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Photo of Dr Rebecca Hillman

Dr Rebecca Hillman

Senior Lecturer

5307

01392 725307

I joined the University of Exeter in 2015. Before that I worked at the University of Reading, where I completed my PhD, and began to develop curricula on the relationship between activism and performance. I also worked as a sessional lecturer at Kingston University, and as a learning mentor at a pupil referral unit in Slough. 

Work and housing precarity, street protest, and trade union organising were formative experiences driving my research at that time. My PhD sought to reclaim the political value of dramatic art through practice led research. I identified effective practice, paying special attention to theatre made by/for labour movement activists in Britain since the 1960s. I collaborated with Reading Trades Council to develop an experimental anti-cuts play that analysed the impact of privatisation and austerity measures on our community, which took place in a disused, town centre pub.

These experiences continue to underpin my work. I have given papers on a wide range of issues concerned with performance as political activism at conferences and public events. A module I wrote in 2016, called Activism and Performance, enables me to examine in depth, with my students, protest and other activist tactics as they evolve around the world, through the lens of performance. My recent publications re-evaluate the role of agitprop theatre as an important organising tool and analyse a return of socialist and communist imagery in contemporary political movements. My script commemorating the centenary of the Huntley and Palmers’ 1916 Women’s Strike was performed by women from the GMB and UCU unions in 2016, and later that year my work with Banner Theatre, Reel News, Townsend Productions and the General Federation of Trade Unions came to fruition in the first of a series of events to build links between artists and the trade union movement. I am currently leading an AHRC Research, Development & Engagement Fellowship, Performing Resistance: the role of theatre and performance in 21st century workers’ movements, which builds directly on those initiatives. As well as writing a book for Bloomsbury (2025) to draw together this research, Performing Resistance creates new links between artists and workers' movements in Brazil, India, North America, and the UK. Project workshops, and a website and archive (under construction) will deepen understanding of working class culture and the role of performance in workers' movements today.

 I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE and a member of Exeter's Centre for Social Mobility and Underrepresented Students Working Group. My Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice focused on centralising widening participation into universities, social inclusion policy, and developing a social justice model that would implement ongoing support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds beyond their entrance into university. I served as a trustee and advisor for Future’s Venture Radical Independent Arts Fund 2016-2021, and I am an adjunct faculty member of the National Institute of Advanced Studies in Bangalore. I am an active member of the Centre for Performance Histories and Cultures at the University of Exeter and the Political Performances Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research. I am also Exeter University UCU rep to the Exeter & District Trades Union Council. I especially welcome PhD proposals from anyone interested in theatre and the labour movement and other intersections of performance, politics, and social justice, as well as brodening access to the arts and education.

Research interests

·       Activism and/as performance

·       Theatre and the labour movement

.       Workers' theatre

·       Agitprop theatre

·       Contemporary performance and representations of class

.       Protest art

·       Community theatre

·       Theatre historiography

·       Practice through research

Research collaborations

My research collaborations are primarily with trade unions and social justice organisations.

 

I am lead investigator on the Research, Development & Engagement Fellowship Performing Resistance: the role of theatre and performance in 21st century workers’ movementsfunded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project runs between Septemeber 2022 - September 2024.

 

Performing Resistance builds directly on my prior collaborations with Reading Trades Council (2011), and the General Federation of Trade Unions, Banner Theatre, Reel News, and Townsend Productions 2013-2017. Like those projects, it investigates the agency of performance in political organising, informed by present-day activists, working class culture, and labour movement history. 

 

Performing Resistance maintains connections with prior collaborators as project partners but brings in the Working Class Movement Library in Salford and Somerset Socialist Library in Bridgwater, whose extensive archives on labour movement history, including theatre's role therein, are invaluable.

 

Performing Resistance also forges new links with activist-artists and workers' movements in the UK and internationally, including We Shall Overcome, Salford Community Theatre, BP or Not BP, the Movimento do Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) or Landless Workers' Movement, Brazil, political street theatre troupe Jana Natya Manch in India, and the anti-capitalist Stop Shopping Choir in the USA. You can find out a bit  more about the project at the link at the top of this page. A website is also forthcoming immanently, at https://performingresistance.exeter.ac.uk.

 

For more on The Art of Trade Unions (The Place Theatre, Bedford, 2016), and the Liberating Arts Festival (University of Exeter, 2017), please see: 

For more on the Reading Trades Council collaboration and the play The Pact in 2011 see Hillman Building and Belonging for ORE.pdf (PDF, 247.7Kb) or my PhD thesis '(Re)Constructing Political Theatre', University of Reading Library.

 

The article The Red Flag and Other Signs: Reconstructing Socialist Identity in Protest as Performance (PDF, 1.889Mb) documents my collaborative work with activists in the British Labour Party 2015-2019.

 

Research supervision

I am open to discussing research proposals on any relevant subject given my research expertise. I am especially happy to consider working with candidates with interests in the fields of performance and activism, theatre and the labour movement, applied and agitprop theatre, and those interested in research through practice.

If you are intrested in working with me please send me a 500 word outline of your proposed research topic and a copy of your CV.

