EASTAP 2026 Annual Conference
Waiting for the Barbarians
Conference programme (Preliminary Version)
Pre-Conference Day
Tuesday, 22 September
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
From 10:00 Registration
11:00-13:00 European Journal of Theatre and Performance (EJTP) Editorial Meeting
13:00-14:00 Workshop for EJTP Editorial Team and Board with Groningen University Press (GUP)
15:00-17:00 EASTAP ExCom Meeting (ExCom members only)
17:00-18:00 SPOT ON: Demonstrations by Groningen-based artists
Venue: TBC
Wednesday, 23 September – Saturday 26 September
Paper Panels and artistic events
Each panel is marked with a letter and a number (e.g. T.1). The letter indicates the thematic thread:
T for Temporalities of Affect, M for Medialities of Waiting, W for Who is the Barbarian?, C for Collective Futures
and the number indicates the session within that thread.
Day 1
Wednesday 23 September
From 9:00 Registration and coffee
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:30-10:15 Conference Opening: Welcome by EASTAP President and the Groningen Organizing Team, presentation EASTAP Studio
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
10:30-12:15 Paper Panels
Panel T.1
Wenjun (June) Zhu: Waiting for Reform: Self and Other, Suspension and Progression in Chinese Adaptations of Waiting for Godot
Hossein Oroumiehchiha: Waiting and Suspension in The Seagull: Failures, Trauma, and the Dramaturgical Power of Deferred Action
Jasper Delbecke: When Nothing Arrives: Revisiting the Work of Nick Steur and Schwalbe in Times of Disordered Attention
Luule Epner: Waiting for Destruction: Lauri Lagle’s Leviathan
Panel M.1
Alix De Morant: The Return of Frank(enstein)
Vito Lentini: Raymonda, a Medieval Narrative of Waiting
Katje Schneider: Waiting in the Whiteness of Black: Simone Forti’s The Bear in the Mirror
Annelies Van Assche: Le Foyer de la Danse 2.0: Old Histories, New Precarities
Panel W.1
Natassa Siouzouli: The Advent of the Object, or: Waiting for the Subject to Vanish: Performance, Power, and Persistence
Kamila Mamadnazarbekova: Beaufs, Barbarians, and Trans Performativity
Lodi Rizzini: Ritual Temporalities and Queer Fugitivity in the Performative Practice of Va Bene
Richie Lux Kramár: Meditations in an Emergency: The Operatic Prompter and the Dramaturgies of Suspension
Panel C.1
Franco Arabia: The Barbarian Waits: Mechanism for Destabilizing the Self
Benedetta Bronzini: Blue-Eyed Ali in Contemporary Theater and Performance: Fearing and Awaiting the Barbarian Otherness
Valentina Temussi: Waiting as Political Time: Vigilance, Witnessing, and the Civil Theatre of Marco Paolini
Catriona Craig: Deferred Arrival: (In)Action, Ethical Dramaturgy, and Agonistic Solidarity
ESF 1: Dramaturgical Lingering
Venue: Studio X
Eyck Marcus Wendt: Can The Performance Wait? Enduring the Interruption in Milo Rau’s Vienna Trials (2024) and Tania Bruguera’s Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions (2015/2024)
Marianna Lucarini: Waiting for the Barbarian Within: Dramaturgies institutionnelles de l’exclusion dans les espaces théâtraux occupés
Lisa Celsi: ‘Make Them Wait for It, then... What?’: Spectatorship as Waiting in Sarah Kane’s First and Last Plays
Borghild Rangnes Homlong: The Act of Waiting: Exploring the Dramaturgical Potential of Audience Interaction during the Theatre Intermission
Lunch Break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
14:00-15:45 Paper Sessions
Panel T.2
Grace Joseph: On Deferral: Waiting and Resisting in Disability-led Theatre
Alex Norton: Bodies of Punishment: Performing Tragic Otherness in Applied Prison Theatre
Simone Chiachiarrelli: Beginnings as Relational Devices: Reconfiguring Waiting and Crip Time in Bersani’s Performances
Keiu Virro: Co-creating Accessible Theatre: A Culture Hackathon as Action Research
Panel M.2
Marilena Zaroulia: “The Barbarians Are Already Inside:” Performing a Decolonial Europe in Hew Locke’s The Procession (2022)
Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink and Sigrid Merx: Simulation, Speculation and Dramaturgies of Suspension in Sic Transit Gloria Mundi
Ana Maria Ursu: Art-tivism in Post-socialism
