The UCIPC African Performance Conference, organized by Daphne Lei, was held on October 26-27 in the Nixon Theatre at UC Irvine. Because Africa is such an under-studied field, the conference provided a useful glossary of African words, background readings, maps of Africa, and African food and music. These elements helped to enhance this fruitful African journey. Four faculty members and four students presented research papers and there was also a round table session. Conference participants discussed politics and aesthetics of African performance. The parallel “Global Conversation” conference of ICWT (International Center for Writing and Translation) also gave UCIPC members the opportunity to hear from well-known scholars and writers from Africa. The performance of Athol Fugard’s classic The Island drew many people from the local UCI Drama community, such as MFA directing and acting students, faculty members, and other campus students.

Friday, October 26 (day 1)

8:00-8:50 AM CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST (Note: Atrium provides free full breakfast)

9:00-10:00 AM THEATRES IN SOUTH AFRICA I

• Catherine Cole (UC Berkeley): “South Africa’s Truth Commission in Repertoire, 2006-2007: Rewind, a Cantata”
• Yvette Hutchison (University of Warwick): “Verbatim theatre in SA: Exploring an African concept of ‘truth’”
• Moderator: Frank Wilderson

10:00-10:20 COFFEE BREAK
10:30-12:00 PM AFRICA, PERFORMANCE, AND INTERNATIONALISM

• Moradewun Adejunmobi (UC Davis): “Yoruba Performance as Example and Exception”
• Robert Cohen (UC Irvine): “Tibi in Accra.”
• Janelle Reinelt (University of Warwick): “The Rhetoric of Internationalism.”
• Moderator: Lynette Hunter

12:00-1PM LUNCH (TBA)
1:00-2:45 PM PERFORMANCE

• The Island (directed by Peter Lichtenfels) Calit2 Auditorium

3 - 4 PM Session X

• Achille Mbembe, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Satoshi Ukai in Conversation with David Theo Goldberg

4:15 - 5:15 PM Session XI

• Culminating Roundtable: Revival, Restoration, and Visibility Moderated by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

5:15 - 6:45 PM Booksale and Signing HUMANITIES HALL 161 (Little Theatre)
7:00 PM PERFORMANCE

• “Man of the Heart” A dance performance by Sudipto Chatterjee with introductory remarks from Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

9:00 PM DAPHNE LEI’S RESIDENCE

• Dessert, drinks, music, and cheers

Saturday, October 27 (day 2)

NIXON THEATRE
8-8:50 AM CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST (Note: Atrium provides free full breakfast)
9:00-10:00 AM THEATRES IN SOUTH AFRICA II

• A CONVERSATION (Cole, Wilderson, Hutchison)
• Moderator: Daphne Lei

10-10:20 AM COFFEE BREAK
10:20-12:00 PM GRADUATE STUDENT PANEL:

• Torsten Sannar, UCSB. “Appropriating Brecht in Africa: Soyinka’s Opera Wonyosi and the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s Love, Crime, and Johannesburg”
• April Sizemore-Barber, UCB. “Stages of Complicity, Stages of Healing: A look at two theatrical responses to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliatin Commission
• Jasmine Johnson, UCB. “Evoking an Africa: (West) African Dance, Performance, and Performativity”
• Connie Roopo, UCLA. “Sonic Geographies of Crime and Dispossession in Lara Foot Newton’s Tshepang”
• Moderator: Catherine Cole

12:00-12:20 CONCLUSION AND FAREWELL (Lei, Wilderson, Cole, Hunter) DRAMA CONFERENCE ROOM
12:30-2:00 LUNCH & BUSINESS MEETING (for core members only)

African Performance Program

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