Compassion, Acceptance and Mindfulness in Dance and Performing Arts Conference

13th October 2026 | Prague | On-site & Online

We welcome theoretical, empirical, and practice-based contributions, as well as diverse perspectives from scholars, practitioners, educators, and students.

Dance and performing arts unfold through lived bodies, bodies shaped by training, expectations, and desire. As questions of well-being and mental health gain increasing relevance, there is a growing need to reconsider how dancers and other performing artists relate to themselves and to their own embodied experience. Compassion-, acceptance- and mindfulness-based practicesoffer an alternative lens through which dancers and other performing artists may explore care, sustainability, vulnerability, and resilience in creative processes. This conference invites scholars, artists, educators, and practitioners to reflect on compassion-, acceptance-, and mindfulness-based practices as embodied practices in dance and the performing arts, examining how they shape the daily lives of dancers and other performing artists across diverse cultural and professional contexts.

Important: Conference language will be English. A Czech summary of the presentation will be distributed on the day of the conference.

Topics include, but are not limited to compassion-, acceptance-, and mindfulness-based practices in relation to:

  • Well-being and Mental Health

  • Pedagogies in dance and performing arts education

  • Performance, evaluation, and auditions

  • Therapeutic processes and dance/movement therapy

  • Power, harm, and the absence of the above-mentioned practices

  • The dancing and performing body

  • Artistic and practice-based research

  • Career sustainability and post-career identity

General Abstract Guidelines

  • Character limit: 2 000 characters (spaces included)

    • Including in-text citations, but excluding title, sources, and keywords

    • Abstracts exceeding the limit will be returned without being reviewed to be shortened

  • Keywords limit: 3–5

  • Abstract should clearly cover the following elements within the text: objectives, method, results, and conclusions

  • APA 7 guidelines must be followed

Types of presentations

  • Oral Presentations

    • Duration: 15 mins long + 5 minutes for questions

    • Oral presentations will be gathered into a thematic session of 3–5 presenters.

  • Poster Presentations

    • The poster format will be A0 (118.9 cm height x 84.1 cm width).

    • The author is expected to be present throughout the poster session.

Submission/Review Process

  • Abstracts should be submitted via the following link: https://forms.gle/zhgwncZu1pBbWDS99

  • You will receive an email confirmation about receiving your submission (within 24 hours).

  • Some abstracts are accepted pending revisions; in that case, it will be important to resubmit your abstract within the deadline that will be communicated in the e-mail

  • Please be aware that your abstract may be accepted for a different presentation type (e.g., a short oral presentation proposal may be accepted as a poster).

  • If accepted, each participant must provide a written summary (maximum of 4 000 characters) of the presentation, which will be translated into Czech and distributed to the attendees.

  • All presenting authors must be present at the conference; online presentations are not permitted.

Important Deadlines

  • Abstract Submission: 30th June 2026

  • Abstract Notification: 15th July 2026

  • Written Summary: 15th September 2026

Registration Fees

There is no conference fee for presenting authors, in recognition of the financial and environmental costs associated with travel and participation.