In its 34th year, FOOT34, the Festival of Original Theatre, at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies gathers around the theme “Encountering the Threshold,” an invitation to reflect on moments of passage, suspension, and transformation.
A threshold is never static: it is a site of passage, a hinge between what is known and what is yet to come. In theatre and performance, thresholds mark moments of tension, suspension, and transformation. As Erika Fischer-Lichte observes, they draw our attention to “the transition from one state to the next,” where “the space between opposites opens up” and “the in-between thus becomes a preferred category” (Transformative Power of Performance, 2008). Performance, in its liminal locale, places us at the edge of change (Dolan 2005).
Today, in both performance in so-called Canada and global scholarship, the threshold resonates as a space between memory and futurity, attachment and dislocation, rupture and renewal. Whether the “in-between” is mobilized as a generative force—or remains a place where possibilities are suspended or deferred—raises urgent questions about how we live, act, and create in this moment.
FOOT34 invites proposals for papers, panels, workshops, performances, and roundtables that reflect on the many ways thresholds are encountered in drama, theatre, and performance studies. We are particularly interested in contributions that explore how encounters with thresholds enable dialogue within oppositions and generate meaning amidst uncertainty.
Possible areas of engagement include, but are not limited to:
- Thresholds as liminal spaces in performance and spectatorship
- Encounters between memory and futurity, presence and absence
- Thresholds of identity, migration, and belonging
- Performance as a site of suspension, waiting, or deferral
- Creative methodologies for staging or enacting thresholds
- Thresholds between disciplines, institutions, or communities
- The politics of the in-between: thresholds as sites of resistance or transformation
- Encounters with ecological, technological, or digital thresholds
Through this theme, FOOT34 seeks to provide a forum for scholars, practitioners, graduate students, artists, and audiences to pause, to critically consider the thresholds we inhabit, and to imagine together how performance might open worlds and reshape our relation to the present.
Submission Guidelines
Please submit:
- A proposal (250 words)
- A short biography (100 words per participant)
via our online submission form by the extended deadline of October 17, 2025.
FOOT is committed to creating space for experimental formats and approaches that expand how we share and engage with research. We encourage proposals that incorporate performance, practice, or other creative modes of research-creation. While we cannot provide technical support beyond standard AV equipment, we are eager to collaborate with participants on realizing inventive and feasible presentation formats.
If you have questions or accessibility requests, please contact us at footconference@gmail.com.
About FOOT
The Festival of Original Theatre (FOOT) is the annual conference held by the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies at the University of Toronto. Organized by graduate students at the Centre, its goal is to provide scholars and artists an outlet to showcase, critique, review, perform, discuss, and analyze the changing world of drama, theatre and performance.