Performing the Politics of Peace: Locational Dramaturgies and the Public Space / Jouer la politique de la paix : Dramaturgies locales et espace public

Issue #34 (December 2026)
Guest Editors
Maria Konomi and Avra Sidiropoulou

This special issue #34 of Critical Stages/Scènes critiques aims to investigate the richness and diversity of contemporary international practices that engage with the performative use of public space in relation to a highly timely topic: promoting and performing the politics of peace.

Given that our globalized world is deeply immersed in a tight web of interrelated social, territorial and cultural conflict, the role of the arts both in cultivating and reflecting on peaceable and pacifist values seems more seminal than ever.  Recent publications, such as Peacebuilding and the Arts (Mitchell et al. 2020), argue for the role of cultural and artistic contributions to building peace. Undoubtedly, performing the politics of peace implicates difficult histories and harsh realities delving on collective trauma, violence, conflict, loss, and war and genocide. Besides human rights and social justice protests, where are we to identify alternative or complementary voices rallying for peace, seeking to bridge, heal, and even forgive? In what ways can art and performance make any significant contributions to such invaluable processes of the human condition?

The special issue will examine different ecologies of performance and theatre-making that address or “recycle” reality in the context of rallying for peace. Building upon the ongoing interest in spatial and locational dramaturgies and related working methodologies, we aim to highlight the use of real spaces and sites in performance, as contested spaces and/or sites of active conflict or post-conflict situations. This comes from an understanding that the immersive and socially engaged nature of place–bound and site-specific work, as well as its collaborative dimension, can be formative to promoting peace and values such as religious tolerance, acceptance of alterity, and a down-right renunciation of violence and war, hence effecting social change well beyond the world of performance.

Site can be an impactful strategy for implementing the politics of peace in performance. Some dramaturgies, scenographies and participatory aesthetic strategies can have a strong social impact not only on defining the environments and contexts of performative actions in the shared public space, but also on inspiring us ‘to act by directly shaping our actions’ (Lotker & Gough, 2013). Such dramaturgies can ‘even be understood as intervening in history’ (Martin 2013, 5), providing audiences and participants with critical historiographic approaches to past conflicts, events or invented content of recycled realities of conflicts, and furthermore creating projections, visions and realities of sustainable pacifist futures.

Some crucial questions that we aim to be explored in this issue include:

• How can locational dramaturgies and performances in public spaces address the politics of peace and the need for active connectedness and collective reach? How do they impact the making and reception of the performance piece, enabling its role in promoting peace?
• Could peace advocacy be rooted in artistic utopia?
• In what ways could such practices resonate with a wider audience, variously contributing to peace and reconciliation strategies and processes?

We accept papers addressing the above questions, but also welcome papers that explore the following topics in relation to the issue’s overall theme:  

1. Performance as a forum for conflict resolution in divided communities
2. The capacity of the public space to become a stage for enacting peace and resistance / Site as an active agent of the politics of performance design and peace advocacy
3. Participatory arts and activist civic engagement
4. The intersection of physical performance, human  geography, and peacebuilding
5. Controversial aspects regarding  rallying for peace in performance practice
6. The dialectics of war and peace in recycling conflict and war realities in theatre and performance practices
7. Intermediality, site-specific practices and hybrid locational identities
8. Locational narratives that preserve or contest collective memories of conflict aiming for peaceful resolution
9. Artivism and critique of the arts and of cultural institutions
10. Performing the politics of peace at a time of climate crisis

Building on our own research background, we aim to address our call to an international and diverse array of authors -practitioners and/or theorists-, in order to cover a recent body of performance work from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds and critical perspectives and a wide spectrum of practices and methodologies: from site-specific artistic and/or activist performance to applied theatre participatory strands and public space interventions. We also welcome thought-provoking interviews with artists and theatre practitioners, as well as visual and performance artists’ manifestos and/or provocations, which solidly contextualize the topics covered in the issue.

Selected References

Lotker, Sodja and Richard Gough. “On Scenography: Editorial.” Performance Research, vol. 18, no  3, 2013, pp. 3-6.

Martin, Carol. Theatre of the Real. Palgrave Macmillan 2015 (2013).

Mitchell, J., G. Vincett, T. Hawksley, H. Culbertson, eds. Peacebuilding and the Arts.Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Timeline

Proposals of approximately 300 words, including a 50-word short bio note identifying all collaborating authors: 15 June 2025.

First drafts: 31  January 2026
Final drafts: 1 September 2026
Publication: December 2026

Contact

Please send a 300-word abstract and a 100-word bio to: markonomi@theatre.uoa.grand avra.sidiropoulou@ouc.ac.cy.

Biographies of Guest Editors

Maria Konomi is Αssistant Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies, University of Athens (NKUA) and a scenographer and visual artist/curator. She has over ninety credits in visual and performing arts and film presenting her work internationally including the UK, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Cyprus and Czech Republic. She was part of the curatorial team for the Greek professional participation at the Prague Quadrennial PQ23 exhibition, co-editor of the catalogue A Rare Gathering (2023) and co-curator of the PQ Greek student exhibition. Maria is the author of Modern and Contemporary Scenography. Milestones and Developments (2021) and many chapters and journal papers. She has organized the international conference ‘Expanded Scenography, Performance and Public Space’ (Athens, 2024).

Avra Sidiropoulou is Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and Associate Professor at the Open University of Cyprus. She is the author of Directions for Directing. Theatre and Method (Routledge 2019) and Authoring Performance: The Director in Contemporary Theatre (Palgrave Macmillan 2011); co-editor of Adapting Greek Tragedy. Contemporary Contexts for Ancient Texts (CUP 2021) and editor of Staging 21st Century Tragedies. Theatre, Politics, and Global Crisis (Routledge 2022).  Avra is Artistic Director of Athens-based Persona Theatre Company. She is a member of the Executive Committee of The European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance (EASTAP) and was nominated for the 2020 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award by the League of Professional Theatre Women.

Quelle: https://www.critical-stages.org/performing-the-politics-of-peace/