Most recent 5-7 September 2016 | Inaugurated September 2005 | |
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Frequency Annually each September | ||
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.
Contents
TaPRA describes its aim as "to foster research that:
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
TaPRA arranges an annual conference in September. 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. 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. 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 and Accidental Collective.
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).