Theatre & Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: Winners of WATE Award
The Arts Faculty Award recognises the achievements of Warwick's outstanding educators who have enabled excellent learning, creating the conditions within which all students are supported and empowered to succeed and thrive.
Winner - Ian Farnell (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
My experiences as a student continue to inform my teaching practice. Central to this is my reliance on humour as a pedagogical tool – as noted in multiple research papers, laughter can create a welcoming and relaxed atmosphere in which students can confidently express themselves and interrogate their own preconceptions. I take my students’ learning seriously while approaching it lightly, and my caring, attentive and fun practice uniquely enables my students to grow as individuals, scholars and artists.
About Ian
Ian is an IAS Early Career Fellow and tutor in Theatre and Performance Studies. His thesis (completed in 2021 and funded by the Wolfson Foundation) explored British theatre and science fiction. Ian was a finalist for the 2021 WATE PGR and is delighted to be a WATE PGR winner.
Commended - Ronan Hatfull (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
My teaching ethos, methods, and experiences traverse disciplinary boundaries across both Theatre and English. I teach first-year Theatre students and my work on ‘Your Theatre and Performance Toolkit’ has had positive impact upon their learning. My signature pedagogy on the module ‘Remaking Shakespeare’ is open-space learning (OSL), and more recently I have run a collaborative workshop for the Resonate Festival with students and professional theatre-makers.
About Ronan 
Ronan teaches at the University of Warwick and NYU London. He is also a theatre-maker and Artistic Director of Partners Rapt. Ronan is currently co-writing Shakespeare and Hip-Hop: Adaptation, Citation, Education, co-editing Shakespeare and Biofiction on the Contemporary Stage and Screen and developing a monograph on the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
Winner - David Coates (Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures)
In my teaching I bring both my research interests and industry experience to the table to create engaging, relevant and challenging sessions for my students in modules that have appropriate and authentic assessment methods. I am passionate about developing students who have their fingers on the pulse of current debates, research and the industry. However, I believe that ‘being an ‘excellent teacher’ means more than being effective in the classroom’ (Mortiboys, 136). I hope that I can have a long-term impact on my students and the ethos of my department through championing the importance of the wider university student experience; better embedding wellbeing, careers, industry, employability, and skills within the curriculum; and collaborating with students to foster a meaningful sense of community in Theatre and Performance Studies (TPS).
About David 
David is an Assistant Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies. He teaches and researches nineteenth-century theatre history, historiography, and queer theatre. As well as teaching core and specialist modules in the department, David has designed a skills-focused programme for first-year undergraduate students and an industry-focussed module in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre.
More info here WATE Arts Winners (warwick.ac.uk)
Performance and Politics on the New Silk Roads - Updated Schedule
Launched in 2013, and hailed as the largest geo-economics initiative in history, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has largely been discussed as a consciously designed geo-political and economic project. However, it is also an initiative, a statement of intention, a performance of China on the global stage, and a kind of ‘development theater.’ In this one week summer school for postgraduate students we ask: what does it mean to ‘revive’ and perform Silk Roads for the twenty-first century, and how is this geopolitical chronotype productive for politics and theatre and performance studies? We shall examine the performances of state actors who, typically co-produce the ways in which China is now projecting itself as a benevolent new development actor. But we shall also consider the counter performances that the BRI sparks: performances of acquiescence (from business elites and supportive local groups) as well as performances of resistance (from labor organizers, environmentalists, and anti-corruption campaigners). We shall discuss Belt and Road as a site of cultural production and cultural politics and the ways theatre and performance artists, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers from the countries along the New Silk Road routes and corridors (Western Europe, the Balkans, Central and South-East Asia, Middle East, Africa, etc.) engage, critique and represent the underbelly of the contemporary silk roads – contemporary linkages between the circulations of peoples and desires, the global spread of the capitalist market and economic globalization, and the human and environmental catastrophes they unleash. Focusing on selected cities along the New Silk Roads (Venice, Trieste, Belgrade, Athens . . .) we shall also examine the contested nature of BRI-driven, infrastructural, material restructuring of urban space and its effects on the contours of lives, places, and socio-natures. Through talks, workshops, and demonstrations the participants will be exposed to a variety of disciplinary approaches and ways in which they could be combined to build a new critical framework to understand the New Silk Roads performatively as a relational and intersectional critical concept and practice. The summer school will also explore historical and art historical dimensions of the silk roads and the Venetian links to them through site visits within the lagoon city.
Venue: The Centro Culturale Don Orione Artigianelli, Zattere, Dorsoduro, 909/A. The venue is in the centre of Venice near the Academia Bridge. See: https://donorione-venezia.it/home-en
https://donorione-venezia.it/conference-centreprogr
UP-TO-DATE SCHEDULE AND MORE DETAILS: Performance and Politics on the New Silk Roads (warwick.ac.uk)