- contact @ aict-iatc.org
Organizers: International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC) — Doctoral School of the Faculty of Theater and Film, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The contribution of technology to theater has always surprised audiences over the centuries, contributing to the construction of fictional worlds in the most diverse ways, grafting novelty and cutting-edge inventions on that savoir-faire or craft acquired through traditions handed down from generation to generation. In contemporary theater, the presence of technology, be it cinematographic, video, digital or AI-generated, is increasingly felt, and the questions are all the more numerous and fearful as the speed of technological change and evolution increases every day, without us being able to keep up, not so much in terms of consumption as in terms of fully understanding the phenomenon. We cannot avoid technology unless we withdraw from society, and theater cannot do that as a product of the society we live in. It must therefore confront and collaborate with new contemporary technologies…
Let us think together about the challenges that these technological changes bring to the artistic field of theatre and performing arts: at the level of stage production, at the level of the actor’s art and stage performativity when the human being is confronted with other three-dimensional presences that can compete with him, at the level of audience reception, of face-to-face or internet consumers of culture, and, last but not least, at the level of the relationship between producers and existing or potential audiences.
This raises some questions to which we are looking for answers: What are the big technological changes that surprise, delight or affect us in relation to the performing arts? How do they act and what is their contribution? Do they disrupt theater and its reception or not? Should we be afraid of new technologies and the digital age we have entered? What are the directions that contemporary stage and technology are taking in the various genres of performance, from drama and comedy, to dance-theater, concert-theater, documentary theater and other types of stage performance.
Those interested, please send an abstract of 200 words (max), and your short narrative CV (of no more than 100 words) to: grigorescuo2@gmail.com and ioan.pop-curseu@ubbcluj.ro.
Length of lectures: presentation time 15 minutes + 5 minutes discussions Submission deadline for abstracts: 10 July 2025
Notification (of acceptance or rejection): 1 August 2025
Conference languages: English or French (with power-point in English for French lectures).
The conference will take place at the FACULTY OF THEATER AND FILM of the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, October 10-12, 2025. A special panel will be dedicated to PHD Students.
Organizers: AICT/IACT and FTF Doctoral School
Oana Cristea Grigorescu (theater critic, President AICT.Ro)
Ștefana Pop-Curșeu (FTF, Theater Department, Artistic dir. of the National Theatre in Cluj)
Ioan Pop-Curșeu (FTF, Film, Photo and Media Department, Head of the Doctoral School)
Once your proposals are accepted, we kindly ask you email the complete texts (3000-5000 words) in English or French by 1st September 2025. The papers will not be read during the conference; they will be available to the participants in advance instead. Authors are expected only to present the main theses and conclusions of their papers in maximum 15 minutes, so there is at least 5 minutes time left for a fruitful discussion. The conference will be held in English and/or French and in a hybrid mode (Zoom and on-site)—in other words, those who cannot be present in Cluj can still participate in this conference.
The selected participants will be offered free tickets to the main-stage performances of our partner, the National Theatre in Cluj, during the festival The International Meetings in Cluj, 9-12 October 2025, included in the Programme. Participants will be provided coffee-breaks during the conference and a cocktail dinner after each evening performance.
Selected papers will be published in AICT/IATC’s journal Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques and in the FTF academic journal Studia UBB Dramatica.