CfP: Institutional Dramaturgies: Histories, Encounters, Disruptions

CfP: Institutional Dramaturgies: Histories, Encounters, Disruptions

International Conference: November 25-27, 2026; Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

“The theater dwells in the city and the city dwells in the world and the walls are made of skin. We cannot escape that what penetrates its pores” Marianne Van Kerkhoven, “State of the Union” (1994)

Since the ‘60s, institutional critique has challenged the existing discourse around art institutions and the position of the artist within the institution of art (Fraser 2005). From the mid-2010s onwards, a new wave of research in art and theatre sociology, cultural anthropology, and theatre/performance studies – what Tom Sellar and Bertie Ferdman call the curatorial turn – have engaged the new critical frame of institutional dramaturgy to situate the history, politics, transformations, and stagnations of performance institutions across disciplines. Institutional dramaturgy offers a methodology to critically assess the ways in which institutions navigate their position in society and the world (Trencsényi 2015; Woolf 2021; Boenisch 2022; Balme 2023). As a framework, institutional dramaturgy acknowledges that institutions self-position through policy, artistic production, programming, and political actions, and invites a deeper consideration of institutions as political agents actively performing their positionality.

What is the point of the performance institution in today’s world?

Since the historical origins of public theatres, theatre institutions have held two fundamental relationships: (1) the artist and institution, and (2) the institution and society. The specific workings of theatre and performance have defined these relationships in different ways than the visual arts, which can install more distance by virtue of its object-based curation. As institutions, public theatres have been both politically weaponized (Holdsworth 2010, Klaić 2012) as well as sites of resistance (Kershaw 1992).

Institutions – ranging from city- and state-theatres, operas, ballets, festivals, and other diverse performance institutions – are continuously being (re)structured, (re)assessed, (re)criticized from both inside and out. The past two decades have seen a resurgence of alternative institutional models that have introduced collective leadership, new positions, new modes of production with or without fixed ensembles, inclusion and care practices, and marginalized voices.

Considering these evolutions and a growing critical discourse, it is more important than ever for artists, researchers, and spectators alike to ask in and beyond the (Western) European frame: What is the relevance – historically and presently – of these institutions, and how do they maintain relevance? Does public subsidization provide stability and artistic independence, or does it bolster existing hierarchies and create a breeding ground for abuses? Can the institution be harnessed in democratic, decolonial ways, or does this responsibility fall to independent performance landscapes? In times of global conflict and far-right politics, who do these institutions speak for?

For the 2026 conference “Institutional Dramaturgies: Histories, Encounters, Disruptions”, we invite participants to consider how institutions imagine themselves within communities, political struggles, social change, and cultural heritage. As institutions once again re-imagine their position in the field, this conference invites scholars and artists to consider the following tracks:

·       Theatre in history & history in theatre

o   What is the historical position of performance institutions in different contexts (political regimes, geographies, etc.)?

o   What is the connection between performance institutions and questions of cultural heritage?

o   How are the canon and the repertoire defined in different geographical and historical spaces?

·       Theatre in the city & the city in the theatre

o   What is the connection between a performance institution and the society/community/neighbourhood in which it is located?

o   How have theatres and cultural institutions responded to changing societies and cosmopolitan identities?

o   How does clustering of cultural institutions and cultural funding in certain cities or geographies influence cultural production and creative outgrowth?

·       Institution as Festival & Festival as Institution

o   What does institutional dramaturgy mean and look like within a festival landscape?

o   How have and are festivals connected to changing identities, politics, and cultural expectations?

o   How does festivalization contribute to institutional transformation in and outside festivals? How have theatre institutions incorporated festivalization into their programming?

·       Institution as Artist & Artist as Institution

o   Are these institutions places for new leadership models and aesthetic innovation, or are they bastions of high culture and artistic safeguarding?

o   What are the transformations and stagnations of these institutions (past, present, and future)?

o   How do artists institutionalize or integrate themselves into institutions? How does their work change the aesthetics of the institution, or how does the aesthetics of the institution change their work?

