A new life, a new world”: The Transformations of Migrant and Refugee Theatre-Making in the UK
My paper will focus on the work and practice of refugee-centred theatre companies in the UK (companies producing work by, about, and/ or performed by refugees and other migrants). I will draw primarily on the work of two companies, Good Chance Theatre and LegalAliens Theatre Company, showing how they provide pioneering representations of the migrant experience, and how their transformative thinking productively intervenes in the UK’s increasingly hostile environment.
Dr Peter Maber (Northeastern University London)
Still Waiting: Memory, Surrogation and Racial Culpability in Edgar Arceneaux’s Until Until Until…
At Ronald Reagan’s 1981 All-Star Inaugural Gala, actor Ben Vereen performed a blackface homage to vaudeville entertainer Bert Williams. After the lively high-kick number “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,” Vereen sings a somber rendition of Williams’ signature “Nobody” as a moving exposé of anti-Blackness: he responds onstage to a bartender’s refusal to serve him by lamenting, “I just forgets my place sometimes…” and wipes makeup from his face while singing. However, for viewers across the country, ABC did not air this second half of the performance, cutting instead to the next act. Vereen, seen as perpetuating (rather than peeling away) damaging Black stereotypes, was rejected by the Black community, his career destroyed.
Dr Rebecca Ora (rora) (University of Birmingham)
The third space potential of an inter-faculty collaboration involving theatre students and student teachers
Interventions by artists in schools have become increasingly prominent in arts and education policies internationally. The most successful interventions occur when teachers and artists learn each learn the language of the other and become adept at moving between each other’s roles as circumstances demand. However, the presence of a perceived arts expert’ also has the potential to disempower teachers and exacerbate what may be already low levels of confidence in their capacity to teach the arts.
Dr Dorothy Morrissey and Dr Fiona McDonagh (Mary Immaculate College (MIC), Limerick)
Performing the Self: Exploring Identity through Digital and Immersive Theatre in the Classroom
This paper presents a unique teaching experiment in undergraduate theatre education in Kerala, India, that looks at the connections between identity, technology, and immersive performance. It focuses on “That Deep Silence” by Shashi Deshpande, “Hayavadana” and “Nagamandala” by Girish Karnad, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Grounded in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory (1984) and Dewey’s concept of “learning by doing” (1938), the students were encouraged to dramatize these prescribed as part of their curriculum. They used immersive technologies like projection mapping, dynamic lighting, sound effects, and real-time media integration to change ordinary spaces into rich performance environments. For instance, a classroom table became an ICU through the synchronized projection of fluctuating heartbeat visuals and corresponding sound, allowing the enactment of a character’s heart attack to unfold viscerally before peers.
Mr. Anand Krishnamurthi (PhD candidate St. Teresa’s College (Autonomous), Ernakulam, Kerala, India)
The Impact and Challenges of working through the Arts with looked after children and young people
This paper presents the findings from the Plus One Project, a collaborative programme led by Derby Theatre with cultural partners, designed to increase access to the arts for care-experienced young people. Rooted in co-production, non-directive practice, and relational approaches, the project uses theatre, creative mentoring, and cross-arts initiatives to support identity formation, belonging, and resilience among young people navigating disrupted lives.
Dr Richard Dawson (University of Derby)
Practice-research methodologies of endurance and duration in a groundless contemporary performance landscape
A scenographer’s work in hybrid and participatory performance environments entails not only designing something that will be built but also figuring out how to orchestrate the audiences’ mutual enfolding with scenography in the expanding and shifting contemporary performance landscape; where scenography can be invisible, where it can be felt, walked, digested, made, ignored, found, but it can also ‘make us’ (Lotker and Gough, 2013).
Dr Xristina Penna (University of Derby)
Tender Steps: Exploring Grief, Community, and Contemporary Performance
This presentation responds to the themes of Performing the Contemporary by examining how dance and performance can engage with pressing societal and cultural issues, specifically parental grief following baby loss. Tender Steps, a dance film created by Adaire to Dance under Alice Marshall (Vale), demonstrates how practice-as-research in contemporary performance can generate community dialogue, emotional awareness, and pedagogical innovation. The work directly engages with the conference themes of
arts in the community, diversity in performance, and performance as a vehicle for social reflection and civic engagement.
Dr Alice Marshall (Vale)