Conference: Exploring the Borderlands - between performance arts, political theatre and academic res

The University of Birmingham, Children Born of War Innovative Training Network (CHIBOW), and the alpha group are organising a conference to explore the borderlands between performance arts, political theatre and academic research, and to investigate how and where our practices and methodologies diverge and intersect, cross-fertilise and complement.

During the first day of the conference the participants will be invited to share their experiences of working in these borderlands with a view to facilitating a rich and multi-voiced exploration of the nature of collaborations between academic researchers and performance artists while investigating what happens in the spaces that we jointly occupy.

The second day will move from the theoretical space into a more practical space and will be case-study based, looking at the specifics of a collaboration with one arm in performance and the other in academia. This part of the workshop will focus in particular on a production under development: IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, a docu-dance-theatre production which aims to shed light on the experiences of Children Born of War, children fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local mothers often after exploitative, abusive or violent encounters.

Exploring the link between research insights and the genesis of performance art, this project forms the basis of discussions of the interdependence between impactful research and performance as a medium for communication.

For more information, please click on the programme of the conference.