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 desk opens
11:00-13:00 Editorial Meeting of European Journal of Theatre and Performance (EJTP)
13:00-14:00 Workshop for EJTP Editorial Board with Groningen University Press (GUP)
15:00-17:00 EASTAP ExCom Meeting (ExCom members only)
17:30-18:30 Waiting, Witnessing, Disappearing
Performance lecture by Hossein Tavazoni
Venue: Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Wednesday 23 September – Saturday 26 September
Paper Panels, Emerging Scholars Forum (ESF), and Artistic Events
** Each panel is marked with a letter and a number, for example 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
9:00-9:30 Registration and coffee
Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:30-10:15 Conference Opening
Welcome by EASTAP President and Groningen Organizing Team
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
10:30-12:15 Paper Panels
Panel T.1 From Suspension to Destruction
Room 3227.0152, Anda Kerkhoven Centre
Wenjun (June) Zhu: Waiting for Reform: Self and Other, Suspension and Progression in Chinese Adaptations of Waiting for Godot
Alexandra Marinho de Oliveira: The Poetics of Waiting in Brecht: A Dialogue with Walter Benjamin on the Barbarian and Critical Interruption.
Philip Hager: Temporalities of Impasse and Deferral in post-2010 Greece: Late Night and Antonio or the Message
Luule Epner: Waiting for Destruction: Lauri Lagle’s Leviathan
Panel M.1 Bodies and Voices
The Social Hub
Katja 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
Elena Kamilari: The Dramaturgical, Political and Intermedial Configurations of Waiting in the
Adaptation of Ionesco’s The Chairs (1971) on Greek Radio during the Military Dictatorship of 1967-1974
Richie Lux Kramár: Meditations in an Emergency: The Operatic Prompter and the Dramaturgies of Suspension
Panel W.1 The Performative Barbarian
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Natassa Siouzouli: The Advent of the Object, or: Waiting for the Subject to Vanish: Performance, Power, and Persistence
Armando Rotondi: Waiting for the Machine: Guy Bar-Amotz and the Performative Barbarian
Kamila Mamadnazarbekova: Beaufs, Barbarians, and Trans Performativity
Stefania Lodi Rizzini: Ritual Temporalities and Queer Fugitivity in the Performative Practice of Va Bene
Panel C.1 Ecologies of the Future
De Noorderlingen
Gustavo Vincente: Towards an Ecology of the Invisible: Practices of Care in Performing Arts
Lara Aysal: Worldmaking with Changing Parts: Liminality and Relational Art in Community-Based Practice
Valentina Temussi: Waiting as Political Time: Vigilance, Witnessing, and the Civil Theatre of Marco Paolini
Marcela Moura: The Mangrove as Barbaricum: A Model for the Creation of a Complex Stage
ESF 1. Dramaturgical Lingering
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
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
Hossein Oroumiehchiha: Waiting and Suspension in The Seagull: Failures, Trauma, and the Dramaturgical Power of Deferred Action
Kristyna Ilek: Managing Risk and Vulnerability: Dramaturgical Practices in Precarious Rehearsal Rooms
12:15-14:00 Lunch Break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
14:00-15:45 Paper Panels
Panel T.2 Other Bodies
3227.0133, Anda Kerkhoven Centre
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 Art/Activism
The Social Hub
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 Barbarism and Identity
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
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 Citizenship, Ethics, Response-ability
De Noorderlingen
Dimitris Papanikolaou: On the Political Technologies of Waiting: C. P. Cavafy’s Ethical Citizenship
Catriona Craig: Deferred Arrival: (In)Action, Ethical Dramaturgy, and Agonistic Solidarity
Elodie Verlinden: Suspending the Horizon: Whiteout, Signification, and the Dramaturgy of Deferred Eventuality in Dehors est blanc (Tumbleweed)
ESF 2. The Barbarian as Sexual Object
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
15:45-16:00 Coffee break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
16:00-17:15 Keynote Talk
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Maria Boletsi (University of Leiden / University of Amsterdam)
‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ as Political Stage: From Modernist Suspension to Polycrisis, Defeat and Radical Hope
17:15-19:00: Dinner on your own
19:00-19:45 Reception and speech by Judith Blankenberg (artistic director of Grand Theatre)
Grand Theatre Groningen
20:00: Helstone in het Pand der Goden byMathieu Wijdeven, Theater Rotterdam
Grand Theatre Groningen
Day 2
Thursday 24 September
9:30-10:00 Registration and coffee
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
10:00-11:15 Keynote Talk
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Emma Cox (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Reparation, Temporality, and Response: Awaiting the Law after Migration Fatalities
11:15-11:30 Coffee break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:30-13:15 Paper Panels
Panel T.3 Temporal Disruptions
Venue T.B.C.
