2026 AAP Conference Schedule

Association for Asian Performance

Annual Conference 2025

Baltimore, Maryland

July 22, 2026

Pre-Conference to the Association for Theatre in Higher Education

(July 22-26, 2026)

Baltimore Marriott Waterfront

A full conference program with abstracts and presenter bios can be found here:

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General Information

• Registration desk will open at 8 a.m. in Waterview D.

• A light breakfast (pastries, fruit, tea, and coffee) will be available in the morning in Waterview D.

• All conference sessions will be held concurrently at Waterview C and Waterview D.

• The two rooms are adjacent, as shown on the following page.

• For lunch, all attendees are encouraged to join the Graduate Student Mentorship Lunch (the venue will be announced on site), except AAP officers, who will attend the Board Meeting in Waterview D.

• Coffee and cookies will be served in Waterview D following the lunch break.

• The conference will conclude with the Emerging Scholars’ Panel.

• Unlike the other sessions, this panel will not run concurrently.

• We therefore encourage all attendees to join us in Waterview D.

• The Membership Meeting will immediately follow in the same room, from 5:00 to 6:15 p.m.

• The Schmoozefest Dinner will begin at 6:45 p.m. at Harbor Tandoor (a 10-minute walk from the hotel; 803 S. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21231).

• The dinner will be followed by Happy Hour at Apropoe’s Bar in the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.

• One complimentary drink will be provided for graduate students.

Morning Sessions

8:00 am Registration Desk Open

8:30-9:00 am Registration, Breakfast and Coffee Available in Waterview D

9:00am-9:15 am Welcome Remarks, Man He, AAP President in Waterview D

• Graduate Representative An-Ru Chu will also make a brief announcement regarding logistics for the Graduate Student Mentorship Lunch at this time.

9:15-10:30 am Session 1, Waterview D

Heritage, Revival, and the Making of Tradition

Moderator: David Jortner

• Amanda Culp, "Shakuntala’s Bones: Reviving Sanskrit Drama in post-Independence India"

• Boram Yi, "When a Women’s Circle Becomes Korean Cultural Heritage: The

  Transformation of Ganggangsullae"

• Ming Yang, "From Ritual Stage to Algorithmic Feed: Nuo Theatre in the Age of AI,

  Multimedia Platforms, and Heritage Commodification"

9:15-10:30 am Session 2, Waterview C

Feminist Performance and Gendered Agency

Moderator: Man He

• Shannon Constantine, "Resistant Femininities for Minoritarian Being"

• Jennifer Goodlander, "Skin, Screen, and Sacred Space: Transgressing Gendered Boundaries in Wayang and Cinema"

• Zainab Warda Jeffrey, "'Would what happened to her, not have happened?': Remnants of Violence in Middle of Silence (1998) and Girls at Checkpoint (2017)"

10:45-12 pm Session 3, Waterview D

Choreographing Transnational Asia

Moderator: Jennifer Goodlander

• Ellen Gerdes, "Chinese Dance Clubs on the US College Campus: Cultural Belonging,

  Authorship, and Mimicry"

• Xueting Zhu, "Choreographing Fleeting Freedom: (Re)Embodied Imaginations of Transnational Feminisms in Shirley Wong and Andy Lau’s Tango Duel (2001)"

• Eva Shan Chou, "A Performance Studies Approach to White-Haired Girl"

10:45-12 pm Session 4, Waterview C

Mediation, Technology, and Spectatorship

Moderator: Amanda Culp

• An-Ru Chu, "Refusing Immersion: Puppet Agency and Colonial Infrastructure in VR"

• Justine Wiesinger, "Meiji Sugoroku: Performance, Play, and Politics in the Drag Art of

  Bubu de la Madeleine and Shimada Yoshiko"

• David Jortner and Caroline Wells, "Komodos in Ankor, Wayang in the Jungle: Constructions of 'Asia' in American Zoo Design"

• Yining Lin, "A Western Monkey: The Transformation of Sun Wukong in Western Opera"

12:15-1:45 pm AAP Board Meeting (in-person at Waterview D)

• All attendees are encouraged to join the Graduate Student Mentorship Lunch.

• Coffee and cookies will be served in Waterview D following the lunch break.

Afternoon Sessions

2-3:15 pm Session 5, Waterview D

Presence, Stillness, and Performance Time

Moderator: Ellen Gerdes

• Ana Elena Puga, "Crafting Motion and Stillness in Kamisato Yudai’s Rehearsals of Morinomiya Nina’s Sadfunny Journey"

• Yihui Sheng, "'Throwing off a Teacup': The Immediacy of the Storyteller Liu Jingting’s Body in The Peach Blossom Fan"

• Asif Majid, "Performing Spiritual Power: Intimacy, Immediacy, and Investment during Lucknow’s Muharram"

2-3:15 pm Session 6, Waterview C

Performing the Archive of South Asian Modernity

• Jashodhara Sen, "The Body as a Living Archive"

• Deepsikha Chatterjee, "Mega-venue Moment: NMACC and its Role in Presentation of Indian Performance"

• Manjari Mukherjee, "Archival Jugaad: Recalling Baghdadi Jewish Actresses of Early Indian Cinema"

3:30-4:45 pm Session 7, Waterview D

Emerging Scholars Panel

Moderator: Jyana Browne

• This panel will not run concurrently. All attendees are encouraged to join.

  • Hyunjee Kim, "Between Training and Practice: Changgo ch’um, the Body, and Emotional Resonance in Divided Korea"

  • Yujie Chen, "Performing Diasporic Homeland, Enacting Sino-American Rapprochement: Chiang Ching’s Chinese Dance in the 1970s"

5-6:15 pm Membership Meeting, Waterview D

6:45-8:30 pm Schmoozefest, Harbor Tandoor

• A 10-minute walk from the hotel

• 803 S. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21231

  
  

8:30-9:30 pm Happy Hour, Apropoe’s Bar in the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront

• One complimentary drink will be provided for graduate students.