The University of Northampton's School of The Arts will host a major international conference on African theatre from Thursday 30 July - Sunday 2 August 2009, in collaboration with the African Theatre Association (AfTA) and the JAWI Theatre Collective.

The conference, entitled 'New Directions in African Theatre and Performance' will use a wide range of papers, workshops, performances, exhibitions, plenaries, installations and screenings to identify and debate current trends and issues surrounding African theatre and performance regionally and globally as we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium.

 The conference sub-themes are:

 ·   Critical Theory and Discourse

·   Re-thinking / Re-positioning the Canon in African Theatre and  Performance

·   Contesting Postcolonial Drift

·   African Theatre and Performance in the Diaspora

·   African Theatre, Performance and Globalisation

·   African Theatre and Performance and the Nation State

·   African Theatre and New Media Technologies

·   Performance Arts Enterprise in Africa

·   Theatre and Social Change

·   Collaborations / New Partnerships

·   New Writings, emerging practitioners, forms and practices

·   Professionalisation and professional Theatres

·   The future of the Performance Arts in Africa: challenges and opportunities

Victor Ukaegbu, Senior Lecturer in Performance and Drama, Performance Studies, School of The Arts, The University of Northampton, commented: "The conference brings together academics, performance and theatre makers, development workers, historians, culture activists and researchers from different backgrounds to interrogate theatre practices and scholarship in Africa and the African Diaspora."

For further information and booking, please visit http://africantheatreassociation.org/conferences.aspx or contact jumai.ewu@northampton.ac.uk (01604 893166) or victor.ukaegbu@northampton.ac.uk (01604 893171)