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
Ljubiša Matić: Countdown to Shutdown
Silvia Dumitriu: The Barbarian: Turning the Spectator into a Sovereign Witness
Panel M.3 Language and Translation
The Social Hub
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
Cristina Svens: Contesting Social Fantasies about ‘the Others’: Multilingual Dramaturgy in the Children's Theatre Performance The Heroine of Basra by Theatre Jalada
Panel W.3 Entangled Pasts and Presents
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
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 Theatre as Political Institution
De Noorderlingen
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
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
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)
Arianna Morganti: The Institutional Counter-festival: Performative Practices and Political Memory in Estate Romana (1977-1985)
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)
Ermina Apostolaki: The Barbarian Within: Durational Labour and the Suspension of Event in Pleno
13:15-14:30 Lunch Break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
14:30-16:15 Paper Panels
Panel T.4 Waiting as Dramaturgical Device
Room 3227.0050, Anda Kerkhoven Centre
Józef Legierski: Reactive Theatre as a Responsive Creative Model in the Age of Polycrises
Frithwin Wagner-Lippok: On the Affectivity of Waiting: Phenomenological Aspects of Waiting Using the Example of Kae Tempest’s Let Them Eat Chaos
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 Relational Modalities
The Social Hub
Anneli Saro and Hedi-Liis Toome: Decolonizing Moments in the Russian Theatre in Estonia
Merilin Jürjo: Us vs Others: The Role of Theatre in Reinforcing Beliefs
Raffaella Viccei: When the Other Is Oneself: Waiting for Oedipus with Bob Wilson and Ulrich Rasche
Panel W.4 States of Liminality
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Rūta Mažeikienė: Performing AI-Augmented Dramaturgy: Between Human and Machine
Oana Marin: Post-Barbarian Culture: Vampire Castles, Festival Capital, and the Ingestion-Expulsion Cycle
Alix De Morant: The Return of Frank(enstein)
Panel C.4 Collective Being
De Noorderlingen
Andy Lavender: Performance Temporalities in the Face of Doom
Paula Gomes Magalhães: Active Waiting: Political Urgency and Vigilance in Portuguese Revue Theatre (1974–1975)
Lukáš Kubina: Waiting for the Barbarian to Slip: Political Authenticity, Performative Breakdown, and the Dramaturgy of Anticipation
Paul Geary: (Not) Knowing the Future: Awaiting, Anticipating, and Staging Futurity in Ontroerend Goed’s World Without Us (2016)
ESF 4. Waiting and the Great Beyond
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
Furkan Ak: Ghostly Dramaturgies: Staging Migrant Narratives Through Immersive Technology in Performance
Maria Sławińska: Where Miracles Happen: Theatre Beyond the Visible
Ioanna Solidaki: Slowness and the Experience of Stretching Time as Tacit Protest
16.30-17:00 Open rehearsal and discussion with theatre makers of youth theatre production, Grondtonen (9+)
Venue: Het Houten Huis (max. 30 people)
***Please note that this event overlaps with the pre-performance snack***
16:15-17:00 Light pre-performance snack (only for ticket-holders of the opera dress rehearsal)
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
Performance Evening
Venue: Stadsshouwburg Groningen
17:30-18:30 Discussion with Klaus Bertisch (dramaturg)
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 **)
Day 3
Friday 25 September
8:45-9:00 Registration and coffee
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:00-10:45 Paper Panels
Panel T.5 Silence and Memory
Room 3227.0205, Anda Kerkhoven Centre
Yağmur Atlar: Waiting for the Audience: Empowering Silence in Tim Crouch’s Plays
Helena Buffery: Waiting for Tomorrow: Temporal Suspension, Memory and Transgenerationality in the Work of Helena Tornero
Roskana Niewadzsiz: Trapped Somewhere Between ‘I’ and ‘Other’: Practice-based Re-tellings of Animal-Woman Folk Tales
Panel M.5 Cultural Borderspaces and Civil Resillience
The Social Hub
Burcu Güney Yilmaz:: Matrixial Temporality: Cultural Borderspaces and Time-Wealth Equity
