Skip to content

Call for Papers
In turn – Choreographies of Change

Submission deadline: 29. April 2026

Key themes:

We invite submissions exploring the following topics, along with other relevant perspectives.

  • Choreographies of change: How can a choreographic perspective shed light on the different forms of change and transformation and offer insights into their shaping processes? How can choreographic perspective and practice contribute to societal and political change? How can choreography expose, resist, or reconfigure the uneven and conflictual processes through which change takes place?
  • Dramaturgy as practice of social and political mobilization: How can dramaturgy become a tool for social and political transformation? Can it bring together various strands of social practice?
  • Movements of collectives: How can we grasp the transitions between the individual and the collective? How is choreography organizing group dynamics? How can bodies and forces be linked into more-than-human agencies?
  • Institutions in change: How do forms of mediation and cultural institutional contexts respond to societal upheavals and crises caused by transformation? What processes inform institutions as places of openness towards changing times?
  • Pedagogy: How do forms of mediation and cultural institutional contexts respond to societal upheavals and crises caused by transformation? What processes inform institutions as places of openness towards changing times?
  • Solidarity infrastructures & DIY production: How to build alternative modes of production that resist extractive, competitive, and precarizing logics? And how are these infrastructures and modes of production embedded in the historical perspectives of resistance, feminism, and decoloniality?

This year’s symposium is conceived as a gathering that brings together various actors and practices. It is situated within the field of dance studies, in proximity to researchers and practitioners from other disciplines, including sociology, Social Work, production, dramaturgy, and activism. Participants are invited to propose academic or artistic presentation formats, including workshops, panels, artistic interventions, or provocations, as they see fit.

 

EMERGING SCHOLARS FORUM

The symposium will be preceded on the first day (October 15, 2026) by a forum for emerging scholars, which offers researchers in the early stages of their careers the opportunity to present their research in a supportive environment with room for discussion and feedback. Contributions should address a topic from the researcher's own ongoing research and should not exceed 10 minutes for the presentation.

Please submit your work as indicated below and clearly indicate in the title or header that you are proposing your work for the Emerging Scholars Forum.
 

Submission Guidelines

Presentations (20 min)

Panels (60 min)

Workshops (45–60 min)

Lecture Performances (30 min)

Interventions (20-30 min)

Other formats (max. 60 min)

 

Conference languages are German and English. Please submit a description of your proposal (max. 200 words) and a short biography (max. 100 words), specifying your preferred presentation format, by 15 April 2026 to:

 

A participation fee applies. Participants will be provided with catering during the conference and transportation between the venues.

References

Aristotle. 1998. Politics. Translated by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.

Brandstetter, Gabriele, Bettina Brandl-Risi, and Kai van Eikels. 2007. “Übertragungen: Eine Einleitung.” In Schwarm (E)Motion: Bewegung zwischen Affekt und Masse, edited by Gabriele Brandstetter, Bettina Brandl-Risi, and Kai van Eikels, pp. 7–25. Freiburg: Rombach.

Butler, Octavia E. 1993. Parable of the Sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.

Egert, Gecko. 2016. Berührungen: Bewegung, Relation und Affekt im zeitgenössischen Tanz. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Plato. 1991. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.

Polybius. 2010. The Histories. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Organizing team

Prof. Dr. Bojana Kunst, Mila Lanz, Prof. Dr. Sebastian Matthias, Prof. Dr. Katja Schneider

 

Funded by Hessian Theater Academy (HTA)