THEATRE IN THE FIELD: Exploring Anthropology through Performance | WORKSHOP

THEATRE IN THE FIELD: Exploring Anthropology through Performance

6-9th July 2025

​​This workshop made possible with the generous funding of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, aims to revitalise ethnographic practice by harnessing the power of performance to embody, unsettle, move, and provoke. It is an invitation to challenge disciplinary boundaries and create something resonant beyond the page. Held at a dynamic community arts centre in 's-Hertogenbosch (The Netherlands) this workshop will train participants in theatre-making techniques that transform ethnographic material into engaging stage performances. Addressing the growing desire within anthropology to explore non-
textual forms of public engagement, the workshop will support the emergence of a new
cohort of theatre-making anthropologists within the EASA Creative Anthropologies Network.
Participants will develop skills to produce immersive and interactive performances that will
premiere at the EASA 2026 conference in Poznan and be further implemented in future
conferences. Grounded in affect theory, creative anthropology, and drama-based pedagogy,
the workshop draws on Giordano and Pierotti's Affect Ethnography (2024), Augusto
Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed (1978) and Contact Improvisation. It is open to postgraduates and independent scholars from anthropology and cognate disciplines. Our community is drawn internationally with participants coming among others from Berkeley University of California, OP Jindal University, India, University of Arizona, SOAS University of London,  University College Cork, Dublin City University, Queen’s University Belfast, VU Amsterdam, Leipzig University, University of Amsterdam. 

Organisers: Eva Van Roeckel, Rich Thornton, Katya Lachowicz

Facilitators: Cristiana Giordano, Greg Pierotti, Rich Thornton, Katya Lachowicz