Projects
Our staff produce world-leading research delivered via projects that involve collaboration with a range of academic, heritage and industry partners. Our research expertise ranges across the wide field of performance and employs a variety of innovative and interdisciplinary practice-informed methodologies.
Previous projects
Theatre & Visual Culture in the Long Nineteenth-Century, AHRC, 2018-2021
This collaboration with the University of Warwick examines theatre spectacle and spectatorship in the long nineteenth century by considering it as a significant and integrated part of visual culture. Project partners include the University of Bristol Theatre Collection and Bill Douglas Cinema Museum
‘My Little Piece of Home’ : Cultural Heritage Transformations of Weddings and Marriage focusing on Women in the Tamil and Parsi diaspora communities in India and the UK AHRC/ICHR (Newton Fund), 2020-2021
This collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Studies focuses on weddings and cultural objects to look at effects of migration and displacement in diasporic communities.
The Cultural History of Southall (AHRC), 2012-13
This collaboration with The Southall Story has involved longer term work with the organisation, as well as showing the project's exhibition at the British Library and Southbank Centre, and touring it to India and Thailand as part of a festival curated by Daboo on British South Asian culture
Performing the Periphery AHRC/GCRF, 2018-2019
Bringing together scholars across the humanities, natural sciences and social sciences to look at the politics of performance on the peripheries of expanding South Indian cities. International collaborators include: National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru and MOD Institute Berlin.
Atmospheric Theatre: Open Air Performance and the Environment, AHRC, 2018-20
Working with colleagues in English and partners at the Minack Theatre, and the Willow Globe, and with other open-air theatre practitioners, this project explores how written and performed open-air drama might help to raise awareness of air quality and atmospheric conditions.
Understanding Everyday Participation - Articulating Cultural Values, AHRC, 2012-2017
Working with colleagues at University of Manchester, University of Leicester, and University of Warwick, this project proposes a radical re-evaluation of the relationship between participation and cultural value.
Amateur Dramatics: Crafting Communities in Time and Space, AHRC, 2013-2016
Amateur theatre has an active place in the social and cultural life of many communities, and a long history of community activity. Yet the term 'amateur' is often used disparagingly; this was the first major study to take amateur dramatics seriously, collaborating with researchers at Royal Holloway and the University of Warwick.