Fernando Matos Oliveira: Between Sleep and Laziness: Revisiting the ‘Politics of Installation’
Panel W.2
Mary Mazzilli: ‘Masculine Barbarians’ on the Contemporary London Stage: Dramaturgies of Suspension and Toxic Masculinity
Jetë Zhitia: Desire Deferred: Phèdre and the Dramaturgy of Waiting
Yanna Kor: Woman in Waiting in Contemporary Theatre
Tessa Vannieuwenhuyze: What’s in the Waiting Queue? Tracing Trackmaturgy in the Theatre
Panel C.2
Dimitris Papanikolaou: On the Political Technologies of Waiting: C. P. Cavafy’s Ethical Citizenship
Alexandra Marinho de Oliveira: The Poetics of Waiting in Brecht: A Dialogue with Walter Benjamin on the Barbarian and Critical Interruption
Elodie Verlinden: Suspending the Horizon: Whiteout, Signification, and the Dramaturgy of
Deferred Eventuality in Dehors est blanc (Tumbleweed)
Marcela Moura: The Mangrove as Barbaricum: A Model for the Creation of a Complex Stage
ESF 2: The Barbarian as Sexual Object
Venue: Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
Ogochukwu Agbo: Agency, Hypersexualization and Waiting: Women as the ‘Internal Barbarian’ in Selected Nigerian Plays
Marie-Louise Kolmos: Violators and Rebel-Bodies: Exploring Narratives Surrounding Intimacy Coordination in a Danish Production Context
Matteo Tamborrino and Andrea Zardi: GRNDR or Date a Barbarian
Coffee break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
16:00-17:15 Keynote 1 by Maria Boletsi (University of Leiden / University of Amsterdam)
‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ as Political Stage: From Modernist Suspension to Polycrisis, Defeat and Radical Hope
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
17:15-19:00: Dinner on your own
19:00-19:45 Reception and speeches by theatre professionals
Grand Theatre Groningen
20:00: Helstone & Het Pand der Goden van Mathieu Wijdeven, Theater Rotterdam
Grand Theatre Groningen
Day 2
Thursday 24 September
From 9:30 Registration and coffee
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
10:00-11:15 Keynote 2 by Emma Cox (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Reparation, Temporality, and Response: Awaiting the Law after Migration Fatalities
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Coffee break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:30-13:15 Paper Sessions
Panel T.3
Matilde Ghelardini: Presence through Absence: Silence, Memory, and Waiting in the Theatre of Gabriel Marcel
Suzanne Knip-Mooij: “This Strange Loop is Endless, Eternal:” On the Vibrancy of Suspended Temporalities in Susanne Kennedy’s Theatrical Trilogy
Paul Geary: (Not) Knowing the Future: Awaiting, Anticipating, and Staging Futurity in Ontroerend Goed’s World Without Us (2016)
Silvia Dumitriu: The Barbarian: Turning the Spectator into a Sovereign Witness
Panel M.3
Henriëtte Rietveld: Translating Early Modern Barbar(it)y
Margharita Laera: Leaving the Barbarians Out of the Curriculum? The Role of International Drama in UK Drama Education in Schools
Kasia Lech and Claire French: No More Surtitles? Materiality and Linguistic Citizenships of the Global East
Panel W.3
Hossein Tavazoni and Eleftheria Ioannidou: Ancient Barbarians in Modern Cultural Imaginaries
Katerina Karra: Waiting for Civilization: Foreign Actresses, Operetta, and Cultural Anticipation in the Eastern Mediterranean (1900-1940)
Deimantė Dementavičiūtė-Stankuvienė: Between Civilization and Barbarians: The Postcolonial Hero in Post-Soviet Lithuanian Theatre
Tancredi Gusman: Waiting for Performance to Come Documentation and Reactivation between Past and Future
Panel C.3
Lisa Skwirblies: Performing Staatsräson: Cultural Freedom, Barbarism, and the Cancellation of Wajdi Mouawad’s Birds of a Kind in Munich
Lily Climenhaga: Post-Patriarchy?: Institutionalized Misogyny, The Brotherhood (2024), and Carolina Bianchi’s Critique of European Theatre’s Patriarchy Problem
Sandra Grehn: Searching for Memory, Barbarian Acts and New Possible Futures in Angered Theatre’s production Omelas (2025), inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s Sci-fi Novella The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas
Rita Agatina Di Leo: Waiting for a No-form of Censorship: Sorry, Boys By Marta Cuscunà
ESF 3: Waiting as Method
