Marta Albala Pelegrin (California State Polytechnic University - Pomona)
mart@****.com (Log-in to reveal)
This session aims at reflecting on the interrelation between theater, diplomacy, and politics. Since theater became theater plays and performances have reflected, reacted, rejected, denounced, and embraced political turmoil. This panel welcomes papers presenting interdisciplinary studies or theoretically grounded analysis on the ways in which playwrights, plays, and audiences react to political turmoil and/or feed institutional discourses that endorse National politics.
This session aims at reflecting on the interrelation between theater, performance, diplomacy, and politics. Since theater became theater, plays and performances have reflected, reacted, rejected, denounced, and embraced political turmoil. This panel welcomes papers presenting an interdisciplinary or theoretically grounded analysis of the ways in which theater and/or theatrical audiences react to political turmoil and/or feed institutional discourses that endorse National politics. The multifarious nature of theater escapes unidirectional readings and categorizations: performers, directors, and the very nature of a performance's dialogic form often complicates the way in which jokes, comedy, and meaning are endorsed. Recent studies on festival plays and royal celebrations have highlighted how public performances, festivals, celebrations, and theatrical venues helped individuals to identify as members of a group, thus activating (proto)nationalistic feelings. On the other hand, studies on Early Modern and Contemporary theater have highlighted the importance of theater in creating audiences, and in the active role that these audiences had in the development of creating public discourse and “publics”, and how in turn these publics could become dynamic actors in the social sphere. The recent imprisonment of performers in Spain, Russia, and China reminds us of the ideological power theater carries within itself. All disciplines and periods are welcomed.