CLIC is very happy to invite you to the THALIA-workshop 'Children as Performers on Stage', taking place on 16 October 2025 at the Huis van Alijn, Ghent. The programme features keynote presentations by Arianne Baggerman and Adele Senior. To access the full schedule, please click here.
Please registere here.
This workshop is organized by Inge Arteel, Janine Hauthal and Kornee van der Haven (Alliance Research Group THALIA, Ghent University / Vrije Universiteit Brussel).
Description
During this workshop we will explore the role of the child on the stage of adult theatre. In performances for adults, the child has often been presented as an object of amusement and entertainment. From the eighteenth century onwards, however, the child gradually begins to acquire a more distinct role in society, which eventually leads to the emergence of children’s theatre in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A constant, however, is the presence of child roles within adult theatre.
The definition of ‘the child’ during this period is subject to considerable change, which strongly determines the extent to which the child appears as ‘other’ on stage. The child is subjected to the gaze of an adult audience, raising both artistic and ethical questions. In this workshop we want to consider the historical development of the child on stage, issues of theatrical practice, as well as the ethical debates surrounding the presence of children in adult theatre.
Keynote speakers
Arianne Baggerman is a Dutch historian specializing in cultural history, publishing, and autobiographical writing. She studied history at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where her research on seventeenth-century author Simon de Vries led to her book Een drukkend gewicht (1993). At Utrecht University, she focused on the publishing house Blussé, producing her dissertation Een lot uit de loterij (2000). In 2001 she was awarded an NWO Vernieuwingsimpuls grant for the project Controlling time and shaping the Self (1750–1914). This research linked the rise of autobiographical writing to educational reforms, changing ideas of time and history, and the publishing industry. One notable outcome was Kind van de toekomst. De wondere wereld van Otto van Eck (1790–1798) (2005, with Rudolf Dekker), based on a childhood diary. The book won the Wijnaendts Francken Prize (2006) and the Langeveld Prize (2008). This year she published, De storm die wij vooruitgang noemen, about time and the tranformation of the Netherlands in ego-documents 1750-2000.
Adele Senior is Reader in Theatre and Performance at Leeds Beckett University. Adele is the author of Beyond Innocence: Children in Performance (2025) and co-editor alongside a family of artist-activists of ‘On Children’ (Performance Research, 2018). Adele’s research focuses on transgenerational performance, art and bioscience collaborations, and issues of class, race, and gender in subcultural drag practice. They are currently co-editing The Routledge Companion to Performance and Science and leading a project called Kings of the North, which focuses on lived experiences and representations of masculinities and working class-ness in Drag King culture in UK northern towns and cities. Adele’s research has been published in Theatre Research International, Theatre Journal, Performance Research, and Contemporary Theatre Review. Since 2019, they have been an Associate Editor of Performance Research.
