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CALL FOR PAPERS
*Send inquiries or proposals to cage.credo100@gmail.com*
 
THE FUTURE OF CAGE: CREDO
John 1912 – 1992 – 2012 Cage
 
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
25–28 October 2012
 
First Keynote Address by Allen S. Weiss
Performance Studies and Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts/NYU
author of Breathless: Sound Recording, Disembodiment, and the Transformation of Lyrical Nostalgia
(Wesleyan University Press, 2002)
 
The present methods of writing music […] will be inadequate for the composer, who will be faced with the entire field of sound.
—John Cage, “The Future of Music: Credo,” 1937
 
            In a 1965 interview with Michael Kirby and Richard Schechner, John Cage defined theatre as “something which engages both the eye and the ear.” Cage’s multifaceted interdisciplinary output—which includes, in addition to his music composition, prolific writing, visual art, and his perhaps lesser known theatre pieces—similarly engages both the eye and the ear, yielding a broader consideration of both theatre and music even as it necessitates a reconsideration of such disciplinary categorization for artists and audiences alike. Like his infamous ‘silent piece,’ 4’33”, which redefined the seemingly rational concepts of ‘silence’ and ‘music,’ Cage’s work as an artist and philosopher provides the brackets inside of which so much artistic practice has been and can be placed.
 
            This interdisciplinary conference is both a celebration of John Cage, 100 years after his birth, and an opportunity to explore Cage’s influence on music, writing, performance, and critical scholarship. Fundamental to the development of innovations in performance art, contemporary music, graphic notation, audience reception, and theories of social practice, Cage remains one of the most, if not the most, influential figures in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and performance. Such a legacy necessarily resonates beyond any single artistic or historical trajectory, and “The Future of Cage: Credo” will explore not only Cage’s output, both artistic and philosophical, but its after-effects through a variety of fields, genres, and modes of presentation.
 
            Just as the composer for whom, in 1937, present modes of writing music might have been inadequate, current modes of critical analysis and presentation may not be entirely adequate in a post-Cagean world. We offer here a chance to face the expansive ‘field of Cage’ and to explore the significance of his work and thought beyond discipline, beyond history, and beyond Cage himself.
 
            We welcome scholarly papers and performative presentations across periods and genres on topics both about Cage and those that explore ideas, theories, sounds, and images that are associated with Cage's legacy, but are not necessarily about the man, his work, or influence directly. These might include, but are not limited to:

• the work of chance in an age of digital reproduction
• the relationship between interdisciplinarity, multimediality, and intermediality
• the influence of extra-musical practices, such as Zen or gastronomy, on composition and performance
• the fluidity between text and score, and score and performance
• anecdotal methodologies, or stories as critical theory
• identity politics and artistic expression
• silence and the politics of having nothing to say and saying it
• through-composition and writing-through
• graphic notation and graphic imagination
• citationality, sampling, and re-enactment
• the relationship of music and dance, legacies of the Cage/Cunningham collaboration
• performative lectures, compositional technique, and pedagogy
• the canonization of indeterminate performance practice
• post/modern and post-Cagean performance

We invite scholars, intellectuals, and creative writers and artists to submit proposals of no more than 350 words for a 20-minute talk or performance, as well as a brief biographical statement of no more than 75 words, by 15 January 2012 to cage.credo100@gmail.com.
 
*Join our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/groups/cage.credo100/*

T. Nikki Cesare
Assistant Professor
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama
University College Drama Program
Associate Member, Graduate Faculty, Faculty of Music
University of Toronto

Critical Acts Editor, TDR: The Drama Review
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/dram

Download Call for Papers [pdf]