The volume brings together current positions from the field of performative arts in social contexts and aims to stimulate an international discourse. Researchers and university teachers from all over the world are invited to attempt a localisation between past, present and future demands of the subject area and to point out lines of development and desiderata in specialist scholarship and practice.

Initial situation

For some years now, processes of change have been observed in the field of performative arts and their mediation, which also involve the academic sphere. New courses of study are emerging within and outside of Europe that train performative practice along the interfaces of art and society. This development comes at a time when, for almost 15 years, a multitude of ecological, social, economic and cultural upheavals/transformations have been labelled with the catchword crisis. Crisis describes the transition between two orders, one old and one new. As a warning, a need for action and a mode of explanation, the term crisis can be found in the media, in the language of politics, but also on flyers announcing and describing (theatre-pedagogical) performances and theatre productions.

The publication focuses on the transitions and intersections between the crises currently conjured up, the crises that actually exist and are rolling towards us, how they influence and change our professional actions and which developmental logics we can identify.

The collection of essays aims to question the newly forming field against the current global political backdrop: What future challenges can we expect to face today? What scope does this open up? What impulses do these give for professional self-understanding and future action? What do we need to discuss with each other?

Framing the content

The Call for Papers "in: between spaces. Performative arts in social contexts" invites us to pause, to locate ourselves in the currently effective in-between and to describe necessary developments on this basis. We ask about the spaces for thought and action that characterises our field of work and look for its potential for social transformation processes and social developments.

These can be located in questions like the following:

Where do we need to further develop practice on the basis of current theoretical knowledge?

How does the understanding of the subject relate to changing social challenges?

Where does practice ask for a change or conceptual development of the dominant theoretical building?

On which axes between artistic, pedagogical and social dimensions is the current self understanding at home and which shifts are pending?

The volume "in:between spaces. performative arts in social contexts" enables professionals with curricular responsibility to critically question currently valid guidelines and to think constructively further. The international framing of this volume aims to place the performative arts in social contexts in an overarching discourse and is done with the interest of interweaving knowledge from different theatre-mediating traditions and cultural contexts and bringing them into dialogue. The intention is to identify common interfaces and concerns as well as differences. The publication pursues to open up new perspectives and facilitate new alliances.

Structure of the anthology

The contributions will be collected in a first stage and only then arranged in a coherent structure. From the context grouped in this way, each author will receive a text from another author with the request to formulate a short response, a resonance, a thought-provoking suggestion. In this way, we want to integrate the publication process into a dialogue setting and actively encourage the authors to refer to each other.

Time schedule

Submission: End of May 2023

Reference to other author(s): beginning of June 2023

Ready for printing: end of September 2023

Publication: mid-October 2023

We look forward to receiving expressions of interest from authors by 15.01.2023.

Describe your project in a short abstract of no more than 20 lines and submit via e-mail to :

Andreas.buergisser@zhdk.ch