillance and incarceration are connected to issues of race, class and gender. Currently more than 10.35 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, and since 2000 the world prison population has grown by almost 20% (Walmsley, 2016). This global trend, coupled with the increasing privatisation of justice, raises concerns about the potential negative impact of commercial interests on prison populations as well as concerns about the long-term sustainability of prison institutions and facilities (Jacobson, Heard, & Fair, 2017). Moreover, the colonial legacy of disadvantage, over-policing and over-incarceration continues to disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples in settler-colonial nations such as Canada, the USA, Australia, and New Zealand (Cunneen & Tauri, 2016; Webb, 2011). From the world’s largest open-air prisons of Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, to the refugee camps in Europe and the Pacific, to the immigration detention centres in the US, we are locking up and controlling more people than ever before.

Theatre and Incarceration
The ability of theatre to imagine new futures for incarcerated communities was documented in James Thompson’s seminal publication Prison Theatre (1998). Michael Balfour’s Theatre in Prison: Theory and Practice (2004) recorded developments in the field since Thompson’s publication. Certain recurring themes are present within this field: how practitioners frame theatre projects with incarcerated communities; the privileging of transferrable skills and therapeutic benefits that come from participating in performance; and the need for critical and methodological models to help evaluate these benefits to promote the use of theatre and performance within criminal justice. It is now 20 years since Thompson’s publication first questioned whether theatre in prisons is about humanising the system or about transforming it (Thompson, 1998, p. 16). Yet much scholarship and practice is still preoccupied with notions of utility. While this special issue does not seek to question the validity or benefits of theatre and creativity to incarcerated communities, we seek contributions that shift the discussion from considerations of ‘use’ to arguments that highlight the importance of art as a fundamental human right, and a potent form of resistance. We seek contributions exploring forms of socially engaged performance that are informed by activism and rights discourse. We also welcome contributions that embrace Indigenous, non-Western or de-colonising approaches to theorising the practice.

Rights
Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that “everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits” (UN General Assembly, 1948). Cultural rights are inseparable from human rights, as recognized in Article 5 of the 2001 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and can be defined as the right of access to, participation in and enjoyment of culture (UNESCO, 2001). Moreover, the rights of Indigenous peoples to their culture and intellectual and cultural property has been recognised by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (UN General Assembly, 2007). Despite their recognition within international law, individuals, groups and communities continue to be denied their cultural and artistic rights. Moreover, a recent report assessing the global state of artistic freedom warns of the emergence of a new global culture of silencing others (Freemuse 2018). According to this report, in 2017, on average one person every week was prosecuted for expressing themselves artistically, while thousands of pieces of visual art, music, theatre, dance and literature were censored, vandalised or destroyed (Freemuse, 2018, p.6). Further, authorities might silence cultural expression within sites of confinement as a strategy for removing identity and agency, or use access to arts experiences as a form of leverage to encourage good behaviour and impose discipline.

We invite artists, scholars, activists and community workers to submit abstracts for proposed articles that engage with the three key terms of this special issue: ‘carcerality’, ‘theatre’, and ‘rights’. We are particularly keen to hear from practitioners and scholars exploring theatre in prison. Possible areas of focus include:

· Theatre and decolonising corrections.

· Performance, incarceration, control and disobedience.

· Performance and arrest as civil disobedience.

· Theatre, incarceration and structures of exclusion.

· Theatre, incarceration, participation and inclusion.

· Performance, incarceration and the ethics of representation.

· Performance in confined spaces and notions of immersive theatre.

· Theatre and performance that resist cultures of mass incarceration.

· Theatre and performance that resist cultures of surveillance and control.

This special issue will be co-edited by Dr. Rand Hazou (Massey University) and Dr. Sarah Woodland (Griffith University). Abstracts should be submitted by 30 September 2019 to r.t.hazou and s.woodland.

Schedule:
Abstract due: 30 September 2019
Notification of Acceptance: 31 October 2019
First drafts due: 31 January 2020
Final copy: February 2021
Publication: Aug 2021, 26.3

Dr. Rand T. Hazou – Senior Lecturer in Theatre
School of English and Media Studies, Massey University.
Rand is a theatre academic and facilitator with experience working across a variety of creative and community contexts. In 2004, he was commissioned by the UNDP to travel to the Occupied Territories in Palestine to work as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youths. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in Theatre in the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University. His research explores theatre that engages with issues of social justice. His research on Asylum Seeker and Refugee Theatre has been published in a series of international journal articles. In Aotearoa he has recently led teaching and creative projects engaging with both prison and aged-care communities.

Dr Sarah Woodland- Research Fellow
Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre, Griffith University
Sarah is a researcher, practitioner and educator in arts, theatre and performance, with over 20 years’ experience in the arts and cultural sectors in Australia and the UK. Sarah has facilitated projects with a number of community groups, including Daughters of the Floating Brothel (Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre 2015), a participatory radio drama exploring the history of female incarceration in Australia. Sarah is currently leading the project Listening to Country, a collaboration with incarcerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to create an immersive audio work for the purpose of stress relief and cultural connection. Sarah’s research interests are in Participatory Arts, Socially Engaged Arts, Community Arts and Cultural Development, Applied Theatre, and Prison Theatre.