Venue: Studio X
Hippolyte Broud: When the Archive Speaks Back: Waiting as a Structural Condition in Actor’s Voice Training
Dominika Fleszar: Waiting for the Red Barbarian: Katyn Dread in London Émigré Plays Świadek and Displaced Person (1948)
Ioanna Solidaki: Slowness and the Experience of Stretching Time as Tacit Protest
Arianna Morganti: The Institutional Counter-festival: Performative Practices and Political Memory in Estate Romana (1977-1985)
13:15-14:30 Lunch Break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
14:30-16:15 Paper Sessions
Panel T.4
Frithwin Wagner-Lippok: On the Affectivity of Waiting: Phenomenological Aspects of Waiting Using the Example of Kae Tempest’s Let Them Eat Chaos
Dick Zijp: Laughing at the Barbarians: Stand-up Comedy, Truth-Telling, and Situated Knowledges
David Roesner: The Comedy of Waiting: Musicality, Rhythm, and Political Expectation in Weimar Germany
Jurgita Staniškytė: From Durational Performances to Comic Pranksters: Repertoires of Protest: Lithuanian Case
Panel M.4
Sotera Fornaro and Raffaela Viccei: When the Other Is Oneself: Waiting for Oedipus with Bob Wilson and Ulrich Rasche
Armando Rotondi: Waiting for the Machine: Guy Bar-Amotz and the Performative Barbarian
Rūta Mažeikienė: Performing AI-Augmented Dramaturgy: Between Human and Machine
Oana Marin: Post-Barbarian Culture: Vampire Castles, Festival Capital, and the Ingestion-Expulsion Cycle
Panel W.3
Anneli Saro and Hedi-Liis Toome: Decolonizing moments in the Russian Theatre in Estonia
Ermina Apostolaki: The Barbarian Within: Durational Labour and the Suspension of Event in Pleno
Andrea Cominetti: Configurations of Waiting on the Stage: Carlo Quartucci’s Directions of Waiting for Godot (1959-1964)
Merilin Jürjo: Us vs Others: The Role of Theatre in Reinforcing Beliefs
Panel C.4
Andy Lavender: Performance Temporalities in the Face of Doom
Paula Gomes Magalhães: Active Waiting: Political Urgency and Vigilance in Portuguese Revue Theatre (1974–1975)
Ljubiša Matić: Coutdown to Shutdown
Lukáš Kubina: Waiting for the Barbarian to Slip: Political Authenticity, Performative Breakdown, and the Dramaturgy of Anticipation
ESF 4: Waiting and the Great Beyond
Venue: Studio X
Elisa Smeraldo: Waiting for Death: Temporality, Agency, and Cultural Participation in Palliative Care Contexts through Virtual Reality
Felicia Neergaard Mulinari: Repetition as Resistance: Ghostly Time as Critical Fabulation
Furkan Ak: Ghostly Dramaturgies: Staging Migrant Narratives Through Immersive Technology in Performance
Maria Sławińska: Where Miracles Happen: Theatre Beyond the Visible
16:15-17:00 Light pre-performance snack (only for ticket-holders of the opera dress rehearsal)
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
Performance Evening
17:30-18:30: Discussion with Richard Guérin (Orange Mountain Music, tbc), Klaus Bertisch (dramaturge), and Alice Farnham (conductor, tbc)
Spot/City Theatre Groningen
19:00: Dress Rehearsal Waiting for the Barbarians, Nederlandse Reisopera coproduction with Club Guy & Roni
Duration: 2 hours and 45 minutes (please note this is a dress rehearsal – timings may vary)
SPOT/City Theatre Groningen
Day 3
Friday, 25 September
From 8:45 Registration and coffee
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:00-10:15 Paper Sessions
Panel T.5
William McEvoy: Electra’s Active Waiting and the Expressive Contradictions of Grief
Panel of 3 papers - Róisín O’Gorman, Helena Buffery, and Roskana Niewadzsiz: Waiting, Wanting and Wailing: Exploring Translation, Memory, and Mourning through Re-imagining and Embodying the Other
Panel M.5
Burcu Guney Yilmaz: Matrixial Temporality: Cultural Borderspaces and Time-Wealth Equity
Panel of 3 papers – Rebecca Brinch, Ylva Lorentzon, and Anna Lund: Transforming Imaginaries: Institutional Dramaturgies for Civil Resilience
Panel W.5
Eva-Liisa Linder: Same Waiting, Different Welcomes: Political Theatre and Democratic Transition in Estonia
Alena Dvorakova: Waiting for the Hero of Resistance to Turn a Traitor
Cláudia Madeira and Raquel Rodrigues Madeira: What are We Waiting for? We, the Barbarians!: A “Resistance Manual for 2050” (2025), by Ana Borralho and João Galante.
