Invisible Presences: Translation, Dramaturgy and Performance (click here for pdf poster)

‘Invisible Presences’ is presented under the aegis of Out of the Wings, an AHRC‐funded project exploring Spanish theatre in English translation, in association with the Dramaturgies Project, and the Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.

Drama and Film Centre Queen’s University Belfast 18‐20 April 2011

This international conference will explore the dramaturgical processes of translation in performance practice, whether across language and culture or the translation of ideas into material production. Rather than seeing the processes of writing (whether collaborative or singleauthored), translation, rehearsal, production, and audience reception as separate and discrete, the conference will engage with approaches that view the process as more of a continuum, one that is perpetually at work. In this way the conference offers the opportunity for dialogue between contemporary practitioners, both translators and theatre makers, and for new insights into dramaturgy and translation that seek to map the growing convergence between theatre practice and translation.

The conference will feature:

• A range of eminent keynote speakers
• Practical workshops exploring issues of dramaturgy and translation
• Performances
• Panel sessions
• Round table discussions

Areas for discussion include, but are not limited to:

• Translation and its metaphorical apprehension of text
• Translation and its audiences
• Translation and the contingency of performance
• Collaborative translation processes
• The limits of translation
• Translation and ethics
• Dramaturgy as translation/ translational process
• Visual theatre: dramaturgies and translations of light, sound, space
• Technology: new relationships with audiences in online productions
• The dramaturgical process in different contexts:
• Case studies from practitioners and scholars exploring the issues and particularities of each context, such as community arts, theatre for young people, cross‐art collaboration processes and facilitation, ‘postdramatic’ dramaturgies, queer dramaturgies, disability arts, collaborative writing processes, etc.

Proposals addressing the themes of the conference are invited in the forms of:

• 20 minute paper presentation
• 2 hour workshop

Please submit proposals of 300 ‐ 500 words, with 150‐word biography, by 30 September 2010, to the organisers:

Alyson Campbell: a.e.campbell@qub.ac.uk

David Johnston: d.johnston@qub.ac.uk

Kurt Taroff: k.taroff@qub.ac.uk

Davis Crusades for New Golden Age of Spanish Drama

By Catherine Ferraro
Rick Davis, associate provost of undergraduate education, professor of theater, and co-artistic director of Theater of the First Amendment.

While few individuals in the English-speaking world recognize the name Pedro Calderón de la Barca, he is on a level with Shakespeare in his native country.

Calderón is regarded as one of Spain’s leading dramatists who helped further develop the country’s golden age in the 17th century. But because comparatively few of his plays have been translated, Calderón’s influence seldom reaches beyond the Spanish-speaking world.

Joining other like-minded individuals eager to spread the word about Spanish-language theater, Rick Davis, associate provost of undergraduate education, professor of theater, and co-artistic director of Theater of the First Amendment, presented a paper on Calderón at the 2010 Out of the Wings Symposium held in England in March.

A translator and director of Calderón’s plays, which he much admires, Davis presented “Calderón Beyond the Dream: Thoughts on Text and Production for a New Golden Age” at the two-day conference held at Oxford University’s Merton College. The conference focused on Spanish golden-age dramas and new approaches to production and translation.

Despite the success and popularity of Calderón and his golden-age contemporaries in their homeland, only one of Calderón’s plays, “Life is a Dream,” is widely anthologized, studied and produced by American college theater departments and professional companies, Davis notes.

“One of the reasons that Calderón and Spanish theater in general is relatively invisible in America is because we don’t have access to the range of the works of these playwrights like we do Shakespeare and Ibsen,” says Davis. “Therefore, American theaters and universities are hesitant to produce or teach a play that they haven’t read by a playwright they don’t know.”

In fact, according to Davis’ research, only 18 Spanish golden-age plays were produced in the past 15 seasons at professional theaters in the United States, of which there are about 400.

