Pamiętnik Teatralny, a bilingual Polish-English academic quarterly published by the Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, welcomes submissions for a thematic issue addressing the festivalization of theater culture.

Considerations on the festivalization of culture in the 20th and 21st centuries have been complex and extensive, and the phenomenon has had many conflicting assessments. International art festivals have contributed to the globalization and glocalization of cultural trends, but they have also reinforced national categories in thinking about art. Festival practices at times unsealed and shifted political or cultural borders, and at times they froze hierarchies and perpetuated stereotypes. Festival encounters often create an opportunity for the participants to change or expand their perspectives. No wonder, then, that academic discussions about festivals involved clashes between various interpretations of cultural dialogue, transfer, and mobility, interculturality and transculturality, and the potential of festivals to engender aesthetic and institutional change.

We would like to invite contributions that reflect on the artistic, ethical, and political aspects of the participation of particular artists in international theater, dance, and performance festivals. Suggested topics include:

• the ways in which “interpretive communities” emerge and function at festivals;
• the recontextualisation of performances within/through international reception at festivals;
• the role of festival experience in the work (and career development) of individual artists and collectives (case studies);
• the role of festivals in shaping artistic hierarchies;
• the models of festival criticism;
• the art of festival failure;
• festival practices in the context of institutional critique.

DEADLINE: Full texts (ca. 4,000 to 6,500 words) should be submitted using the electronic system provided on our website by 31 March, 2023: https://czasopisma.ispan.pl/index.php/pt/about/submissions

Author Guidelines are available under this link: https://czasopisma.ispan.pl/index.php/pt/dlaautora