Event: Shared Visions: Art, Theatre and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century (2/11/2012)

Shared Visions:
Art, Theatre and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century

Saturday 11th February 2012, 9.30am to 6.00pm (Registration from 9.00 am)

School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies, Millburn House, Warwick University

This one-day conference, held in conjunction with Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film, will explore the connections between art, theatre, and visual culture in the nineteenth century. During this period, the ‘art of seeing’ challenged the traditional dominance of the written word. Vision, previously denigrated as deceptive, became considered as a universal language, accessible to all, and more authentic than text. Popular theatre, especially melodrama, led the way in exploring the possibilities of the new visuality. This conference will explore the visual culture of theatre and exchanges between theatre and the visual arts.

Conference fee: £20 (£10 for postgraduate students)
Tea and coffee, sandwich lunch, and an evening wine reception (6.00pm–7.30 pm) are all included.

Registration is now open: www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/theatre_s/staff/jim_davis/sharedvisions.

Although the registration fee may be paid on the day of the conference, we would be grateful if delegates would register in advance, preferably by the 8th February, so that we have a sense of the numbers intended for catering purposes.

For further information on the conference, please visit http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/theatre_s/staff/jim_davis/sharedvisions/, or contact Jim Davis: Jim.Davis@Warwick.ac.uk, or Patricia Smyth:patricia.smyth@nottingham.ac.uk.

Directions: The department is located in Milburn House located in the University Science Park.  It is about 10 minutes walk from the main campus by footpath, but there is no direct road access from the campus itself. The closest railway station is Coventry. If you are arriving by train, either take a cab to Milburn House directly or take a bus to main campus and walk. If you are driving, you will need to access Milburn House via Lynchgate Rd and the Science Park, as shown on the campus map. There are parking spaces for visitors at the front of the building. The main entrance to the building is at the side, facing right. Campus maps may accessed via http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/about/visiting/maps.

Accommodation: For any delegate who requires accommodation on campus on Friday 10th or Saturday 11th, accommodation is currently available starting from £60 per night at Scarman House and Radcliffe House, which may be contacted throughreservations@warwick.ac.uk. Early booking is advisable.

Plenary Speaker: Shearer West, University of Oxford, ‘Benjamin Robert Haydon’s “Punch or May Day”’

Confirmed papers:

History and Narrative:

• Peter Cooke, University of Manchester, ‘Gustave Moreau: The Theatre, Theatricality, and Anti-Theatricality’
• Cathy Haill, Victoria & Albert Museum, ‘“Hold it! What a Picture!” - Art, Living Pictures and Poses Plastiques on the Nineteenth-Century Stage’
• Annabel Rutherford, York University, Toronto, ‘Drama in Art in Drama: The Interweaving of Visual Art and Theatre’

Stage Adaptation:

• Barbara Bell, Edinburgh Napier University, '“...taken from the original”: Word, Image and the Drive for Authenticity in Early Stagings of the Works of Sir Walter Scott’
• Karen Laird, University of Manchester, ‘Reconstructing J. Ware's “The Woman in White: A Drama in Three Acts” (1860)’
• Melissa Dickson, Kings College, London, ‘Visions of the Orient: Manufacturing the Arabian Nights on Early Nineteenth-Century London Stages’

The Art of Theatre: Lights, Costume, Scenery

• Veronica Isaac, Victoria & Albert Museum, ‘The “Art” of Costume in the Late Nineteenth Century: Highlights from the Wardrobe of “The Painter's Actress”’
• Janice Norwood, University of Hertfordshire, ‘Posing Questions: The Iconography of Two Female Theatrical Impresarios’
• Jane Pritchard, Victoria & Albert Museum, ‘The Iconography of the Ballet at the Alhambra, 1884 – 1912’

Religious Spectacle:

• Peter Yeandle, University of Lancaster, ‘Spectacles of Sin or Performances of Divine Grace? Seeing the Ballet Through Anglican Eyes, c. 1880 – 1900’
• Anjna Chouhan, University of Leicester, ‘Performing Religion in Shakespeare on the Late Victorian Stage'
• Leanne Groenveld, University of Regina, '“I felt as never before, under any sermon that I ever heard preached”: English and American Responses to, and Representations of, the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1840 – 1900’

Dramatizing the Environment:

• Viv Gardner, University of Manchester, ‘The Image of a Well-ordered city: Manchester Theatre Architecture, 1880 – 1910’
• Trish Reid, Kingston University, ‘Ah, my own village home before a palace”: Nostalgia and the Rural Idyll in Melodrama of the 1830s and 40s’
• Mary Jane Boland, University of Nottingham, ‘Through the Eyes of Others: Reassessing Audience Engagement with Joseph Peacock's Pattern Day at Glendalough’

Stage Spectacle:

• Hayley Bradley, University of Manchester, Delighting the Eye Rather than the Ear: The Triumvirate's Autumn Dramas at Drury Lane
• Jane Jordan, Kingston University, ‘From Popular Novel to “Sensational Equestrian Drama”: Late Nineteenth-Century Theatrical Adaptation for “an amusement loving public”’
• David Mayer, University of Manchester and Cassie Mayer, Independent Scholar, ‘Exit with Dead Horse’