Meaningful translations and productions will help bring Spanish theater and playwrights to life in the English-speaking world, Davis argues. Although no translation is fully accurate, he notes, translators should try to capture the feeling and tone of the original work while striving for what he calls “speakability.” This allows the language to spring to life in the mouths of actors in a way that is understandable and accessible to contemporary audiences.

Throughout his presentation at Oxford, Davis drew on his own work in translation and production of Spanish-language theater. In a volume published in 2008 titled “Calderón de La Barca: Four Great Plays of the Golden Age,” Davis gave readers a taste of the playwright’s broad reach. Davis chose to translate four plays that range from delightful romantic comedy to serious religious epic: “The Phantom Lady,” “The Constant Prince,” “Life is a Dream” and “The Great Theater of the World.”

“I have a kind of missionary zeal when it comes to expanding the canon of dramatic literature that is actively studied and staged,” says Davis. “I wanted to create this volume of translations because it’s unfair to judge Calderón based on his one popular play, as is the case with many other Spanish dramatists.”

Davis makes a case for a natural alliance between theater companies steeped in Shakespeare and the material of the golden age. Though the texts are quite different, the actors know how to work with classical rhetoric, and audiences are accustomed to listening to the nuances of the language, he says.

As a final call to action at the symposium, Davis proposed an “all-out assault” on the 264 Shakespeare festivals, companies and theaters in North America, encouraging his colleagues to send out their playable and meaningful translations and production strategies. Since returning from the conference, Davis has sent out more than 20 copies of his Calderón book to companies and theaters across the country.

“Now,” he says with a hint of self-mockery, “I sit by the phone and wait for the flood of invitations to start pouring in.”

On a serious note, he adds, “Having the opportunity to be exposed to 17th-century Spain or any other time period in history is valuable to broadening one’s perspectives of the world. Hopefully, if our proposal is successful, we’ll soon see a burst of Spanish golden-age plays in North American theaters and be able to share these works with a new generation of individuals.”

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URL to article: http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/17412

University of Warwick, 12 June 2010

Guest speakers: Professor  David Johnston, Professor Catherine Boyle

Roundtable discussion led by Silvija Jestrovic with Ermanna Montanari, Rani Moorthi, Paul Sirett and Matthew Zajac.

Translating Theatre. Migrating Text  is a one-day colloquium exploring places of contact between current thinking about translation, global performance and contemporary forms of migrant theatre. The first in a series of events on theatre and translation organized with partners from the University of East Anglia and Milan State University, the colloquium seeks to establish a forum for the discussion of translation and migrant theatre that is international, interdisciplinary and innovative in its engagement with translation theory and theatre practice. Our point of departure is a definition of theatre translation that sees it not only as the product of interlingual transfer but as a process of negotiation of cultural contact through performance. Moving from such a re-definition we intend to explore translation practices in the context of an increasingly global theatre market while interrogating the work of actors, directors and playwrights who centre their artistic practice in the context of migration

The day will be divided into three parts, combining theoretical and practical approaches. The first part will consist of a series of academic papers exploring possible points of contact between theatre translation and migrant theatre (the politics of representation and mimesis, questions of origin and authenticity, acceptance and/or resistance to assimilation, the hybrid nature of notions of culture, identity and language). The second part – From Page to Stage –, will be a roundtable discussion with practitioners (actors, directors, playwrights) which will focus on performance, highlighting the intertwining relationship between writing, translating and performing migrant narratives. The final part of the colloquium will include a practical workshop on the creation and interpretation of migrant characters by London-based theatre company Legal Aliens. The workshop will involve hands-on activities related to the construction of migrant characters and the mise en scène.

To register, please contact Kerry Drakeley (K.J.Drakeley@warwick.ac.uk)

Dramaturgy on the Edge: A Dialogue Between Australia and Northern Ireland

Friday 2^nd July 2010, 2- 5pm

Brian Friel Theatre, Drama and Film Centre, Queen’s University Belfast

The discussion will be chaired by Professor Mary Luckhurst, playwright, director, dramaturg and academic.

