PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research
PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research is a new e-journal formed as an extension and re-imagination of the journal On-Stage Studies, published through the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Colorado Boulder. On-Stage Studies was previously published in coordination with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival from 1979 to 2001. Our intent is to take the previous model dedicated to performance that takes part "on-stage" and widen the idea of what a stage is. Taking cues from performance studies theory, we believe the stage is all around us and therefore performance has a multitude of avenues from which to emerge. PARtake will exist as a double-blind, peer-reviewed, online journal with its first themed edition scheduled for release in Summer 2016. Due to its unique digital format, the journal will also promote the publication of performance reviews on a rolling basis.
Journal Mission:
PARtake is dedicated to exploring the theory and application of performance in practice, and the research outputs created through these processes. Performance-as-Research is, for us, an investigation into the material, epistemological, and ontological fundamentals of all forms of performance, intended or otherwise. We seek work created and critiqued from the “scholartist”(1) perspective. Questions we ask are: how does practice inform theory? How does theory inform practice? How do we form an affective and effective praxis? What is embodied research? Can the research we engage in be a collaborative and/or collective experience? In investigating these questions, we embrace voices that have not been fully considered as valid and sufficiently rigorous in the traditional academic research model, and question in what ways we adequately represent the “products” generated inside the practice-as-research model.
What We Seek:
PARtake encourages interrupting current hierarchies of scholarly research through new ways of examining performance as a means of both investigation and documentation. We welcome articles, reviews, digital media, and original artwork that acknowledges the ways in which 21st century scholars and artists increasingly approach performance.
(1) We use the term “scholartist” in the spirit of Dr. Joseph Shahadi, Mila Aponte-Gonzalez and Dr. Amma Ghartey Tagoe-Kootin and other scholar-artists who first introduced and developed the term as part of the NYU program in performance studies in the mid-2000s.