Theatre & Performance Studies News
In Memoriam - Professor Jim Davis
It is with a very heavy heart that we write to let you know that Professor Jim Davis passed away on Saturday 4th November following a stroke. Everyone who had the pleasure of encountering Jim will appreciate that this is a huge loss for his family, friends, colleagues, collaborators and the wider research community. He was a fantastic scholar and unwavering champion for the discipline and theatre historiography. He was such an important part of the Theatre and Performance family at the University of Warwick and will be missed for his leadership, mentorship, friendship and unfailing sense of fun and mischief.
Jim Davis joined Warwick in 2004 as Head of Department (2004-2009) after eighteen years teaching Theatre Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, where he was latterly Head of the School of Theatre, Film and Dance. In Australia he was also President of the Australasian Drama Studies Association and member of the Board of Studies of the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Prior to leaving for Australia he spent ten years teaching in London at what is now Roehampton University. He co-organised many conferences including for the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) in New South Wales and at Warwick. He convened Historiography Working Groups for both IFTR and for TaPRA. He served as an editor for the journal Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film.
He published widely and with considerable critical acclaim in the area of nineteenth-century British theatre. His most recent bookComic Acting and Portraiture in Late-Georgian and Regency England (2015) won the TaPRA David Bradby Prize for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2017 and was shortlisted for the 2015 TLA George Freedley Memorial Award. His other publications include Theatre & Entertainment (2016), Dickensian Dramas: Plays from Charles Dickens Volume II (2017) and European Theatre Performance Practice Vol 3 1750-1900 (editor, 2014). He was also joint author of a study of London theatre audiences in the nineteenth century Reflecting the Audience: London 1840-1880 (2001), which was awarded the 2001 Theatre Book Prize. He contributed numerous chapters including essays on nineteenth-century acting to the Cambridge History of British Theatre and on audiences to the Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre. He also published many articles in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Theatre Notebook, Essays in Theatre, Themes in Drama, New Theatre Quarterly, Nineteenth Century Theatre, Theatre Research International and The Dickensian. He was also responsible for many of the theatrical entries in The Oxford Readers' Companion to Dickens and contributed to the Oxford Encyclopaedia of Theatre and Performance, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Stage Actors and Acting and the New Dictionary of National Biography. For several years he wrote an annual review of publications on nineteenth-century English Drama and Theatre for The Year's Work in English Studies.
An event to celebrate Jim’s life and work was held on 6 January 2024 12pm-4pm in the Studios in the Faculty of Arts Building on the University of Warwick's campus.
Dr. Anna Harpin's new show 'WHAT IF THE PLANE FALLS OUT OF THE SKY?' now on national tour
What if the plane falls out of the sky? is a playful and unusual story-led piece about fear, anxiety, and the idiosyncratic and frankly absurd strategies we employ to manage our sense of impending doom. It involves a moving story set in the grounds of Fear Camp, gleeful audience participation, and complimentary in-flight drinks and snacks. What if the plane falls out of the sky? is a tender and giddily-told story about feelings we all recognise.
Presented by Idiot Child with Bristol Old Vic Ferment, What if the plane falls out of the sky? is touring in Spring 2017. Venues include Bristol Old Vic, Shoreditch Town Hall, and the Bike Shed, Exeter.
Find out more about Idiot Child and the tour here: https://www.idiotchild.com/
Prof. Nadine Holdsworth guest edits a special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on amateur theatre and performance
Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 27, No. 1 2017, a special issue titled 'Theatre, Performance and The Amateur Turn' guest edited by Nadine Holdsworth, Jane Milling and Helen Nicholson is now available on Taylor & Francis Online:
'Sky Blues City: Imagining a Sustainable Cultural Future for Coventry' one-day event at Warwick Arts Centre, 26 April
Sky Blues City: Imagining a Sustainable Cultural Future for Coventry
26th April, 2017. The Helen Martin Studio, University of Warwick
A one-day event aimed at exploring new collaborative research opportunities arising from the UK City of Culture bid and the Ten Year Cultural Strategy.
To find out more about the event, and to register for a place, CLICK HERE.
Convenor and facilitator:
Dr Nicolas Whybrow, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick
09.30 Vice Chancellor’s Welcome
Professor Stuart Croft, University of Warwick
Professor John Latham, Coventry University
09.40 Coventry UK City of Culture bid & 10-year cultural strategy
Professor Jonothan Neelands, Warwick Business School and Warwick Creative Exchange, University of Warwick
Professor Neil Forbes, Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University
10.00 Panel Presentations: Sensing the City: a practice-based case-study of Coventry
Dr Natalie Garrett Brown and Dr Emma Meehan, Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University
Dr Michael Pigott, Film and TV Studies, University of Warwick
Carolyn Deby, artist director sirenscrossing and PhD student, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick
11.00 Refreshment break
11.15 Panel Presentations: Diversity in Coventry
The legacy of the city of culture – community relations – the role of arts and culture in community development
Sinead Ouillon, Programme Leader, The City University Initiative, Coventry University and
Dr Chris Shannahan, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Siberia and Us: Polish exilic memory and second generation artistic strategies
Adrian Palka, School of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University
Does an ecosystem approach help to understand and reflect the diversity and values of the creative and cultural sector?
Victoria Barker, PhD student, Centre for Business in Society, Coventry University
12.15 Plenary
12.30 Lunch
13.30 Keynote: Research Opportunities in the UK City of Culture 2017 and Beyond
Professor Franco Bianchini, Culture, Place and Policy Institute, University of Hull
14.15 Panel Presentations: Social value and impact
Live Art. Collision. Hyperlocal. Supernow: Birmingham’s Fierce Festival
Dr Cath Lambert, Sociology, University of Warwick
Working with communities - deepening the engagement or extending the procession?
Justine Themen, Associate Director, Belgrade Theatre
Urban Cultural Intermediaries: the 'Students and the City' project
Dr Jonathan Vickery, Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick
15.15 Panel Presentations: Urban engagements
Vehicles of Communication: The Cart and other rolling conversations
Janet Vaughan, artist, Talking Birds and Rachel Dickinson, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Bringing back the Sensorama: multi-sensory virtual reality
Dr Sarah Jones, School of Media and Performing Arts, Coventry University
Breakfast Elsewhere Project, Coventry
Carmen Wong, PhD student, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick
16.00 Informal Conversations: Next steps and calls to action over afternoon tea
16.45 Finish
Dr. Yvette Hutchison and Dr. Tim White collaborate with JC Niala for 'Who You Think We Are' at Tate Modern, 14 March
Yvette Hutchison and Tim White were selected to work with Kenyan artist, JC Niala for the Tate Exchange for their Who Are We? free 6-day cross-platform event that has been specifically designed for Tate Exchange reflecting on identity, belonging in Europe and the UK, migration and citizenship through arts and audience participation. For the full programme, see https://www.whoareweproject.com/programme/
Their performance conversation, Who Do You Think We Are, runs on Tuesday 12.00-15.30 in the Southwark,Room, 5th Floor, Tate Modern for about 30-45 minutes. It aims to engage and disrupt audience member’s internal assumptions about how we attribute identities to people without having met them. We invite audiences to engage with unknown subjects who share images, stories and gestural repertoires to playfully deconstruct the first assumptions we make about people, while considering the deeper paradoxes of cross-cultural living, and how we create, perform and negotiate personal and collective identity and a sense of belonging.
