In 2024, The Pinokio Theatre in Łódź organised S·PLOT, the International Congress of Performative Arts for Children and Young People, which interlaces performances with the voices of young audiences and researchers in theatre and performing arts for children and youth. From 2025, S·PLOT will become an international festival. Within this framework, we aim to continue the dialogue between theatre theorists and practitioners. We warmly invite you to take part in the international scientific conference "Theatre and Performing Arts for Children and Young People: Artistic Practices, Research Perspectives, Social and Cultural Challenges".
The first two decades of the 21st century have seen profound transformations in theatre and performing arts for young audiences. These encompass – though are not limited to – changes in dramaturgy, genre, repertoire, and staging, as well as developments in forging relationships with child and youth audiences and fostering artistic partnerships between children/young people and adults. The conference seeks to encourage interdisciplinary reflection and diverse approaches to the study of performing arts for young audiences. Such perspectives open up new questions, broaden viewpoints, and bring fresh impulses to both creative practice and research. The following publications, among others, have emerged from this approach: Manon van de Water, Theatre, Youth, and Culture: A Critical and Historical Exploration (New York 2012); Mapping Research. A Map on the Aesthetics of Performing Arts For Early Years (Bologna 2023); Shifra Schonmann, Theatre as a Medium for Children and Young People (Dordrecht 2006), The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Young People (ed. Selina Busby, Kelly Freebody, and Charlene Rajendran, Londyn 2023), or the book published in 2024 by the Children's Art Center in Poznań, entitled. Status sztuki dla dzieci. Pola, rozgrywki, refleksje [The Status of Art for Children. Fields, Games, Reflections] (ed. Anna Maria Czernow, Michalina Wesołowska). In keeping with the path of interdisciplinary reflection, we warmly invite researchers from a range of academic disciplines – including, in particular, theatre studies, cultural studies, media studies, literary studies, art history, cultural anthropology, pedagogy, and sociology – as well as artists, curators, theatre educators, teachers, accessibility coordinators, and others engaged in the field of performing arts for children and young people to take part in the conference.
We invite you to reflect on three areas of inquiry in relation to theatre and performing arts for children and young people:
1. art practices;
2. new approaches in research discourses;
3. challenges arising from contemporary crises and socio-cultural transformations.
We propose the following detailed research fields:
• the place of performing arts for children and young people in the cultural field: global and local approaches;
• the multiplicity of forms and aesthetics and the transdisciplinarity of performing arts for children and young people (including, among other things, formats, conventions, genres, new artistic phenomena, transformations of creative processes, staging strategies, participatory practices, dramaturgy of performances for children and young people, creative partnerships between adults and children);
• performing arts for children and young people and conceptualisations of childhood, the child, the young person;
• performing arts for children and young people in the context of hot topics of today;
• representation in performing arts for children and young people (including the perspectives of gender studies, disability studies, postcolonial studies, the issue of multiculturalism, transculturalism; the political aspect of art for young audiences);
• clichés, patterns, cultural stereotypes in performing arts for children and young people (including, among other things, their sources and consequences of their impact on the creative process and reception; subversive practices);
• research in the field of performing arts for children and young people (including research into children and young people as audiences, research methodologies, issues calling for research, conclusions of reports);
• theatre and performing arts criticism for children and young people (including strategies of contemporary criticism, publications).
You are welcome to contribute to the discussion by adding your own original presentation topics.
Submit your presentation proposals using the form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9BvdmRHxBaStsVaijm8oNcsJxWySHlUGcwibUnz3dY0skBQ/viewform?usp=header
The closing date for submissions is 31 July 2025
Successful submissions will be announced by 5 August 2025
Presentation time: 15 minutes
Language of presentation: Polish or English
The organisers of the international academic conference provide simultaneous interpretation from Polish into English and from English into Polish.
The organisers of the international academic conference provide an online presentation option.
Participation in the international academic conference is free of charge.
The organisers of the international academic conference also provide:
• the possibility to participate in the S·PLOT International Festival
of Performing Arts for Children and Young People, 6-12 October 2025, Łódź (Poland);
• accommodation (hotel + breakfast) and vouchers for one additional meal per day.
For more information, please contact:
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https://www.teatrpinokio.pl/s-plot/konferencje/
Scentific leadership of the conference:
Marzenna Wiśniewska, PhD, Professor of Nicolaus Copernicus University (Toruń/Poland)
Bartosz Kurowski (The Pinokio Theatre in Łódź)
Conference secretary:
Aleksandra Szynkora (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń/Poland)
Also check out other Arts events in Lodz, Performances in Lodz, Entertainment events in Lodz.
