PRIZES

Diala Taneeb

Diala Taneeb is an early-career theatre researcher, copywriter, and stand-up comedian who participated as a young person in ASHTAR theatre-education programmes in Ramallah where she is now again based. For the Fellowship, Diala will be undertaking a five-week research process engaging with 35 years of ASHTAR’s archival material, which includes photographs, digital files, and recordings of past productions, with a view to showcasing ASHTAR’s work to its public audiences, existing and new.

Diala aspires to tell the fascinating story of ASHTAR, the first Theatre of the Oppressed in Palestine and the Arab world, in a universal language. Her mission, one close to her heart, is to amplify ASHTAR’s longstanding commitment to inclusivity and its vision to be more than a theatre, but also a unifying space for critical conversations, social change, and coping. This work will contribute to a global effort to preserve Palestinian culture for local and international communities.

As the TaPRA-ASHTAR Fellow, Diala will be mentored in her research process by TaPRA member Dr Dani Abulhawa (University of Leeds). Diala will also receive a £1,000 stipend, and will have the opportunity to share reflections on her developing project, online at two research-community events: (1) a Mujaawarah (meaning ‘neighbouring’ or ‘being adjacent’ in Arabic): a gathering of creatives and academics focused on Bilad ash-Sham creative practice and histories, convened by Dr Dani Abulhawa at Leeds in July; (2) at TaPRA’s annual conference at Queen Mary, University of London in September.

TaPRA and ASHTAR are thrilled to be able to support Diala’s research project, and have been inspired by Diala’s vision, energy, expertise and passion for ASHTAR’s work. The Fellowship represents a bright point of collaboration and solidarity between our two organisations, bringing together TaPRA’s mission to facilitate, sustain and promote excellence in theatre research by foregrounding anti-oppression, care, and (radical) hope, and ASHTAR’s work as dynamic local Palestinian Theatre with a truly progressive global perspective, aiming to promote creativity and commitment for change.

With thanks to colleagues in ASHTAR and TaPRA, as well as to Dr Dani Abulhawa and Dr Linda Tabar whose work and guidance have made this project possible.

PRIZES

Tracy Cattell

The 2016-17 fellowship was a collaboration with The Garrick Club Library in London. The winner worked with a small archive on early twentieth-century actress Florence Buckton (1893-1963).

Tracy Cattel about her experience as a TaPRA Fellow:

‘It was a great honour and a great excitement to win the inaugural TaPRA Fellowship, and to represent TaPRA at the partner organisation because TaPRA was such an important and enriching source of support to me during my posgraduate studies.  The task of my Fellowship has been to catalogue the personal archive of the actress Florence Buckton, so that the Club Library can have an online index of the materials to enable the archive to be released for future researchers.  The Garrick also required a display of selected materials from the archive, to tie in with a wider in-house display on the 1920s as a decade of theatre, and an article for it’s members’ magazine.  This has provided a chance that I would never have had in the course of my professional or academic work to learn the language of archiving and prepare a substantial catalogue using hierarchical structures to sort the materials alongside the Garrick’s librarian, who has recently joined them from the British Library, and a dedicated archives assistant, from both of whom I have learned an immense amount.  It has also provided me with my first opportunity to curate a display, informed by the intimate knowledge I’ve been able to obtain of the materials in the archive and their subject, and I will benefit from further opportunities presented by the Fellowship through the chance which it provides to give a conference paper once the research is concluded, and the publication of an article in an peer-reviewed academic journal.’