Panel of 3 participants – Rebecca Brinch, Ylva Lorentzon, and Anna Lund: Transforming Imaginaries: Institutional Dramaturgies for Civil Resilience
Panel W.5 Barbarians and the Future
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Rui Pina Coelho: Barbarian Bodies at the End of the World: Heterotopia, Utopia and Refusal in Tiago Rodrigues’s La Distance
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
Vito Lentini: Raymonda, a Medieval Narrative of Waiting
Panel C.5 The Barbarian as Performative Strategy
De Noorderlingen
Miran Bulut: The Future is No Longer What it Used to Be: Dramaturgies of Waiting in Contemporary Turkish Theatre
Thomas Riccio: The Barbarian Within: Cosmocentric Dramaturgies of Suspension and Transformation
Martin Bernátek: Choreopolitics of Red Vienna
Paulo Filipe Monteiro: Bluebeard, the Homemade Barbarian
ESF 5. Barbarian Wanderings
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
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
10:45-11:00 Coffee break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:00-12:45 Paper Panels
Panel T.6 #MeToo: Polish Perspective
Room 3227.0137, Anda Kerkhoven Centre
Panel of 4 participants – Katarzyna Waligóra, Monika Kwaśniewska-Mikuła, Kasia Lech, and Marta Keil: Theatre Studies After #MeToo: Polish Perspective
Panel M.6 Humans and Robots
The Social Hub
Panel of 5 participants – Irene Alcubilla Troughton, Maaike Bleeker, Soyun Jang, Laura Karreman, and Ruowen Xu: The Robots are Coming: Affect, Attunement and Imagination in Human-Robot Encounters
Panel W.6 Willful Barbarians
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
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)
Ewa Bal:Theatrical akēdía is a Resistance Strategy in Response to Challenges of Patriotism, Heroism and Capitalism
Panel C.6 Futures (Not) Yet to Come
De Noorderlingen
William McEvoy: Electra’s Active Waiting and the Expressive Contradictions of Grief
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
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Guy Weizman (EASTAP Associate Artist)
13:45-14:45 Lunch break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
13:45-14:45 ESF Lunch Panel on Academic Publishing
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
14:45-16:00 Keynote Talk
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Sruti Bala (University of Amsterdam)
All the Arms we Need: on the Normalization of Militarization in the European Cultural Realm
16:00-16:40 Artist Panel
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
Chokri Ben Chikha (RUG-Associated Artist)
Action Zoo Humain
16:45-17:00 Coffee break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
17:00-18:00 Performance Lectures
Performance Lecture Session 1
De Noorderlingen
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
Performance Lecture Session 2
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
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
Staged Reading
Studio X, Het Regulateurshuis
Children is All by James Purdy
Yuankun Zhou, Grace Kavanagh, Jonna Wikström, Eros Chien, Jonathan Veenhuijsen, Senna de Groot,and Felicia Koops
Curating the North
The Social Hub
Open discussion with cultural agents from the North of the Netherlands
18:15-18:30 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
Grand Theatre Groningen
Day 4
Saturday 26 September
9:00-9:15 Registration and coffee
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
9:15-11:15 EASTAP AGM Meeting and Plenary
Open to all EASTAP Members
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
11:15-11:30 Coffee break
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek
11:30-13:15 Paper Panels
Panel W.7 The Waiting Never Ends
Zaal 1, Machinefabriek
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
Kristina Hagström-Ståhl: ‘Traumatic Realism’ and the Scene of Memory: Time and Temporality in the Plays of Charlotte Delbo
Panel C.7 Performing Histories
Marta Brites Rosa: Rehearsing Freedom: When the Audience Became the Event
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
13:15-14:00 Light lunch and World Café
Venue: Kunstkantine, Machinefabriek