Finally! ATHE: Detroit
After two years of virtual conference presentations, plenaries, and panels; after two years of delayed hotel contracts, missed connections, meals and drinks gone unshared, and “you’re muted”s… we did it.
We gathered in Detroit for a jam-packed ATHE 2022 at the Renaissance Center, which I believe is secretly a supervillain lair. I mean, look at it.
I was busy (like, very busy), presenting in or moderating panels, presenting at ATHE’s Leadership Institute during pre-con events, and facilitating embodied workshops. But, I was also able to reconnect with my favorite folks, laugh a lot, and learn. So I’m collecting just one handful of my favorite takeaways (aside from Dominique Morisseau’s plenary, from which there were too many takeaways to list, but it was incredible and invigorating and I spent the entire time texting meaningful quotes to my sister-in-law, a Detroit-based arts nonprofit admin. If that inspires FOMO, listen to the whole conversation on the Daughters of Lorraine podcast, which is fantastic!):
Clara Kundin highlighted the intense dearth of writing on accessibility in youth theatre and actor training, the erasure of disabled people in performance pedagogy and practice, and the ways in which a “utopic” rehearsal space need not erase disability.
John Michael DiResta explained his new approach to consent-based auditions and casting in educational environments, including an alternative to using sides at callbacks
Sonya Cooke’s use of specialized note sessions as a directorial approach to immersive/ambulatory theatre
Directing FG Debut Panelists Sanhawich Meateanuwat and Adin Walker’s parallel focus on solidarity, empathy, and antioppressive collaboration performance practices from differing lenses
The whole Games We Play workshop—it was just so much fun, and the activities shared are all in my toolkit now!
Laura Rikard, Chelsea Pace, and Michael Jablonski’s contributions to the Open-Source Journals and the Battle to Dismantle Hierarchies of Academic Publication panel, including publication as conversation; citation of unwritten work; claiming of positionality; anxiety and writing; self curation; interdiscliplinary grounding for performance research; and cfrancis blackchild’s audience contribution, situating citation as protection
It was invigorating to delve into analyzing ideas, theories, and practices in shared space with people, to break off freely into new conversations and follow the flow of our interests and ideas, and to experience hallway run-ins that lead to extensive conversations and questioning. After so much time only virtually connected and with conversations feeling (to me) stiflingly controlled, ATHE at Detroit felt like what I needed.
It was also really exciting to host the Journal of Consent-Based Performance table at ATHE for the first time, really introducing our presence in the field.
Next year, Austin!
