Full Name: Michael Carklin
Annual Conference Theme (if applicable): Theorising Horizons of Possibilities, Openings and Futures in Applied Theatre Practice
What were the main points that emerged from your WG this year?
The focus of the Applied and Social Theatre working group at the 2019 TaPRA conference in Exeter was Theorising Horizons of Possibilities, Openings and Futures in Applied Theatre Practice. This was the final conference being convened by Zoe Zontou (Liverpool Hope), Matt Jennings (Ulster) and Michael Carklin (South Wales) as working group convenors, and in this light it was felt appropriate to focus on looking to the future. Each of the sessions was grouped around a specific point of focus: Session 1 was ‘Beginnings’; Session 2 was ‘Possibilities’; Our Open Panel was entitled ‘Openings’; Session 3 was ‘Possibilities: International Perspectives’; and Session 4 was ‘Futures: Education’.
Our working group presented 23 papers and workshops, with presenters ranging from early PhD to experienced researchers in our field. As in previous conferences, we sought to ensure a workshop atmosphere that was supportive, constructive and inclusive. For the first time this year, we facilitated end-of-session questions and comments through a process of small-group discussions.
Our first day got off to a strong start, first with Dr Jess McCormack (Bristol) addressing ideas of collaboration with 200 participants embodying responses to others in urban public spaces; Kate Scarlett Duffy and Rebecca Hayes Laughton (RCSSD) considered the significance of beginnings in theatre and performance work with refugee and asylum seekers in the UK; Dr Jennifer Goddard (Ulster) presented perspectives on the idea that there only being new beginnings in theatres of learning disability; and Rowan Mckenzie (Birmingham) shared her work with The Gallowfield Players in-prison theatre company.
The first session of our second day offered a packed session of six presentations: four papers, one lecture-performance and one workshop. Dr Mark Smith (York) proposed possibilities for radically open community theatre based on the idea of ‘produsage’ rather than ‘prosumerism’; Chloe Bradwell (Exeter) discussed the ethics of public performance in creative projects with people living with dementia; Mattia Mantellato (Udine, Italy) considered the challenges of dance and poetry in the representation of identities in his practice in relation to the work of Derek Walcott; Cathy Sloan (RCSSD) addressed practices of survival and renewal in Recovery Theatre with reference to Outside Edge Theatre and ideas of precarity; Dr Matt Smith (Portsmouth) delivered a lecture-performance focusing on Object Oriented Ontology, New Materialism and performance, considering performing objects as part of applied theatre practice; and Kate Massey-Chase (Exeter) facilitated a participatory activity exploring the idea of ‘risky aesthetic’ and subjective meaning-making.
Our Open Panel on Day 2 offered three papers responding to the idea of Openings. Dr Stephe Harrop (Liverpool Hope) explored notions of precarity in relation to storytelling; Dr Katharine Low (RCSSD) considered labour and value in contemporary applied theatre practice; and Dr Kerrie Schaeffer (Exeter) explored the place of community cultural development (CCD) within the ecology of applied drama with specific reference to Australia.
Our third session on Day 2 focused on international perspectives, including Dr Mark Crossley (De Montfort) – presenting on behalf of a group including Andy Barrett Brian J Brown, Jonathan Coope, Raghu Raghaven and Sivakami Muthusamy – discussing community theatre for exploring mental health and resilience of internal migrants in India; Reka Polonyi (Manchester) focused on documentation in applied theatre within the occupied Palestinian territories; Dr Bobby Smith (Warwick) rethought spatialities and temporalities of global applied theatre practice in the context for the Sustainable Development Goals, with reference to the UK and Kenya; Poppy Spowage (Creative Producer and Researcher) discussed East African Soul Train as a way of reconfiguring the relationship between the aesthetic and the social in the region; and Erika Hughes (Portsmouth) explored strategies for self care in applied theatre practice with reference to The Veterans Project in the USA.
Our final session, on Day 3, started with Elaine Faull (Exeter) on the after-life of school-based theatre performance in children’s minds, imagination and memory; Ava Hunt (Derby) focused on the Theatre Centre and work of former Director David Johnston to explore their artist-led practice as a model, and on the Journeys of Destiny project; in a performance-lecture, Karl Tizzard-Kleister (Ulster) explored sympathetic presence and the opening of space through drama for developing understanding of person-centred nursing; Dr Jennifer Kitchen reconceptualised notions of play and playfulness in theatre and drama education; and Dr Paul Sutton and Max Dean (C&T) presented C&T Theatre’s work combining psychogeography and applied theatre methods in their online distance learning applications.
The three days offered a stimulating and insightful series of presentations, and concluded with the working group business meeting at which the new convenors of the group officially took over: Dr Kay Hepplewhite, Dr Matt Smith and Kate Massey-Chase.
What was discussed at your business meeting?
Key areas of discussion at the Applied and Social Theatre working group business meeting:
- A reflection on the sessions at the conference – there was general agreement that the decision to have shorter presentations and to include more presenters was a good one.
- It was also agreed that holding small group discussions at the end of each session as a way of stimulating discussion and questions worked well.
- Zoe Zontou, Matt Jennings and Michael Carklin handed over to the new working group convenors, Dr Kay Hepplewhite (who started in the previous year); Dr Matt Smith and Kate Massey-Chase.
- It was agreed that ideas for potential themes for the next interim event and main conference, arising out of deliberations at this year’s conference, should be sent to the working group convenors.
Types of contributions:
Papers, lecture-performances, and a workshop
Number of formal contributors (those listed in book of abstracts) 23
Approx. overall number of delegates who attended your WG Sessions 18-25 delegates at each WG session and approx 40 at the Open session
Composition of WG (PG, ECR, etc.)
Of the presenters, approx 9 PG researchers, 11 MCRs, and 3 Independent
Did you have any non-UK participants? Yes
If your WG hosted an Open Panel, do you have any feedback?
The Open Panel was very well attended.
Any additional points or feedback not covered above?
The conference was enhanced by the use of the ‘Sched’ app for the first time which worked very well.
