My work as a theatre-maker is engaged in bringing audiences into the performances in a more active role. I see enormous potential in this work to build more meaningful relationships between art and community through placing a deep awareness of people and place within the artmaking itself. My thinking is informed by the work of cultural geographer Doreen Massey of place and power, community art movements, and a belief that all theatre is participatory theatre.
This way of making is a fusion of performance and engagement that happens through a careful facilitation, varying from project to project, and promotes dialogue between artists and communities. It is a unification of my skills as a facilitator and a theatre maker, as demonstrated through Incubation, a series of projects that look to the future with hope, and recollect: Dundee. This work has extended into deeper thinking around the role of ‘place’ in theatre production, artists use of power, and how these ideas offer a route to rebuild the engagement offers made by organisations across multiple scales of places that champions the power already within the community. From here, bespoke projects can be grown from real desire and needs of a place as connected to the ongoing issues of the place. This helps build arts organisations back into their local communities by fostering civic hubs and proving that they are part of the fabric of this place, concerned for the lived experiences of those who live here. Many of these ideas can be found in my most recent publication, Place People Power. I am often delivering CPD, workshops and seminars on the role of ‘place’ in our creative work to support other artists to find clarity in their relationship with ‘place’.
This work sees me involved in REALITIES, which stands for Researching Evidence-based Alternatives in Living, Imaginative, Traumatised, Integrated, Embodied Systems. It is a project looking at health disparities across Scotland, with my role being as a community researcher in North Lanarkshire. My route through this work is to explore how place, people, power, and process can be better considered in the links people make between organisations that can support them to live healthier lives. Principally, my role sees me working in Recovery Cafes to reimagine what arts provision may look like, as well as co-designing North Lanarkshire Council’s first Care-Experienced drama provision from the ground up. This will be a bespoke set of programmes that respond to the unique circumstances of North Lanarkshire.
I am also deeply embedded in performing arts education contexts in Scotland, primarily within Junior Conservatoire where I oversee the design, delivery, and development of the curriculums for the Musical Theatre, Acting and Devised Theatre programmes. I see my role as supporting all staff, students, and potentials students towards success in their work. This work calls on my intimate knowledge of theatre pedagogy, my sustained experience in connecting arts and people to lower barriers to inclusion, and my deep interest in the boundaries and blurs between education and social engagement. This has resulted in me broadening the diversity of our cohorts, engaging our highest number of participants across Scotland, and supporting great numbers of students into colleges, universities and drama schools across Britain, Europe, and North America.
I am also a guest lecturer for Ros Bruford’s foundation degree in Edinburgh, specialising in devised theatre and movement practices. It is the knowledge exchange aspect of this work that I am fuelled by; making theory understandable through cumulative, creative practice.
Header photo: Michael Kelly
Photos, top to bottom: Nataile Songer
Milly Reid
Nicholas Barton-Wines 