Tag Archives: politics

Training Grounds — Special Callout: ‘Training and… Politics’

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Calling all colleagues involved in performer training!

As many of you know, every issue of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training contains a ‘Training Grounds’ section, inviting submissions that allow us to articulate our practices in a range of alternative and exploratory formats (detailed below).

For our next issue, we invite Training Grounds submissions that respond to the theme: Training and Politics. We are interested in both (capital P) Politics and the more broadly political including areas that might consider world politics, institutional politics, or social politics.

We welcome a range of responses to the theme, including but not limited to:

  • The influence of historical or contemporary Political figures, movements, or ideologies on specific training practices, including where these influences might have been forgotten, hidden or ignored through the passage of time
  • Explorations of covert training practices and the risks of training under specific regimes or in societal contexts
  • Training and institutional politics (whether state-funded or private institutions) including in schools, conservatoires, companies and wider industrial structures
  • Training as a process or act of  resistance, liberation, or reconciliation (including conflict resolution)
  • Training and Political/political narratives, including: training as (a resistance to) propaganda; the idea, nature, function or impact of hidden curricula; training and “political correctness”
  • Training and the Politics of national identity and nationalism(s)
  • Training and the Politics of cultural identity, including the preservation and enactment of cultural heritage and the ideology that underpins this
  • The role of critical pedagogy and/or training for politically-engaged or socially-engaged practice
  • Training and international mobility, including trainings for and with refugees; trainings that facilitate global travel, relocation and/or exchange; or trainings and visa/migration processes
  • Training and oppressive/anti-oppressive practices

Here are short outlines of our three main Training Grounds formats for submissions:

Format 1:    Postcard on ‘Training and Politics’

Our postcards are short responses (120-150 words) on a given theme, giving a glimpse into your training world. You are free to play with the layout and formatting.

Format 2:   Speaking Image on ‘Training and Politics’

  • Choose a training image – photo, drawing, diagram etc., your own, or someone else’s (with permission).
  • Offer an analysis of what the image conveys that might not be obvious at first glance. Up to 300 words.

Format 3:   Essai on ‘Training and Politics’

An Essai takes its cue from the original French,  ‘to test, to trial, to try out’. An essai is a place where (or a means by which) you can explore an idea that is forming. Perhaps it is the seed of an idea that would benefit from being tested in writing, perhaps you have developed some ideas but they are not at the scope or depth of a formal journal article, perhaps it is a provocation or reflection that doesn’t fit the article format.

An Essai doesn’t have to conform to established academic protocols; we wouldn’t, for example, expect references or citations, though there may be one or two. An essai doesn’t have to be a single linear piece of writing, though it should collect around a single topic pertinent to training. An essai should draw the reader into the idea, but does not have to answer all their questions.

Length: 750-1,500 words

All of these formats are created for the joy of exchanging with colleagues about the work that we love — so please get in touch!

Deadlines:

Please send expressions of interest or rough drafts by 22nd September to Zoë Glen (zoeelizabethglen@gmail.com) and Thomas Wilson (thomas.wilson@bruford.ac.uk)

Edits and revisions:1st October – 17th November

Final submissions are due by 24th November.

Training Citizenship and Performance – Reflections

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By Sarah Weston

“The idea of giving people a voice is the absolute basis; understanding what to say and enabling them to say it in the fullest way possible in a way that is connected and full of conviction” Max Hafler.

On Wednesday 24th April 2019 I organised a symposium at the University of Leeds called Training, Citizenship and Performance. Hosted by two research groups, Political Communication (Media and Communication) and Performance Training, Preparation and Pedagogy (Performance and Cultural Industries), the event was an interdisciplinary exploration of whether we can train citizenship, and more specifically, whether performance is the tool for this training. The day was composed of four parts: two talks, from Professor Stephen Coleman presenting an overview of citizenship and Miranda Duffy discussing her work promoting democratic values with primary school children through theatre; and two workshops, Proper Job Theatre taking us through their Lab Project workshop process and Max Hafler immersing us in voice technique inspired by Michael Chekhov. Curating these very different approaches into a one-day event perhaps was a bit of a risk, maybe even a bizarre decision. But underneath it was my own conviction that theatre and performance practitioners possess skills that can be utilised in the political sphere. These are both the skills that are more traditionally associated with socially engaged performance practices and the skills of acting and performance more associated with professional theatre, such as voice training. This symposium in essence then, was an experiment in whether bringing together these two spheres – political communication and performance training – could be a way of demonstrating the importance of sharing these skills.

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