An emphasis on personal narratives characterises a great deal of participatory theatre practice with refugee groups. It is important to understand how these narratives are conditioned by bureaucratic performance if practitioners are to avoid re-enactments of victimhood in participatory projects. Bureaucratic performance concerns the legal and juridical structures that exist beyond the theatre within which asylum seekers' stories are created. These structures require narratives of persecution if the asylum seeker is to be successful in his or her claim for asylum, and such narratives often make their way into participatory work. By examining three scenes from the play A Letter from Home, it is possible to identify different approaches to the presentation of personal narrative in performance. The most positive of these approaches served to undermine the figure of the refugee as a victim, at the same time as it productively destabilised some of the boundaries between participant and facilitator.A young refugee actor gives a convincing performance in a play, watched by 15 or so fellow actors and musicians and an audience of about 100 people. Playing the character of Wana she falls to the floor, visibly distressed, crying and pulling at her clothes, telling the court 'the one thing I don't want to say', 1 the story of the brutal killing of her boyfriend and her rape by 'rebel soldiers'. In the audience we know that, within the fictional frame, the original story of violence took place in an unnamed African state, just as we know that this subsequent re-telling of the story of violation is taking place in a 'British asylum courtroom'. Outside the theatrical frame we might also reflect that similar stories are played out in non-fictional British courts less than a mile from the theatre in which we are sitting, as asylum seekers make their case to be allowed to remain in the UK. Statistics consistently show that the proportion of asylum seekers who fail to convince the British judiciary of the authenticity of their stories far outweighs those who do. 2 Asylum seekers whose stories have not persuaded the authorities of their authenticity have been unable to perform to the required standard and stand accused of being unconvincing in the bureaucratic performance of those stories. In re-staging stories of refuge within a fictional frame that is peopled by refugees who are directly affected, applied theatre practitioners tread a precarious line between producing validation, on the one hand, and victimhood, on the other. *This essay examines the performance of personal narratives of asylum in an applied theatre framework and shows how that framework is affected by performances of refugee narrative beyond the fictional frame. It refers to three scenes, including the one described above, from a play called A Letter from Home, which was commissioned by In Place of War at the University of Manchester. 3 I am writing largely from the perspective of an audience member although I have had access to a DVD recording of the performance ...
Performance Interventions is a series of monographs and essay collections on theatre, performance, and visual culture that share an underlying commitment to the radical and political potential of the arts in our contemporary moment, or give consideration to performance and to visual culture from the past deemed crucial to a social and political present. Performance Interventions moves transversally across artistic and ideological boundaries to publish work that promotes dialogue between practitioners and academics, and interactions between performance communities, educational institutions, and academic disciplines.
established the University of Warwick's Centre for Cultural Policies Studies in 1999, having previously established the MA in European Cultural Policy and Management in 1993. He has published widely on cultural policy, intellectual history, and cultural politics. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Policy and a founder member of the Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Cultural Policy Research (ICCPR). In 2012, he was awarded a higher doctorate (DLitt) by Warwick for his contributions to cultural policy research. Professor Bennett's current research focuses on the institutional promotion of hope, conceived as a form of 'implicit' cultural policy. He has a long-standing interest in questions of pessimism/ optimism and has recently completed a sequel to his book Cultural Pessimism: Narratives of Decline in the Postmodern World (2001). Entitled Cultures of Optimism: The Institutional Promotion of Hope (2015), this book explores how and why powerful institutions propagate 'cultures of optimism' in different domains, such as politics, work, the family, religion, and psychotherapy.Nick Clements studied fine art at Cardiff and then set up The Pioneers Art Group in 1981. They were an artist-led community arts team, specializing in the use of creativity (multi-art forms) in areas of high social need. He has worked in over 300 schools, institutions, and charities enabling literally tens of thousands of people to express themselves using creativity. He is presently working for Valley and Vale employed by the NHS to train managers and staff in the inclusion of creativity in care plans for the elderly and those with mental health issues. His outstanding contribution to the field was recently recognized when he was made an Honorary Professor at Staffordshire University. Andrew Crummy was born inCraigmillar, Edinburgh, in 1959. His mother Helen Crummy was the organizing secretary of The Craigmillar Festival Society from 1962 to 1985. He studied as an illustrator at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, and then completed an MA Design course at Glasgow School of Art. His professional life started as an illustrator in London following which he went on to complete many murals and community projects. He has designed for Contributors Contributors xiThe Great Tapestry of Scotland and other similar large-scale community embroidery projects involving over 2,000 stitchers.Janet Hetherington is a senior lecturer in civic engagement and regeneration at Staffordshire University working in the Creative Communities Unit. With a background in theatre education, Janet established the Arts Programme at Birmingham Children's Hospital Foundation Trust, and was a project manager and researcher for a range of organizations including Save the Children UK, Playtrain and Children's Express. She was a joint founder of the MA in Community and Participatory Arts at Staffordshire University with Mark Webster and has taught many short courses and undergraduate modules in participatory arts and is currently ...
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