RMMLA 2026 – Call for Papers
Asian Drama and Performance Panel
 
REVOLUTIONARY BODIES
Staging Thought and Affect on the Asian Stage
How do bodies on Asian stages think, feel, and make worlds?
This panel explores the performing body as a site where concepts are articulated and affects are distributed. Inspired by Emily Wilcox’s Revolutionary Bodies and theoretical work by Bruno Latour, Rita Felski, Susan Leigh Foster, André Lepecki, among others, we consider the body not as a mute vehicle for meaning, but as an interface that negotiates power, history, and desire.
We focus on stage-centered practices in and about Asia:

Theatre
Dance
Musical theatre and opera
Experimental / devised performance
Live art and other forms grounded in liveness and co-presence
(Work centered primarily on film or television series should be submitted to more appropriate panels.)
 
Possible Topics
We especially welcome proposals on themes such as:
Socialist and revolutionary bodies on stage
Corporeal dramaturgies of class, gender, race, ethnicity, caste
Bodies as archives of trauma, memory, and migration
Queer, trans, crip, and disabled embodiments in Asian performance
Transnational and diasporic circulations of “Asian bodies” in global theatre and dance
Intersections of martial arts, ritual, and theatrical embodiment
Technologically mediated bodies: avatars, motion capture, VR, digital scenography
Methodological crossings between literary studies and performance studies

• (close reading, dramaturgy, kinesthetic analysis, affect theory)

The politics of spectatorship and touch: how audiences are addressed, arranged, or disciplined by bodies on stage
Proposals may address any period, region, or language of Asia, including comparative and transregional approaches, as long as Asia remains central rather than merely illustrative.
 
Submission Details
Abstract: 250 words
Bio: ~100 words
Deadline: March 1, 2026
Send to: Song Huang – [insert your email here]
Panel: Asian Drama and Performance, RMMLA 2026
Conference Dates: October 8-10, 2026
Location: Marriott Courtyard, Ogden, Utah