·       Policy in Performance & Performance in Policy

o   What is the connection between funding models and governance policies from transnational entities such as the EU and what appears onstage?

o   How is policy visible in the onstage offerings of performance institutions?

o   What kind of agency do performance institutions have in the various levels of governance policies?

·       Critique as Performance & Performance as Critique

o   What is the role of these institutions in reproducing or breaking down established hierarchies, power structures, and colonial/sexist/discriminative mechanisms of exclusion?

o   How are performances and artists representing the changes and challenges of institutions?

o   What is the efficacy of internal versus external critique, and how productive/disruptive/destructive does critique have to be to be efficient?  

We welcome proposals on, but not limited to, the following themes:

·       Historical and contemporary institutions and cultural heritage

·       Alternative institutions and drivers of change

·       The repertoire, the canon, the institution

·       Practitioner-centered institutional innovations from the perspective of artists, cultural workers, diversity and inclusion agents, ...

·       Speculative imaginations of institutions

·       Subversive structures

·       Hacking the institution

·       Performance-based institutional critique

·       Cultural debates and cultural policy debates

·       Critical considerations of institutional critique and institutional dramaturgy

·       Decentralized and post-/decolonial theatre and performance institutions

·       Institutions and political, social, and artistic backlash/scandal 

We invite scholars from all career stages as well as artist contributions in the form of paper presentations, curated panels, performative reflections, and workshops. We welcome contributions from, but not limited to, theatre and performance studies, opera studies, dance studies, modern language cultural studies, cultural anthropology and ethnography, policy research, history, social sciences, political science, and transhistorical and cross-disciplinary research.

We welcome paper presentations, curated panels, lecture-performances, and diverse forms of contributions such as workshops, roundtables, performances, etc. Feel free to contact the conference organizers Lily Climenhaga and Noah Lena Vercauteren with questions about possible contributions and/or formats. We look forward to your ideas.

Proposals should include in a single Word or PDF document:

·       Format description (e.g., paper presentation, curated panel, performance, roundtable, etc.)

·       An abstract of approximately 300 words (for curated panels please include the overarching theme of panel and individual paper abstracts)

·       A 100-word author biography

Please send your proposal by April 15, 2026, to lily.climenhaga@ugent.be and noahlena.vercauteren@ugent.be.

Dates and Deadlines:

Proposals Due: April 15, 2026

Decision: May 10, 2026

Conference Dates: November 25-27, 2026

Select Bibliography:

Balme, Christopher. 2023. “Postfictional Theatre, Institutional Aesthetics, and the German Theatrical Public Sphere.” TDR, 67(2), 14-31.

Boenisch, P.M. 2021. “Encountering a ‘theater of (inter-)singularity’: Transformations and rejections of shifting institutional dramaturgies in contemporary German theater.” In E. Fischer-Lichte, C. Weiler & T. Jost (eds.). Dramaturgies of Interweaving: Engaging Audiences in an Entangled World. London: Routledge. 157-175.

Boenisch, Peter M. 2022. “Theatre Curation and Institutional Dramaturgy: Post-Representational Transformations in Flemish Theatre.” Peripeti, 19(35), 71-82.

Fraser, Andrea. 2005. “From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique.” Artforum 1(44), 278-283.

Fraser, Andrea. 2012. “Autonomy and Its Contradictions.” Open! Platform for Art, Culture & Public Domain. May 1. https://onlineopen.org/autonomy-and-its-contradictions.

Holdsworth, Nadine. 2010. Theatre and Nation. London, Bloomsbury.

Kershaw, Baz. 1992. The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. London, Routledge.

Klaic, Dragan. 2012. Resetting the Stage: Public Theatre Between the Market and Democracy. Bristol, intellect.

Trenscényi, Katalin. 2015. Dramaturgy in the Making: A User’s Guide for Theatre Practitioners. London: Bloomsbury.

Van Kerkhoven, Marianne. 1994. “State of the Union: Het theater ligt in de stad en de stad ligt in de wereld en de wanden zijn van huid,” Etcetera 12(46), 7-9

Woolf, Brandon. 2021. Institutional Theatrics: Performing Arts Policy in Post-Wall Berlin. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP.