Activities

S:PAM Lectures

In our S:PAM Lectures, we invite Academics and Artists to talk about their research.

Invited Guests

• #44: Sarah Adams - Scenarios of Subjection: Performed Colonial Knowledge in the Dutch Harlequinade of 1800 – 16-05-2023 
• #43: Roza Sarkisian & Sofie de Smet - The Hamlet Syndrome: To be or not to be Ukraine - 25-04-2023
• #42: Heunjung Lee - Aging in Theatre and Dance - 08-12-2022
• #41: Lily Climenhaga - Milo Rau: (Re)pertoire, (Re)creation Processes, and the (Re)presentation of Self - 24-11-2022
• #40: DOUBLE BILL Dani Abulhawa & Mette Ingvartsen  -Skateboarding and Femininity: Porous Choreographies of Living and Dancing - 10-11-2022
• #39: DOUBLE BILL Christel Stalpaert: Modernistische wereldbeelden in het West-Europese theater & Chokri Ben Chikha: Flemish Primitives -  13-10-2022
• #38: Fabian Barba- Behind the scenes: the modern/colonial order of contemporary dance - 17-11-2021
• #37: Arkadi Zaides – Necropolis – 25-03-2021
• #36: Barbara Raes – Rituals for Unacknowledged Loss – 18-03-2021
• #35: Klaas Tindemans & Dominiek Hoens – A Dramatic Society – 11-03-2021
• #34: Mahlu Mertens & Alexander Devriendt – Are we not drawn onward to new era – 03-12-2020
• #33: Piet Defraeye – Patrice Lumumba and Street-Art – 26-11-2020
• #32: Leyla-Claire Rabih – Chronicles of an orphan revolution – 19-11-2020
• #31: Klaas Tindemans & Dominiek Hoens – A Dramatic Society – 12-03-2020 (cancelled)
• #30: Bram Van Oostveldt – A Spy, a Book, and a Speaking Palace – 27-02-2020
• #29: Guy Cools – The Choreopolitics of Alain Platel – 11-12-2019
• #28: Elias Vervecken – A Shoe Learning Itself to Walk – 21-05-2019
• #27: Krien Clevis – Thinking-through-Media – 21-05-2019
• #26: Salomé Voegelin – Listening hour for ambiguity and reliable things – 20-05-2019
• #25: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard – Sound and the Feeling of Presence -20-05-2019
• #24: Amelia Jones – In Between Subjects – 20-05-2019
• #23: Eylül Fidan Akinci – More on a girl is a thing – 07-02-2019
• #22: Bauke Lievens – Between being and Imaging – 13-11-2018
• #21:Philip Auslander – The Fame: Performance Art and Celebrity Culture – 16-05-2018
• #20: Margherita Laera – Untitled Lecture – 17-04-2018
• #19: Dalia Taha, Ahmed Tobasi and Ata Khattab – Conversation with Palestinian Artists – 20-02-2018
• #18: Rita Swanepoel – The aesthetics of Das Nichtidentische within the historical context of South Africa – 23-10-2017
• #17: Bart Philipsen – Staging (Mis)understanding – 16-05-2017
• #16: Sruti Bala – Cultural Analysis and the making of Intended Mistakes – 04-05-2017
• #15: Mateusz Borowski and Malgorzata Sugiera – Counterfactual and Mockumentary Strategies in the Contemporary Performative Arts – 08-12-2016
• #14: Yana Meerzon – Theatre and (Im)migration – 10-05-2016
• #13: Karen Jürs-Munby – The Politics of ‘Dematerialised Theatre’ – 23-02-2016
• #12: Bram Van Oostveldt – Ut Sculptura Theatrum – 30-11-2015
• #11: Jelena Juresa – A Collision of Past and Present – 26-11-2015
• #10: Gerko Egert – Touch, Rhythm, Affect – 15-10-2015
• #9: Benjamin Wihstutz – On Disability Studies and Emancipation – date unknown
• #8: Marie Kruger – Lecture in Re:Moving Apartheid – 24-11-2014
• #7: Jane Taylor – Lecture in Re:Moving Apartheid – 24-11-2014
• #6: Kati Röttger – All that trouble with interculturality! – 13-05-2014
• #5: Joy Kristin Kalu – Estrangement Effects – 06-05-2014
• #4: Emiliano Battista – Untitled Lecture – 13-02-2014
• #3: Ramsay Burt – Dance Britannia – 23-05-2013
• #2: Kati Röttger - All that trouble with interculturality! – 24-04-2013 (cancelled)
• #1: Katharina Pewny and Christel Stalpaert – Encountering the Other – 06-03-2013

Theatre talks

In 2024, S:PAM started with ‘Theatre Talks’, a new series of public talks. Focusing on the trajectory of artists and collectives, their creative processes, their inventive solutions to survive as theatre professionals, their struggles… we hope to create an open dialogue between them and a broad audience of students and theatre lovers.

→ #1: Lume Teatro – 21-03-2024

International Conferences and Symposia

S:PAM and its members regularly host international conferences in the city of Ghent, focusing on a topic corresponding to one of the research tracks.

Overview of International Conference

• Ecologies of Architecture and Dance (2024)

• Performing Theatricality and imaging religious ceremonies in early modern Western Europe (2024)

• From the Scenic Essay to the Essay-Exhibition (2022)

• DANCE NOW. Work With(Out) Boundaries (2017)

• Re-Moving Apartheid. Postdramatic and Postnarrative Modes of Coping with Trauma (2016)

• Does it Matter? Composite Bodies and Posthuman Prototypes in Contemporary Performing Arts (2015)

• OCCUPY ANTIGONE. Tradition, Transition and Transformation in Performance (2014)

• Revaluing Theatrical Heritage. Challenges and Opportunities (2013)

• PLAY. Relational Aspects of Dramaturgy (2012)

• The Gaze is Us! Conference On Spectatorship (2011)

• Migrating Europe. Dance in Conflict Zones (2010)

• Tickle Your Catastrophe! (2009)

• Het spel van de waanzin. Over gekte in theater (2009)

• Diggin’ the Future (2009)

• Mutating Media (2009)

• Performing Cultural Trauma in Theatre and Film (2008)

• Immersion. The Art of The True Illusion (2007)

• Bodystroke: kunst op het raakvlak van dans, performance en beeldende kunsten (2005)

• Deleuze revisited: de hedendaagse podiumkunsten en het verval van de representatie (2001)

• Performing arts in the Austrian 18th century: new directions in historical and methodological research (1998)

Overview of symposia

• RE:RITE. Touching on Daily Rituals
• If You Don’t Let Us Dream, We Won’t Let You Sleep. Shadow World
• Le Sacre
• Buildings with a Social Memory. Strategies of Conservation, Reuse and Reconversion
• Re-enacting the Dance: Reconstruction or Critical Intervention

Doctoral Schools

S:PAM participates in the organisation of specialist courses for PhD candidates in various themes of theater, performance, dance and media studies, in cooperation with Ghent University's Doctoral School of Arts, Humanities and Law. The Doctoral School supports junior researchers during their research training.

Overview of Specialist Courses

• Dance and the blockchain. Commodification and ownership of embodied creativity in the crypto space.
  with: Jorge Poveda Yánez, Adam Łukawski, Lenara Verle, Marlon Barrios Solano, Patrick Tresset, Simon Geiregat, Nina Davies…
  when: 24-26 August 2022

• Sound & Listening on the Edge of Music, Performance, Film and New Media
  with: Leonie Persyn (UGent, S:PAM), Pieter-Jan Maes (UGent, IPEM) and Martine Huvenne (Kask – School of Arts), with Salome Voegelin (University of the Arts, London), Mark Nicholas Grimshaaw-Aagaard (Aalborg University, Denmark), Krien Clevis (Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts) and Elias Vervecken (LUCA School of Arts)
  when: 20-24 May 2019  
• Studying past and present Performances with Philip Auslander
  with: Philip Auslander (Georgia Tech University), Katharina Pewny and Kornee van der Haven (Ghent University)
  when: 7 & 17-18 May 2018
• What Are We Training For? On acting and performance techniques - Current directions for embodied research in the performing arts? 
  with: Adriana La Selva (UGent), Ben Spatz (Centre for Psychophysical Performance Research, Huddersfield), Iben Nagel Rasmussen, Carlos Simioni, Prof. Esa Kirkkorpelto (University of Arts, Helsinki), and Nicolas Galeazzi (A.PASS)
  when: 10-11 January 2018
• PhD-forum in the frame of conference DANCE NOW: Work with(Out) Boundaries
  with: Mark Franko (Temple University) and Gabriele Klein (University of Hamburg), moderated by Katharina Pewny and Annelies Van Assche (Ghent University) in collaboration with KU Leuven (OJO) & CAMPO. 
  when: 18 March 2017
• Reading Seminar in the frame of the symposium Contemporaneities
  with: Rebecca Schneider (Brown University) and Michelle Castaneda (Brown University)
  when: 7 March 2016
• Contemporaneities. The Entangled Now of Performance
  with: Frederik Le Roy and Christel Stalpaert (UGent), Rebecca Schneider (Brown University, USA), Milo Rau (theater maker, Switserland), Stefan Bläske (dramaturg, Switserland), Daniel Blanga-Gubbay, Fabian Barba (Brussels-based choreographer), Timmy De Laet (UA) and Thomas Bellinck (Brussels-based theatre maker)
  when: 5 March 2016
  extra info: Winner of the 2016 performance philosophy seed funding
• Art and Politics. Thinking Art with the Agonistic Politico-Philosophical Theory of Chantal Mouffe
  with: Goran Petrovic (UGent), Chantal Mouffe (University of Westminster) and Arkadi Zaides (choreographer)
  when: 11 – 13 May 2016.
• Art and Capitalism: Art as Work
  with: Bojana Kunst (Institute for Applied Theatre Studies / ATW at Justus-Liebig University Giessen), Katharina Pewny & Christel Stalpaert (Ghent University), Eleanor Bauer (freelance artist), Rudi Laermans (KU Leuven)
  when: 1-3 October 2015
• Masks, Puppets and Performative Objects as Tools of Critique, Resistance and Agency in South Africa. Developing a Situational, Embodied and Postdramatic Approach for Dealing with the Cultural Trauma of Apartheid
  with: Christel Stalpaert, Marieke Breyne and Sofie de Smet (UGent), Marie Kruger (UStellenbosch), Jane Taylor (University of Leeds, Wole Soyinka Chair of Drama and Theatre Studies, Petrus Du Preez (UStellenbosch) and South-African artist Estelle Olivier
  when: 24-26 November 2014
• Art and Ethics. Shifts from Biopolitics to Necropolitics
  with: Marina Grzinic (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Marissa Lobo (independent artist Vienna) and Aneta Stojnic (UGent – Basileus post-doc research fellow)
  when: 24-26 September 2014
• Unfolding the many Dramaturgies
  with: Konstantina Georgelou (ArtEZ & University of Utrecht), Efrosini Protopapa (University of Roehampon), Danae Theodoridou (University of Groningen)
  when: 26-28 March 2014
• The Body as Archive. 100 Years Le Sacre
  with: Christel Stalpaert (UGent), Martine Huvenne (HoGent), Rokus De Groot (UvA) and Ramsay Burt (De Montfort University, UK)
  when: 22-25 May 2013
• Art and Action in Conflict Zones
  with: Christel Stalpaert (UGent), Frederik Le Roy (UGent), Hildegard De Vuyst (dramaturge KVS) and Prof. Dr. Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University)
  when: 6-10 February 2012
• Auratic Presence: A Postdramatic Perspective on the Body and Corporeality
  with: Christel Stalpaert (UGent), Koen Augustijnen (Les Ballets C de la B), Prof. Dr. Hans-Thies Lehmann (J. Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main), and Prof. Dr. Richard Cave (University of London)
  when: 11-13 and 16-19 May 2011

Projects with the Arts Sector

S:PAM engages with the Flemish cultural sector and expands its activities beyond academia by co- organizing (educational) projects exploring boundaries between art, sciences and daily life.

We regularly collaborate with art centres like Kunstencentrum Viernulvier, NTGent, BUDA Kortrijk as well as KASK School of Arts and the VANDENHOVE center for Architecture and Art.  Stay tuned about these projects, events and activities via our newsletter: subscribe.