Festivals and Festa – Performing the Public Space

Report on 16th Asian Theatre Working Group Colloquium at Saitama University

Abstract

The 16th Asian Theatre Working Group of International Federation for Theatre Research (ATWG) Colloquium, held at Saitama University in March 2025, explored the theme Festivals and Festa – Performing the Public Space. The colloquium brought together scholars, artists, and students from twelve countries to examine the shifting roles of festivals in Asia. Across eight panels, a workshop, a performance, and a roundtable with Asian festival directors, participants analysed how festivals function as spaces of negotiation between tradition and innovation, grassroots participation and state agendas, local practices and global circuits. The Colloquium demonstrated the need for inter-Asian perspectives in festival studies, revealing how festivals across Asia continue to reconfigure public space, identity and cultural memory.