Miran Bulut: The Future Is No Longer What It Used to Be: Dramaturgies of Waiting in
Contemporary Turkish Theatre
Panel C.5
Thomas Riccio: The Barbarian Within: Cosmocentric Dramaturgies of Suspension and Transformation
Martin Bernátek: Choreopolitics of Red Vienna
Paulo Filipe Monteiro: Bluebeard, the Homemade Barbarian
Marta Brites Rosa: Rehearsing Freedom: When the Audience Became the Event
ESF 5: Barbarian Wanderings
Venue: Studio X
Giulia Sala: Suspended Conflict and Postcolonial Imaginaries in the Balinese Barong Performance
Andrea Malosio: A “Barbarian Route” to the Ancient Choir: Video and Its Functions for a Re-Use of the Classics in Italian company Anagoor
Monika Citvaraitė-Lansbergienė: Desired but Deferred: Contemporary Circus Recognition in the Baltic Art Field
Ádám Kertész: Queering Romani Self-Representation in Lindy Larsson’s Tschandala
Coffee break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:00-12:45 Paper Sessions
Panel T.6
Panel of 4 papers – Katarzyna Waligóra, Monika Kwaśniewska-Mikuła, Kasia Lech, and Marta Keil: Theatre Studies After #MeToo: Polish Perspective
Panel M.6
Panel of 4 papers – Irene Alcubilla Troughton, Maaike Bleeker, Soyun Jang, Laura Karreman, Soyun Jang, and Ruowen Xu: The Robots are Coming: Affect, Attunement and Imagination in Human-Robot Encounters
Panel W.6
Aylwyn Walsh: An elegy for Elegy
Maíra Santos: Cronopolitics of Waiting: Unlearning the Barbarian Within the Imperial Gaze
Steff Nellis: Between Barbarian and Performer: The Question of Colonial Theatricality in Bernard and Picart’s Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses des peuples idolatres (1728)
Philip Hager: Temporalities of Impasse and Deferral in post-2010 Greece: Late Night and Antonio or the Message
Panel C.6
Yağmur Atlar: Waiting for the Audience: Empowering Silence in Tim Crouch’s Plays
Arianna Frattali: Suspended Time: Dramaturgies of Waiting in Robert Wilson’s Odyssey
Cock Dieleman: Het wachten van / op Jetse Batelaan
Małgorzata Budzowska: Standby: On the Need for Barbaric Art in Times of War
12:45-13:45 Artist Panel
Guy Weizman (EASTAP Associate Artist)
Zaal 1
Lunch break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
13:45-14:45 ESF Lunch Panel on Academic Publishing
Studio X
14:45-16:00 Keynote 3 by Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam)
All the Arms we Need: on the Normalization of Militarization in the European Cultural Realm
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
16:00-16:40 Artist Panel
Chokri Ben Chikha (RUG-Associated Artist)
Action Zoo Humain
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Coffee break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
17:00-17:45 Performance Lectures
Agata Tomšič: Can a Barbarian Change the Society We Live in through a Violent and Radical act of Rebellion?
Kate Holden: Slowly: Vocalizations of Barbarism
De Noorderlingen
Christina Schmutz: Those Times Are Gone: A Lecture Performance on the Paradoxical Relationship of Restlessness in Theatre Art and Politics
Theron Schmidt: Waiting for Emergence: Performing Non-linear Classrooms
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Staged Reading
Studio X
Children is All by James Purdy
Yuankun Zhou, Grace Kavanagh, Jonna Wikström, Eros Chien, Jonathan Veenhuijsen, Senna de Groot, Felicia Koops (University of Amsterdam)
Presentation Curating the North (tba)
Social Hub
17:45-18:15 EASTAP Statement
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
18:15-20:00 Dinner on your own
20:00 Double Bill: Nik Rajsek - KINK / Sanam Tahmasebi / ShELFISH - Archive of a Lonely Body (installation)
Grand Theatre Groningen
Day 4
Saturday 26 September
From 9:00 Registration and coffee
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:15-11:15 EASTAP AGM Meeting and Plenary
Open to all EASTAP Members
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Coffee break
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:30-13:15 Paper Panels
Panel W.7
Sanita Duka: Un Barbare à Paris: Left-Wing Cosmopolitanism, Estrangement, and the Barbarian Gaze
Caterina Piccione: “Où le soleil tue les questions:” Waiting, Alterity, and the Need for Meaning in Camus’s Le Malentendu
Alisa Zhiliaeva: The Silence of Waiting
Hagström-Ståhl: ‘Traumatic Realism’ and the Scene of Memory: Time and Temporality in the Plays of Charlotte Delbo
Panel C.7
Cristina Modreanu: Liminal States: History as Reenactment in Intermedial Productions by Milo Rau and Radu Jude
Eva-Liisa Linder: Same Waiting, Different Welcomes: Political Theatre and Democratic Transition in Estonia
José Pedro Sousa: Barbarian Intermissions: Modalities of Cultural Resistance in 17th century Theatre in Portugal
Ewa Bal: Theatrical akēdía is a Resistance Strategy in Response to Challenges of Patriotism, Heroism and Capitalism
13:15-14:00 Light lunch and World Café
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek