Call for contributions, ideas, proposals and dialogue with the editors
Guest editors:
Dr Ben Francombe, Chichester University (b.francombe@chi.ac.uk)
Prof Alice O’Grady, University of Leeds (a.ogrady@leeds.ac.uk)
Prof Jonathan Pitches, University of Leeds (j.pitches@leeds.ac.uk)
Training Grounds Editors: Proshot Kalami (pkc.work@gmail.com) and Zoë Glen (zoeelizabethglen@gmail.com)
Training Places: Bretton Hall (Issue 18.2)
Context
Bretton Hall College was founded in 1949 by Sir Alec Clegg, Chief Education Officer of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council. It first began as a training college for teachers of music, art and drama with courses awarded by the University of Leeds. In the late 1970s the college began to offer degrees in the disciplines of art, music, education, social studies and drama and specialisation in theatre acting, directing, design, technology, writing, dance, management and dramaturgy was introduced in the 1990s. Over the years, Bretton Hall developed a reputation for its creative approaches to arts education. By the end of the century Bretton Hall was a college of education, arts and humanities with over 2000 students. In 2001 the School of Performance and Cultural Industries was founded on the Bretton Campus s as part of its merger with the University of Leeds and six years later, in 2007, the School relocated to the University of Leeds campus to a purpose built theatre – stage@leeds – specialist facilities and a studio named after Sir Alec Clegg himself.
This Special Issue call for papers comes as a widely acknowledged financial and political crisis is gripping the Higher Education sector in the UK, one felt particularly acutely in the creative arts. By the time it is published (in the middle of 2027), it is difficult to predict what the arts education landscape will look like but there are a number of worrying signs: a reduced pool of applicants to creative subjects, after their downgrading of status in both GCSE and A-level; changes to conditions for international students making difficult choices; specialist institutions rethinking the viability of experimental practice-intensive degree programmes including those for theatre, dance and performance. What can be done to arrest these developments and is there learning to be had from training models of the past?
Founder of Bretton Hall College, Alec Clegg’s educational vision still has much to offer in relation to these troubling developments. As Wood, Pennington and Su argue: “Clegg’s focus on the vital role of the creative and expressive arts with potential to enrich lives has an abiding importance for education today in view of the pernicious effects of a dominant ‘measurement’ culture and the squeezed place of creative and aesthetic endeavour in the curriculum” (2021, p.322). Clegg’s absolute commitment to experiential learning, developed first in primary school contexts was equally as applicable to Higher Education and has been revitalised in repeated waves since his pivotal tenureship as Chief Education Officer of the West Riding of Yorkshire County Council from 1945 to 1974. ‘In its simplest terms’, he argued:
it means that children’s interests are more excitedly aroused and their minds set to work more effectively by things that they themselves find out than by things that they hear or see. (Clegg 1973, p.6)
What did this learner-centred philosophy mean for the creative arts training undertaken in Bretton College and what is its legacy?
This TDPT special issue, only the second dedicated to a place of performance training, after Dartington in 2018 (9.3), is driven by two simple questions: why Bretton and why now? As editors,each of us with our own histories and investments in the institution,we come with the conviction that there are significant lessons to learn from the past, and that the close critical scrutiny of Bretton as a place of training can offer both enhanced historiographical understandings of its culture, methods and impacts as well as insights for the future of performance training.
Some of the questions we would like to explore are:
- What were the key phases of Bretton’s development and how do they intersect with the cultural and educational policies of the period?
- What are the legacies of training at Bretton, and how do they measure up to other contemporaneous specialist institutions in the UK?
- How much did the environmental and geographical conditions of Bretton influence its training ethos?
- Who are the key figures and conversely the unsung influencers in Bretton’s history?
- Which innovative training practices can rightly claim Bretton as their progenitor?
- What were the significant areas of expertise in Bretton’s training (improvisation, applied theatre, living history?) and how translatable were they nationally and/or internationally?
- Which genealogies of training emerge from Bretton’s history, and to what extent do they speak back to its culture?
- How does Bretton fit into the wider ecosystem of training practices then and now?
- Which historic practices offer viable models for resisting the imposition of business attitudes to arts education and training today?
Contributors may wish to explore the following themes, although these are not to be considered exclusive or constraining:
- Bretton and social class, popular drama, and politics
- The codependences of pedagogy and training
- Bretton’s relationship to other educational and training histories, both in the UK and internationally
- Dominant voices in the discourse of Bretton (and those which need elevating)
- Key primary sources produced by and for Bretton trainees and trainers
- Bretton’s archival records and what they tell us about training
- Bretton’s environmental art and creative practice
- International dimensions to Bretton’s training
- Relationships between Teacher Training, TIE/DIE, and wider post-war arts practices
- Bretton’s visual records
- Radical models of performance pedagogy and their currency today
We welcome submissions from authors both inside and outside academic institutions, from professional practitioners and those who are currently undergoing training or who have experiences to tell from their training histories.
To signal your intention to make a contribution to this special issue in any one of the ways identified above please email an abstract (max 250 words) to Dr Ben Francombe, (b.francombe@chi.ac.uk), Prof Alice O’Grady, (a.ogrady@leeds.ac.uk) and Prof Jonathan Pitches, (j.pitches@leeds.ac.uk). Training Grounds proposals are to be made to Proshot Kalami (pkc.work@gmail.com) and Zoë Glen (zoeelizabethglen@gmail.com) copied to Ben, Jonathan and Alice.
Our deadline for these abstracts is 9th January 2026
References
Clegg, Alec (1973) Discovery learning, Education 3-13, 1:1, 6-6.
Wood, Margaret, Pennington, Andrew & Su, Feng (2021) ‘The past no longer casts light upon the future; our minds advance in darkness’: the impact and legacy of Sir Alec Clegg’s educational ideas and practices in the West Riding of Yorkshire (1945-1974), British Journal of Educational Studies, 69:3, 307-326.
Theatre, Dance and Performance Training has three sections:
- “Articles” features contributions in a range of critical and scholarly formats (approx. 5,000-6,500 words)
- “Sources” provides an outlet for the documentation and analysis of primary materials of performer training. We are particularly keen to receive material that documents the histories and contemporary practices associated with the issue’s theme.
- “Training Grounds” hosts shorter pieces, which are not peer reviewed, including essais (more speculative pieces up to 1500 words); postcards (up to 100 words); visual essays and scores; Speaking Images (short texts responding to a photo, drawing, visual score, etc.); and book or event reviews. We welcome a wide range of different proposals for contributions including edited interviews and previously unpublished archive or source material. We also welcome suggestions for recent books on the theme to be reviewed; or for foundational texts to be re-reviewed.
Innovative cross-over print/digital formats are possible, including the submission of audiovisual training materials, which can be housed on the online interactive Theatre, Dance and Performance Training journal blog: http://theatredanceperformancetraining.org/.
About Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT)
Special Issues of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT) are an essential part of its offer and complement the open issues in each volume. TDPT is an international academic journal devoted to all aspects of ‘training’ (broadly defined) within the performing arts. It was founded in 2010 and launched its own blog in 2015. Our target readership comprises scholars and the many varieties of professional performers, makers, choreographers, directors, dramaturgs and composers working in theatre, dance, performance and live art who have an interest in the practices of training. TDPT’s co-editors are Sarah Weston (Queens University Belfast) and James McLaughlin (Greenwich University).
Issue Schedule
- 9th January 2026: proposals to be submitted.
- Early March 2026: Response from editors and, if successful, invitation to submit contribution
- March to July 2026: writing/preparation period
- July to early October 2026: peer review period
- October 2026 – January 2027: author revisions post peer review
- June 2027: publication as Issue 18.2
We look forward to hearing from you.
Ben, Jonathan, Alice, Proshot and Zoë