Speakers:

• Dr Peter Eckersall, Associate Professor in Theatre Studies, The University of Melbourne and dramaturg with not yet it’s difficult performance company.
• Hanna Slattne, dramaturg with Tinderbox Theatre Company, Belfast and founder member of UK Dramaturgs’ Network.
• Dr Duška Radosavljević, dramaturg, theatre critic and academic based at the University of Kent.

This round table discussion aims to initiate a dialogue about dramaturgical practices in Northern Ireland/UK and Australia, and between dramaturgical theory and practice. Peter Eckersall will talk about the Melbourne-based Dramaturgies Project and Hanna Slattne will outline the Northern Irish Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy Project. Hanna will also give a demonstration of her practice with the Tinderbox Writers’ Lab.

For more information or to register interest in the event, please contact Dr Alyson Campbell a.e.campbell@qub.ac.uk or Hanna Slattne hanna.slattne@tinderbox.org.uk

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The Dramaturgies Project is a research and development laboratory, established in Melbourne in 2001 by Peter Eckersall, Melanie Beddie and Paul Monaghan. It aims to explore, reflect on and give rise to dramaturgical practice in – and as a basis for – making innovative performance in Australian theatre. The recent Dramaturgies # 4 in Melbourne brought together international and Australian practitioners and academics to take stock of shifting theatrical forms in the twenty-first century; recognise existing dramaturgical paradigms and find ways to move beyond them; be a ‘national audit’ of dramaturgical practices in and for the sector; develop new ideas, new skills and recommendations for the future development of dramaturgical practices that lie at the centre of an innovative Australian theatre into the future.

For five years Tinderbox has managed, developed and administered the Northern Ireland Arts Council’s Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy fund. This fund is available to companies to do development work prior to rehearsals in order to test ideas, text and performance style. It is a unique project and has been very successful in disseminating dramaturgical exploration and processes of working within the theatre sector in Northern Ireland. Through the JSDP Hanna has worked with many of Northern Ireland’s companies on numerous projects as well as leading the extensive dramaturgy strand at Tinderbox Theatre Company. She is also a founder member of the Dramaturgs’ Network, an organisation with an aim to support practitioners, provide professional development and be an advocate for dramaturgical practice.

Professor Mary Luckhurst is a world authority on dramaturgy and the politics of selecting plays for theatre repertoires, and author of Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre. She is co-founder of the new Department of Theatre, Film and TV at the University of York. She has written over 15 plays for performance which have been staged across Europe. In 2002 she founded Out of the Blue theatre company with Mike Cordner. She specialises in contemporary texts and has directed notable productions of work by Martin Crimp and Harold Pinter.

Dr Duška Radosavljević is a dramaturg, theatre critic and academic based at the University of Kent. She has worked at Northern Stage in Newcastle and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has an ongoing collaboration with Hanna Slattne and Tinderbox Theatre Company.

This is an event organised by Drama at Queen’s University Belfast, in collaboration with the IFTR working group Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy. It is the first of two dramaturgy events at Queen’s University: the next will be an international conference 18 – 20 April 2011, on Translation, Performance, and Dramaturgy. This will be run with the AHRC funded Out of the Wings project.

Catalandrama is a database of modern Catalan plays translated into other languages. The website has been established by the Obrador de la Sala Beckett with the support of the Institut Ramon Llull. The website contains biographies of authors, brief synopses of plays, as well as the option to order free PDF copies of Catalan plays in translation. It can be viewed in Catalan, Spanish and English.

Way to Heaven, David Johnston’s translation of Juan Mayorga’s award-winning play Himmelweg (Camino del cielo), comes to Sydney’s SBW Stables Theatre between 14 April and 8 May 2010. Directed by Tanya Goldberg, the play is a collaborative production between the Ride On Theatre and Griffin Theatre Companies:

‘The curtain falls and, suddenly… that whole world disappears.’

1942. The heart of Europe. An orchestra performs in the village square. Two boys play with a spinning top. A young couple quarrel on a park bench. And a ramp rises from a deserted train station where the clock is frozen at six o’clock. An ordinary town goes about its ordinary day. People perform for their lives.

