Living on the Edge: Chaos in Theatre, Film and Performance
5-7 December 2025 Online via ZOOM

Dates: December 5-7, 2025

Organisation: Theatre and Drama Network

Presentation Mode: Online

No Fees

The concept of chaos has been central to dramatic writing and theatrical performances for centuries,
as the stage has consistently served as a site for dissent and political critique. Theatres have
abounded with stories of ontological crises, human struggles, catastrophes, political crises, tales of
revolution, transformation and chaos as well as existential angst, identity confusion and ontological
reasoning. From the antiquity and the religious counsels of medieval morality plays to the
posthuman concerns of contemporary and eco-theatres, dramatic and recently Postdramatic plays
have persistently explored the instabilities and subversions of meaning, form, identity, and
sociocultural systems and practices.

Chaos, which encompasses meanings such as disorder, ambiguity, turmoil, and upheaval, is
accepted in most cultures as the beginning of existence. Plato defines this existence with the phrase
“ordo ab chao”. N. Katherine Hayles notes that “the cultural connotations associated with the word
‘chaos’ can be discerned in its etymology. The word derives from a Greek verb-stem, KHA,
meaning “to yawn, to gape”; from this comes the meaning given by the Oxford English Dictionary,
“a gaping void, yawning gulf, chasm, or abyss” (1991, p. 2). Chaos is associated with disorder. In
ancient times, Dionysian rituals were accessible to the general public, allowing participants to have
a direct experience. However, as these rituals evolved into theatre, a more structured form of
mimetic art developed. Dionysian rituals also fostered an environment of chaos, challenging
classifications such as master versus slave, citizen versus barbarian, and god versus human. William
W. Demastes clarifies that “chaos was perceived as an essential and integral contributor to life and
creative processes” (2005, p. 1).

Tragedies – and Aristotle’s Poetics in particular – have long shaped the creative processes of
playwrights, providing a structural foundation rooted in unity, linearity, and order. Classical
tragedies such as Oedipus the King and Medea exemplify this, as they not only adhere to Aristotelian
principles but also expose and unravel the foundations of societal order, plunging their worlds into
turmoil. However, the unity and conventional forms of drama have also been deconstructed, which
can be described as a chaos of dramaturgy. Hamlet and Othello embody ontological dilemma and
human fallibility, which are coupled with political references, individual liabilities and social chaos.

King Lear and Macbeth present the inevitability of chaos as a hallmark of political turmoil and
existential crises. Comparably, Romantic and Realist drama portrayed human confusion and social
disturbances in various contexts on stage. Henrik Ibsen, widely regarded as the founder of modern
theatre, challenges the long-standing corrupted systems, rules, and orders in plays such as An Enemy
of the People and A Doll’s House. These works are credited with provoking social upheaval through
their unflinching portrayal of individual agency, ethical conflict, and the hypocrisies embedded
within societal structures. Across Modernist and Postmodernist theatres, texts and performances
have significantly served as innovative spaces of experimentation, chaos, crisis, resurgence and
(de)construction. From the estranging strategies of Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre to the shocking
immediacy of In-Yer-Face drama, from the sensory assault of postdramatic performance to the
interactive landscapes of digital theatre, the stage has persistently reinvented itself by turning
chaos/crisis into its structural core.

In the twenty-first century, drama and performance have remained a vital medium, through which
artists confront the ruptures of war, the legacies of decolonisation, the upheavals of migration, the
pressures of capitalism, the weight of gendered violence, the reach of surveillance, human crises in
conflicts and the looming shadow of ecological collapse. The power of theatre lies in its live,
unpredictable encounter – it does not merely display chaos, it becomes chaos. Contemporary stage
practices embrace fragmentation, disruption, and multiplicity, echoing a world of shifting identities
and unstable truths. Thus, theatre reflects and reshapes the fluid identities, shifting narratives, and
theoretical uncertainties of a world in perpetual transformation. Amid escalating ecological
emergencies, political divisions, widespread disinformation, abuse of truth, authoritarian resurgence
and global unrest, chaos has become a defining element of our time.
In this context, this interdisciplinary online conference sets out to examine how theatre, drama, and
film express and are shaped by chaos in its many forms – philosophical, environmental, social, and
aesthetic. From their earliest origins to contemporary forms, theatrical and cinematic works have
long embraced and dealt with crisis and upheaval, offering both reflection and resistance. We invite
contributions from academics, artists, postgraduate researchers, and practitioners that engage with
the complex intersections of chaos and crisis across dramatic writing, performance, and film.
Proposals may address any genre, period, or cultural context. Interdisciplinary approaches –
particularly those bridging theatre and performance with adaptation studies, philosophy, feminist
and postcolonial theory, ecocriticism, film studies, or the digital/post/trans humanities – are
especially encouraged.

The list below summarises some suggested topics and areas of study for prospective papers;
however, this is a non-exhaustive list, and new suggestions are welcome.
• Antiquity, tragedy and comedy: Performance in times of social and political upheaval.
• Shakespeare’s drama featuring chaos, political collapse, religious narratives, individual
dissent, as well as apocalyptic and tragic scenarios.
• Feminist dramaturgies, gendered violence, embodiment, performativity and fluidity in times
of upheaval. Intersectional narratives of collapse and survival, re-imagining identities
beyond binary logics in the chaotic world.
• Queer chaos, queer landscapes, and the politics of anti-normativity.
• Authoritarianism, genocide, migration, forced displacement, asylum seeking, exile, trauma
and memory.
• Political theatre and performance in times of turmoil, economic collapse, and the return of
radical politics.
• Precarious lives: Class, inequality, and the politics of social crisis.
• Nationalism, populism, protest, revolution in political theatre and performance art, as well
as activist aesthetics and stage performances in conflict zones or under oppressive regimes.
• Postcolonial dislocation, cultural hybridity, ritual conflict, language crisis, indigenous
dramaturgy of resistance.
• Ontological instability, language collapse, temporality, cyclical dramaturgy in Theatre of
the Absurd.
• Climate crisis, environmental enactment, (non)human agency, planetary dramaturgy, ecotheatre and the Anthropocene
• Postdramatic Non-linearity, fragmentation, intermedia, sensory excess, anti-narrativity.
• Theatre and AI, digital theatres and performances: surveillance capitalism, posthuman
subjectivities and identities
• Embodied resilience, community theatre in times of disaster, protest performance, theatre
in pandemics.
• Chaotic temporalities, non-linearity and disrupted chronologies, memory and historical
rupture in dramaturgical, performance and film studies.

Keynote Speakers
TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON. We are currently finalising a panel of internationally recognised
scholars and practitioners working on chaos and crisis in drama, theatre, performance and film
studies from diverse theoretical, geopolitical and cultural perspectives.

Submission Guidelines
Please submit an abstract of (around) 300 words and a brief bio (150 words) with contact details
to theatredramanetwork@gmail.com by 30 September 2025.
We welcome proposals for 20-minute academic papers, Panel discussions (3–4 participants),
Practice-based or performance-as-research presentations, Video essays or multimedia presentations
(pre-recorded or live) or Postgraduate/ECR lightning talks.
We aim to publish selected papers in a special issue of a peer-reviewed, internationally-indexed
(SCOPUS, etc.) journal following the event.

Organising Committee
This conference is organised by THEATRE AND DRAMA NETWORK in collaboration with
scholars of theatre and performance studies.

Contact Email
For inquiries or additional information, please contact: theatredramanetwork@gmail.com