Nous avons le plaisir de vous annoncer le lancement du projet ANR ACTiF (PI: Emeline Jouve, Toulouse 2) dont VALE est partenaire, grâce à Julie Vatain-Corfdir, qui y collabore.

Description du projet:

American Contemporary Theater in France (ACTiF),  A Program funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR): 2024-2028

Objectives of the project

Why has the impact of American theater on French stages remained limited, despite the US’s booming performing arts industry, and leading soft power in other fields? ACTiF aims to investigate this unexplored paradox, thus filling a gap in performance studies and international cultural policy studies, and building bridges between ongoing research on French and US theaters.

ACTiF considers “theater” in the sense of dramatic texts as well as theatrical productions and performance art and is understood and approached as cultural productions that are born of “situated knowledges” (Haraway). The importation of US theater in France is the result of a selection process whose context and logics must be scrutinized to account for its relative scarcity. Therefore, the project’s first objective is to circumscribe the episteme (Foucault) of the cultural transfer mechanisms, specifying the various aesthetic, political and diplomatic stakes involved in the circulation of US plays in France from the 1960s to the 2020s. Its second objective is to contribute to the development of instruments useful to both academic and artistic communities, and the general public alike, to galvanize French research on transatlantic cultural exchanges and to heighten the visibility of US theater.

To reach these goals, the conceptual and practical method of action-research—bringing together scholars from a variety of disciplines and theater professionals—will be implemented.

Workpackages

WP 1: Taking inventory of US theater in France since the 1960s

WP 2: Mapping out France–US theater relations

WP 3: Investigating adaptations

WP Trans.: Cross-referencing cultural differences

Scientific consortium

Scientific coordinator: Emeline Jouve (Toulouse 2, CAS)

Scientific partners : Julie Vatain-Corfdir (Sorbonne Université, VALE), John Bak (Université de Lorraine, IDEA), Nicolas Peyre (Toulouse 1, IDETCOM), Christophe Triau & Emmanuel Wallon (Nanterre, HAR), Xavier Lemoine (Gustave Eiffel, LISAA)

ACTiF also relies on extensive partnerships with cultural institutions both in France and the US.