Senior Lecturer Jason Hale, chair of the Department of Performing Arts, was invited to speak at the Shanghai Strategic Dialogue 2026, held at the Shanghai Theatre Academy in China on October 29–30. Organized by the ITI/UNESCO Network for Higher Education in the Performing Arts, the dialogue brought together international scholars, artists and educators to explore the relationships between academic research, artistic practice, embodied knowledge and cultural traditions.
Hale contributed to the session “The Changing Landscape — What Is Changing Around Us?” with a presentation on “Technology, AI & Human Presence,” on how emerging technologies and artificial intelligence are reshaping artistic creation and education while raising questions about human presence, creativity, authorship and the body’s role in the performing arts. Titled “Where Knowledge Lives: Exploring What Can Emerge Between Different Ways of Knowing,” the two-day dialogue marked the beginning of the Network’s second decade.
The Department of Performing Arts has been a member of the Network since 2019, reflecting its continuing engagement with international collaboration in performing arts education.
