CATR Conference 2023

June 10 - 17, 2023

Performing Shores / The Shores of Performance

Online
St. Francis Xavier University and the University of the Fraser Valley
June 10-12, 2023

In person
Dalhousie University
June 15-17, 2023

Conference Outline

The shore has been a key site of performance from time immemorial. Mi’kmaw Elder Stephen Augustine describes how, in Mi’kma’ki–the unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq people, where much of this conference will take place—spring gatherings in which the community exchanged songs and stories historically occurred “at the mouth of the river, on the coastline.” Many of Asia’s and Europe’s most celebrated theatres took root on riverbanks. In her 2019 book The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies, Tiffany Lethabo King underlines the decolonizing potential of thinking with shoals and shores, advancing a theoretical approach that “disrupts colonial geographies” and “forecloses settlement and permanent landing on its always shifting and dissolving terrains.”

In an age when many shorelines are threatened by climate change, acknowledging their importance to performance cultures seems especially vital. Hence, CATR’s 2023 conference, “Performing Shores / The Shores of Performance,” invites theatre scholars and artist to gather on literal and theoretical shorelines in order to discuss and re-imagine the future shores of theatre, drama, dance, and performance studies in Turtle Island and beyond.

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