Theatre & Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: Website Launched exploring climate crisis with young people in the UK and Uganda
Breathe in –
With one breath, what concerns you most about the climate crisis?
Breathe out
Breathe in –
With one breath, who needs to change?
Breathe out
Breathe in –
With one breath, what can you do?
Breathe out
The air that we breathe connects us - with each breath we take, we inhale oxygen that sustains us and pollutants that endanger us. The products we consume, the ways we travel, the forests we decimate – our local actions have global implications.
Dr Bobby Smith has collaborated with young people, Highly Sprung Performance Company (UK), Rafiki Theatre (Uganda) and the visual artists Becky Warnock and Ashley James Brown to explore the local and global challenges of the climate crisis.
The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's 'Engaging Young People with Climate Research' funding stream. It resulted in an experimental, online artwork titled With One Breath. The website brings together physical performance, photography and visual arts as well as creative writing to offer provocations for action on the climate crisis. Young people in the UK and Uganda participated in a series of workshops which aimed to bring together participatory practices drawing on photography and Theatre of the Oppressed methods. It is hoped that this short project can feed into longer-term initiatives which build on the learning that has taken place.
You can explore the website here https://www.withonebreath.world/
2022 Artist in Residence Announced
African Women's Playwright Network and Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2022 artist-in-residence fellowship will be actor/playwright/ director/activist/educator Getrude Vimbayi Munhamo-Pfumayaramba from Zimbabwe who will be with us for 8-10 weeks to develop her new work, SIZWE (NATION), which will look at ethnic hatred that has led to genocide in various nations to answer the question, ‘what now?’
Kenilworth's Talisman Theatre Partners with the African Women Playwrights Network
On 4 February 2021 the Leamington Observer reported that the Talisman Theatre in Kenilworth had reflected on its whiteness, and has reaffirmed its commitment to diversity. This commitment has included partnering with Dr Yvette Hutchison's African Women Playwrights Network so that it can begin to change its position as a venue which has 'a very white membership, choosing plays mainly about white people, by white authors, presented to a mainly white audience' (Leamington Observer).
Unsettled shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award
We are thrilled to announce that JC Niala's play Unsettled has been shortlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award for Black British playwrights. The play is published in Contemporary Plays by African Women and JC is a core member of the African Women Playwrights Network. Find out more about the award here: https://www.alfredfagonaward.co.uk/awards/2020-award/
JC Niala's play Unsettled wins the Alfred Fagon Award
Congratulations to JC Niala, a Research Fellow in Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick and a core member of the African Women Playwrights Network (AWPN). Her play Unsettled - published in the collection Contemporary Plays by African Women - has just been longlisted for the Alfred Fagon Award. https://www.alfredfagonaward.co.uk/awards/2020-award/