Submission Form for the green new theatre symposium 2023
Symposium Dates: September 14-17, 2023
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2023
The VORTEX seeks submissions for performances and disruptions for a non-traditional Green New Theatre Symposium at The VORTEX in Six Square, Austin’s Black Cultural District.
The Green New Theatre Symposium is four days of theatrical performances, lectures, and immersive garden experiences centered around the subject of environmental justice, taking place September 14-17, 2023. The event takes inspiration from the Greek origins of the word symposium: a convivial party or social gathering with music, dance, poetry, and conversation in a free interchange of ideas.
Artists are invited to submit proposals by July 1, 2023, using the form below. If accepted, artists will receive a stipend and production support. Out-of-town submissions are welcome, but housing is not provided.
At The Green New Theatre Symposium at The VORTEX, artists, scholars, students, and activists will join together to build networks of collaboration, exchange ideas, and work to align practices to face climate crisis in Central Texas. Theatre artists will offer perspectives on intersectional environmental justice issues that are crucial to transforming our industrial society to a life-sustaining civilization where everyone thrives.
The Green New Theatre Symposium engages in environmental justice, exploring the intersectionality of systemic racism, gender inequity, migration, de-colonization, and corporate greed. Symposium activities are inspired by the primary principles explored in Groundwater Arts’ Green New Theatre Manifesto as defined below:
Community Accountability transforms the complex relationships of predominantly white institutions and the BIPOC communities that they serve. Reflection on the communities that are connected to the university includes accountability to Indigenous ancestors and descendants of this region. The whole community becomes accountable to the treatment of the land to which we are stewards.
Publicly Transparent Budgeting transforms our relationships to money and financial budgeting. We open conversations around non-profit theatre and money.
Decolonized Leadership Practices is a critical lens for transforming traditional hierarchies that are based in colonial practice. As we actively dismantle white supremacy at all levels of leadership, we will redefine responsibility and the way we work together.
Sustainable Resources offers practical tools for regeneration and reuse of materials. Making theatre requires materials. Theatre is a study in how to make something out of nothing and how to reuse items repeatedly on different projects.
Right Relationship to Land and History points directly at how and why we are in this climate crisis. Settler colonialism is the dominant influence on Central Texas culture. By directly investing energy in the land and community, including plants, sky, and water, we begin to shift our relationships. When human beings become part of nature, we make better choices for the environment and one another.
Immediate Divestment from Fossil Fuel Interests and Sponsorships is a potent topic in oil-rich Texas. We explore the relationships of our educational systems and the toxic impact on the environment.
Additionally, the Symposium explores the following principles:
Artistry and/as Environmentalism examines how theater and other arts conform to but also go beyond and question environmentalist practices.
Arts-Centered Education for an Environmentally Just World focuses on the role that educational institutions have to play in teaching for transformation.
Documenting the Present/Performing the Future posits that the arts play a complementary role to other forms of documenting the climate crisis. They capture, in mixed methodologies, the measurable and non-measurable impacts of the climate crisis.
Please join us as we explore the intersection of climate change, environmental justice, and theatre arts.
About The VORTEX
The VORTEX is a 501(c)3 non-profit theatre established in Austin, TX, in 1988. For our mission, core values, and history, see here.
Submissions:
Please submit an application online (see form, below).
The VORTEX will notify artists in mid-July.