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HOWARD BARKER’S ART OF THEATRE An international conference Howard Barker  Howard
Barker's plays are known for their fearless exploration of power, sexuality
and human motivation. His texts overflow with rich language, challenging
ideas, history, beauty, violence and imaginative comedy, all brought together
within the extremes of human experience to create a powerful and compelling
theatrical experience.
Barker's texts are constructed on the premise that theatre is a necessity in society, a place for imagination and moral speculation, not constrained by the demands of realism or any ideology. Barker describes his work with the term Theatre of Catastrophe. In Barker's work, no attempt is made to satisfy any demand for clarity or the deceptive simplicity of a single 'message'; each performance is like a public challenge in which actors and audience are inspired to find meaning and resonance from a multiplicity of interpretations. Long considered the enfant terrible of contemporary British theatre and the subject of heated debate, whether loved or hated, his plays are impossible to ignore. On the European mainland especially, Barker is considered one of the major writers of modern European theatre. In the last three years, 27 of his works have been staged in six languages in 17 countries as diverse as Canada, New Zealand and Slovenia. Yet in Britain, his home country, he is largely unknown; during this period there have been just four productions of his plays. Barker has also written a number of volumes of poetry and a collection of essays on the nature of theatre, published as Arguments For A Theatre (Manchester University Press). Click this link to go to the Theatrevoice.com site and hear a recording of the recent
Howard Barker's
latest book: Howard Barker plays in French translation:
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HOWARD BARKER’S ART OF THEATRE An international conference REGISTRATION NOW OPEN Howard Barker is widely acknowledged as a major British dramatist, director, theorist, scenographer and visual artist who has now had staged, broadcast or published over a hundred plays. In recent years, his reputation has extended to a position of international eminence. Our principal objective is to bring together as many Barker scholars and practitioners as possible from their different countries, to explore and analyse the full range of his remarkable body of work. It has become apparent that there is a wide interest in Barker’s work, principally in France and America where productions of his work are burgeoning (a four-play season at Paris Odéon in Spring 2009, new productions of two early works this year in New York). Barker’s own theatre company, The Wrestling School, is now in its third decade and has continued to explore and present this innovative work, uncompromisingly. It is a timely juncture to review Barker’s art of theatre and both widen and intensify scholarly attention to the unique expanse of his work in the context of international theatre, at Aberystwyth University (where Barker is Honorary Professor, and where there has been an unparalleled tradition of student and professional productions of Barker’s work for over two decades). The conference will include a rehearsed reading of Barker’s play A Wounded Knife, unperformed outside of Denmark, and an exhibition of his paintings. Topics to be discussed in relation to Barker’s work will include: Philosophy and ethical re-evaluation; practical perspectives: acting, direction, scenography and mise-en-scène; music and sound; landscapes; gender, sexuality; eroticism and death; history and politics; language; the body and physicality; beauty and anxiety; production history: The Wrestling School and/or beyond; Barker in the context of European and world theatre; tragedy/comedy; religion and spirituality; Barker’s re-visioning of classic drama texts; Barker’s radio drama; paintings and drawings; and other perspectives on Barker’s Art of the Theatre. CONFIRMED KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Howard Barker: 'Pity and Pretending: Tragedy's Rebuke to the Pseudo-Ethical' Prof Elisabeth Angel-Perez (University of Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV, editor of Howard Barker et le Theatre de la Catastrophe and translator of Barker’s essays): ‘Reinventing Grand Narratives: Barker’s Challenge to Postmodernism’ Dr Charles Lamb (University of Winchester, author of The Theatre of Howard Barker): ‘Barker’s Pictorial Landscapes’ Registration for this conference is now open at: http://www.aber.ac.uk/visitors/en/diary.html Should you have any queries about the conference, please contact Professor David Ian Rabey (ddr@aber.ac.uk) or Dr Karoline Gritzner (kgg@aber.ac.uk) Go to top of this page for site navigation buttons.
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Les
Sept Lears ISBN 2-905158-99-9