Theatre and Performance Research Association

The Theatre and Performance Research Association, or TaPRA for short, is an academic organisation focusing on theatre, drama and performance. It was founded in 2005. Academics from drama and theatre departments at Kent, Leeds, Royal Holloway, Warwick, QMUL, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham Trent, Bristol, Central School of Speech and Drama, Lancaster, Sheffield, Roehampton, Glasgow, Exeter and Trinity College, Dublin formed the initial steering group.

TaPRA describes its aim as "to foster research that:

• enables links between practitioners and scholars within performance disciplines and across cognate fields;
• liaises with specialist organisations and groupings;
• encourages early career research in theatre and performance."^[1]

Membership is largely British and Irish, although international members are welcomed, regularly contributing at conferences and symposia. Individual academics pay an annual fee to become members.

Conferences

Wikimedia Workshop at TaPRA Conference 2014 at Royal Holloway, University of London

TaPRA arranges an annual conference in September.^[2] The event lasts three days, and is peripatetic, hosted by a new academic institution each year.

Unlike some academic organisations, TaPRA does not determine overall themes for its conferences. Instead, separate Working Groups generate their own topics for the annual conference.^[3] TaPRA usually contains around ten working groups, such as Theatre History and Historiography, Performance and New Technologies, Performance and the Body, Directing and Dramaturgy, Applied and Social Theatre, Documenting Performance, Performance, Identity and Community, 20th - 21st Century Performer Training, Performance and Science, Theatre, Performance and Philosophy, Popular Performance, and Scenography.^[4] Working Groups also arrange interim events around the UK and Ireland, from one-day symposia to theatre visits and walking tours. The TaPRA Postgraduate Symposium has been running since 2009, focusing on postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Keynote speakers have included Erika Fischer-Lichte, Bruce McConachie, Ric Knowles and Manon van de Water. Conferences also often feature live performances, such as works by Third Angel, Kieran Hurley^[5] and Accidental Collective.

• 2005 - University of Manchester, 8 - 10 September
• 2006 - Central School of Speech and Drama, 7 - 9 September
• 2007 - University of Birmingham, 5 - 7 September
• 2008 - University of Leeds, 3 - 5 September
• 2009 - University of Plymouth, 7 - 9 September
• 2010 - University of Glamorgan in Cardiff, 9 - 11 September
• 2011 - Kingston University London, 7 - 9 September
• 2012 - University of Kent, 5 - 7 September
• 2013 - Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in partnership with the University of Glasgow, 4 - 6 September
• 2014 - Royal Holloway, University of London, 3 - 5 September
• 2015 - University of Worcester, 8 - 10 September
• 2016 - University of Bristol, 5 - 7 September
• 2017 - University of Salford, 30 August - 1 September

Awards

TaPRA presents several awards at each conference, such as the David Bradby Award for Research in International Theatre and Performance, the Early Career Prize and the Postgraduate Essay Prize. David Bradby Prize winners include Heike Roms (2011), Aoife Monks (2012), Jacky Bratton (2013), Kate Dorney and Frances Gray (2014), Duška Radosavljević (2015) and Sally Mackey (2016).^[6]

References

Further reading

• Low, Katharine E. and Calvert, Dave (2015). Conference Review: Heroism and the Heroic in Applied and Social Theatre. Journal of Arts and Communities. ISSN 1757-1936.