Way to Heaven ventures deep into the fracture between appearance, performance and the terrible reality of Theresienstadt – the concentration camp notoriously presented to the outside world as a model Jewish settlement.

From renowned Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga comes a searing examination of fear, control and the power of performance.

See a trailer for the production here: Way to Heaven Trailer.

Tanya Goldberg, director of the production, gives her thoughts on the production here: Tanya Goldberg discusses Way to Heaven.

PERFORMANCE DATES

Preview 14 April
Season 16 April – May 8

PERFORMANCE TIMES

Monday – Saturday 7pm
Saturday Matinee 8 May 2pm
School Matinee 4 May 12:30 pm

PRODUCTION NOTES

Translated by David Johnston

Director Tanya Goldberg
Set Designer Simone Romaniuk
Costume Designer Xanthe Heubel
Lighting Designer Verity Hampson
Producers Esti Regos, and Viv Rosman
for Performing Lines
Associate Producer Joanna Fishman
With Lexi Freiman, Nicholas Hope, Marko Jovanovic, Nathan Lovejoy, Terry Serio, Tami Sussman

VENUE

SBW Stables Theatre
10 Nimrod Street
Kings Cross NSW 2011

More information on this production can be found by clicking on the Griffin Theatre Company website.

Jo Clifford, translator of Gil Vicente’s ‘Don Duardos’ which was recently staged as a rehearsed reading at the Burton-Taylor Studio Theatre in Oxford as part of our Symposium, has been interviewed on Start Talk:

Interview with Jo Clifford

Tuesday 30 March:

STRANGERS (written 2004)
by Spanish playwright Sergi Belbel; translated by Sharon Feldman
directed by Franko Figueiredo

STRANGERS is a GRIPPING TALE charting the disintegration of two generations of a Spanish family where the seeds of narrow-minded hatred that was planted bear BITTER FRUIT forty years later.

Strangers was first staged in Barcelona in 2004, and made into a film by Catalonian director, Ventura Pons in 2008.

agbaje, belbel, french, richter, srbljanović and ting StoneCrabs Theatre presents
ORIGENS/ORIGINS 2010-Vol. 1 Staged Readings Festival of Contemporary Plays from Europe
Soho theatre (Upstairs Studio)	Tuesday 30th March Thursday 1st April Thursday 8th April @ 7pm
	BOOK ONLINE NOW www.wegottickets.com tickets £5 *please note that there is a 10% online booking fee

The Faculty of Translating and Interpreting at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona is hosting a two-day international conference on ‘Translation and the Scenic Arts: Theatre and Opera’, 15-16 April 2010. This conference is a joint project between the UAB and the Betwixt and Between research group, Queen’s University Belfast.

LA TRADUCCIÓ EN ESCENA

II Jornades Internacionals de Traducció en les Arts Escéniques: Opera i Teatre

Location: Classroom 1 & 2 of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

THURSDAY 15 APRIL 2010

11h30-12h

• Initial Meeting, Classroom 2 of the Facultat de Traducció i Interpretació (Faculty of Translation and Interpreting) of the UAB

12h-13h:

• David Johnston (introduced by Joan Sellent): “Translation, Translation Studies and Theatre Practice”

Lunch

15h30-17h

• Chair: Miquel Edo
• Rossend Arqués: “Les belles infidèles: les traduccions d’actor”
• Laura Bernadini: “Teatro catalano contemporaneo in Italia: tradurre per la scena”
• Eduard Bartoll: “La sobretitulació d’obres teatrals”

17h-18h30

• Chair: Anna Corral
• Joaquim Sala: “Teoria i pràctica de la subtitulació d’Òperes: el cas d’Òpera oberta”
• Francesc Cortès: “La traducció i adaptació d’obres líriques a Catalunya: la formació i deformació d’una òpera cantada en català”
• Miquel Edo: “La rima, obstacle i repte en la traducció de llibrets d’òpera”