References
Balfour, M. (Ed.) (2004). Theatre in prison: Theory and practice: Intellect Books.
Cunneen, C., & Tauri, J. (2016). Indigenous criminology. Bristol: Polity Press.
Freemuse. (2018). The State Of Artistic Freedom Retrieved from https://freemuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Freemuse-The-state-of-artistic-freedom-2018-online-version.pdf
Jacobson, A., Heard, C., & Fair, H. (2017). Prison: Evidence of its use and over-use from around the world. Retrieved fromhttp://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/global_imprisonment_web2c.pdf
Thompson, J. (Ed.) (1998). Prison theatre: Perspectives and practices. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
UN General Assembly. (1948). Universal declaration of human rights. Paris: United Nations. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
UN General Assembly. (2007). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. New York: United Nations. Retrieved fromhttps://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html
UNESCO. (2001). UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Retrieved fromhttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001246/124687e.pdf#page=67
Walmsley, R. (2016). World prison population list(Eleventh edition). Retrieved fromhttp://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_prison_population_list_11th_edition_0.pdf
Webb, R. (2011). Incarceration. In T. McIntosh & M. Mulholland (Eds.), Ma?ori and Social Issues (pp. 249–262). Wellington: Huia Publishers.
Williams, F. C. (2013). The embodiment of social dynamics: a phenomenon of Western pop dance within a Filipino prison. Research in Dance Education, 14(1), 39-56

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Call for Papers: Journal of Dance and Somatic Practises

Special Issue 12.1: Somatic practices in Brazil: perspectives, applications, unfolding

Editors: Ciane Fernandes, Diego Pizarro and Melina Scialom

Deadline for submissions: 1st June 2019
Submit online at: https://callisto.newgen.co/intellect/index.php/JDSP/login/

In 1976, Thomas Hanna’s book, Bodies in Revolt: a Primer in Somatic Thinking, was first translated to Portuguese and published in Brazil. Interestingly enough, somatic practices and philosophy in Brazil can be traced back to the beginning of the 20th century when local artists demonstrated interest in body practices that had a deeper body-mind engagement. It may be that a somatic perspective began to flourish in the country with the arrival of Rudolf Laban’s philosophy in the early 1930’s. Indeed, the Hungarian dancer Maria Duschenes who immigrated to São Paulo in 1940 was a key figure who inspired many to turn their attention back to their bodies. A few decades later, the work of the Brazilian couple Angel and Klauss Vianna became an extremely influential somatic perspective in dance practice and pedagogy, suggesting that a deeper awareness of the body was already growing in the country. However, somatics in Brazil may date even back to the body practices inspired by the activities of the first inhabitants of this land: the tribal indigenous.

Considering this early and also blurred background of the somatics in Brazil, it was only after 1999 that the term – somatic practices – was formally introduced by Euro-American textbooks and papers, and began to be advertised as a mindful practice and an embodied philosophy. In a world particularly colonized by European and North-American perspectives on somatics, it is important to acknowledge other viewpoints on which somatics was and is shaped in different cultures, in a continuous transformation. Indeed, somatics holds the power of transformation and its pathways are moving between becomings.

This issue is an open space for dialogue between local somatic educators, researchers and artists-researchers that have been developing emerging inquiries/compositions within the field of somatics and its interfaces within dance, theatre, performance, education, ecology, science, psychotherapy, sociology, anthropology etc., within and outside of Brazil. Taking into account that an increasing number of active practitioners and researchers are bringing their cultural perspectives to the forefront of their explorations either in universities or different communities, we believe it is important to enhance that range by challenging our colleagues keenly guided by the moving, porous, experiential and performative quality of somatic research.

We will consider themes addressing the following topics in relationship to the Brazilian experience:

• History and unfolding of somatics and bodywork in Brazil, as well as their relationships to the expanded field in the arts
• Somatic practices in/as academic research: somatic ways of creating knowledge; somatic epistemology; reflections upon how different somatic means of teaching and researching launched unique practices and discourses on the extent of education, as well as in performing arts and academic research
• Somatic practices and artistic creative processes, as well as inter-artistic and contemporary performative tendencies, such as performing arts at large, site specific, urban intervention, ecoperformance, etc.
• Somatic practices and body technique for the performing artist in dance, theatre, circus, opera, etc.
• Somatic practices and multiple stage elements and concepts, such as dramaturgy, stage design, costume, lighting, sonority, etc.
• Cultural and performative studies addressing somatics
• Somatic perspectives on diversity, such as gender and ethnicity issues
• Somatics beyond disciplines
• Applied somatic practices with specific groups, such as elderly, pregnant women, children, teenagers, etc., and also groups with special needs and disabilities
• The interconnectivity between Somatics and politics/activism
• Environmental somatics: ecosomatics, sustainability, body and nature
• Somatics in the age of new media/technologies.

Queries about submissions can be sent to: dspbrazil Submissions should be submitted via the following link: https://callisto.newgen.co/intellect/index.php/JDSP/login/

Standard articles should be in the range of 4000-6000 words. More playful contributions are welcomed, particularly those that include images, but if a contributor has a particular idea in mind that might deviate from the template they must contact the editors first to discuss the possibilities and prior to submitting a contribution and contributors need to work within the existing journal design template (a free to view issue is available on the Intellect website as illustration). The guidelines for alternative formats can be found at this link https://www.coventry.ac.uk/Global/08%20New%20Research%20Section/C-DaRE/ Guidlines%20for%20JDSP%20alternative%20formats.pdf

All articles submitted should be original work and must not be under consideration by other publications. Journal contributors will receive a free PDF copy of their final work upon publication. Print copies of the journal may also be purchased by contributors at half price.

Please follow this link for more information about the journal: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/areas-of-research/centre-for-dance-research/JDSP/

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Content posted in these emails does not represent SCUDD, but the views of the individual poster. Events advertised via the list are not necessarily endorsed by SCUDD. Any complaints, requests or comments about list usage can be addressed to m.j.taylorbatty@leeds.ac.uk. (Requests sent to this email to post materials on the list will be ignored, for reasons of efficiency)

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