21h: Conference Dinner

FRIDAY 16 APRIL 2010

10h-11h30

• Chair: Pilar Orero
• Stephen Kelly: “Theatre Translation as Cultural and Historical Re-encounter: the British Reception of the Soweto Mysteries”
• Sarah Maitland: “Performing Hospitality: Translation, Difference and the Intercultural Stage”
• Aline Fernandes: “Travelling Plays, Travelling Audiences: From Marina Carr’s Irish Midlands to Somewhere Lost and Found in Brazil”

Coffee

12h-13h30

• Chair: Ramon Lladó
• Albers Franciscus: “Shakespeare on the Dutch scene”
• Ramon Farrés: “Distorsions del llenguatge en la dramatúrgia austríaca contemporània: un repte per al traductor”
• Joan Sellent: “La importància de ser fidel”

Lunch

16h-17h: Round Table Discussion

• Chair: David Johnston
• Lawrence Boswell: Theatre Director
• Sergi Belbel: Theatre Director, Dramaturg and Translator
• Cristina Genebat: Actress and Translator

17h: Close

For more information, please email Professor David Johnston at Queen’s University Belfast: d.johnston@qub.ac.uk or contact the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting at the UAB: d.traduccio@uab.cat

Professor Lawrence Venuti, Queen’s University Belfast 8–9 March 2010

The Queen’s Research Forum for Translation and Cultural Encounter is hosting two seminars by Lawrence Venuti. Lawrence Venuti is Professor of English at Temple University. He is also a translator and has written and edited a number of books on translation theory. The following two seminars will take place on 8 and 9 March 2010.

All are welcome to attend.

Monday 8 March, 7.00p.m.

Queen’s University Belfast. Seminar Room, Postgraduate Centre, 18 College Green. This seminar will be followed by a wine reception.

Genealogies of Translation Theory: Jerome

This lecture offers an historical examination and ideological critique of Jerome’s famous Letter to Pammachius (395CE), exploring its relation to Roman imperial culture, on the one hand, and to an emerging Christian culture, on the other. Jerome’s letter is the most influential statement of what can be called the instrumental model of translation, the notion that translation is the reproduction or imitation of an invariant contained in or caused by the source text. Jerome’s effort to sketch a Christian translation tradition is considered as a means of legitimizing his own translation practices, but attention is also given to modern developments like Eugene Nida’s concept of dynamic equivalence. The aim is to formulate and argue for the comprehensiveness and ethical value of a hermeneutic model, the notion that translation is a variable interpretation that is culturally and historically contingent. The ethics of translation to be proposed here will draw on the work of Alain Badiou, specifically his concept of a truth‐based ethics that challenges institutionalized knowledges and communitarian interests. The instrumental model as formulated and applied by Jerome is affiliated with a Roman Christian elite whose interests are masked by its translation theory and practice.

Tuesday 9 March, 5.00p.m.

Queen’s University Belfast. Lanyon Building, Room G09

Ekphrasis, Translation, Critique

Translation theory enables a rigorous critical methodology that can advance thinking about ekphrasis, the verbal representation of visual art. The relation between such a second‐order work and its source material is not instrumental, not a reproduction or transfer of a formal or semantic invariant, but rather hermeneutic, an interpretation that varies source form and meaning through the application of an interpretant. The hermeneutic relation must be viewed as transformative because a key aspect of any interpretant is its relation to cultural traditions and social situations that differ from those of the source material. As a result, the hermeneutic relation can be treated not only as interpretive, a variable attempt to fix source form and meaning, but as interrogative, exposing the cultural and social conditions of the source material and of the second‐order work that has processed it. The critic in turn applies an interpretant, whether a critical methodology or specific interpretation, to formulate the hermeneutic relation and its interrogative effects. The lecture will review the literature on ekphrasis from the vantage point of translation theory and then develop a translation‐oriented method for reading ekphrastic texts. The case study is Rosanna Warren’s 1984 poem, “Renoir,” which is based on Renoir’s painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881).

For further information contact Professor David Johnston at d.johnston@qub.ac.uk