 

Research students

Malavika Rao (NIAS Scholarship) Title of PhD thesis: Protest performances: Aesthetics and politics of visibility in public space. Co-Supervisor with Prof Carol Upadhya, NIAS Bangalore.

 

Roger Farrell. Working PhD thesis title: Collective creativity in childhood: exploring pathways between socio-dramatic imaginary play and the changing landscape of structured drama. Co-supervisor with Prof Kerrie Schaefer, University of Exeter.

 

Guy Elhanan (College Global Scholarship) Working PhD thesis title: Silence is Breached: Theatre making under pressures of the Israeli settler-colonialism. Co-supervisor with Dr Katie Beswick, University of Exeter.

 

Yingnan Chu (CSC Scholarship) Working PhD thesis title: Comedy, ethnicity and gender: what happens when Chinese perform stand-up comedy in Britain? Second supervisor with Prof Kate Newey, University of Exeter.

 

Helen Ayres. Working MRes thesis title: The cognitive and psychological effects of dance on the Practitioner. Second supervisor with Dr Sarah Goldingay, University of Exeter.

 

Research through practice

The Liberating Arts (2017) national research symposium and arts festival organised with Banner Theatre, Reel News, Townsend Productions and the General Federation of Trade Unions at the University of Exeter.

The Art of Trade Unions (2016) research and arts event organised with Banner Theatre, Reel News, Townsend Productions and the GFTU at The Place Theatre, Bedford.

Sketches for the Centenary Picnic of the 1916 Huntley & Palmers’ Women’s Strike (2016) produced with Reading Trades Council and performed by members of the GMB and UCU unions, King's Road Gardens, Reading.

The Pact (2011), a site-sensitive, mixed media performance on local impacts of the privatisation of public services, devised with In Good Company and members of the local community in The Coopers Arms, Reading. In collaboration Jelly Arts, Reading Save Our Services, The Ruby Kid and MisCreation. Funded by the AHRC; the South East Regional Trades Union Council (SERTUC) Young Members’ Network; SERTUC; Reading Trades Union Council; Unite; The Industrial Workers of the World.

N30 Script (2011), poems for a mass demonstration, performed with Emma Meade Chapman and Matt Van Niftrik, Forbury Gardens, Reading. In association with In Good Company and UNISON.

Instructions to Resist (2007), promenade performance, Bob Kayley Theatre, University of Reading, supported by the AHRC.

Damage (2005), mixed-media performance on institutionalised violence and the Iraq War, Myra McCulloch Theatre, University of Reading.

External impact and engagement

Online publications and talks

Rebuilding culture in the labour movement: collaborations for the future and celebrations of the past’, Culture Matters, November 2017.


Arcs of Change, Death and Renewal’, Tribune Magazine, August 2019.

 

‘Community theatre for building progressive political cultures’ - talk for a panel presentation with David Edgar, Steph Dale, Jenny Hughes and Julie Hesmondhalgh at Salford Community Theatre's fundraising event Communities and Building Political Cultures: What Can Theatre Do? Salford Arts Centre, 2016 (click on the title to listen)

 

Guest Talks

Lecture-workshop to introduce a 3-day ‘DIY’ course on activism and performance, offering arts activism training and development for black and global majority young people. Theatre Deli, Broadgate Theatre London - delayed due to pandemic.


Panel discussion on Dramaturgy & Activism for the Kenneth Tynan Award with Sue Mayo, Zoe Lafferty and chaired by Nesreen Hussein, Soho Theatre London 2019.

 

Scenes from a Revolution: 50 Years of Making Political Theatre launch event, Foyles Bookshop, London 2018.


‘Activism and the Arts’ - a talk for Exeter Labour Party, Exeter Labour Part Head Quarters, 2018.


‘Building power in community: on community theatre and activism’ - a talk for the RSA event Power to Create: Exploring the Value of Creative Community and part of Exeter Art Week, Exeter Library, 2017.


‘Speaking to the power of political art’, a talk at The World Transformed, Labour Party Conference, The Black-E, Liverpool 2016.

 

Theatre in the Community

Sketches for the Centenary Picnic of the 1916 Huntley & Palmers’ Women’s Strike, written for a public celebration hosted by Reading Trade Union Council and performed as an open air performance in the King's Gardens by GMB and UCU Union members, Reading 2016. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-36692861


Other Community Events

‘What is Socialism?’ a talk for Exeter Momentum with Dr Bice Maiguashca (University of Exeter), Marcus Barnett (RMT, Young Labour International Officer, Tribune Magazine, The Morning Star), Amber Mott (Exeter Socialist Students), New Town Hut, Exeter 2019.


Panel chair at the first national Community Plays conference in September, hosted by Dorchester Community Plays Association & Dorchester Arts, Dorchester 2018.


Workshop convenor with Dr Maiguashca on left politics at Exeter Respect Festival, Exeter 2017.


Workshop organiser for Brandalism and CoLab, Exeter 2017.

 

Facilitator at CoLab’s ‘Resilient Women Summit’, project launch for women in the criminal justice system in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, Exeter 2017.

 

Impact Case Study

The art of trade unions: building an arts network for labour movement activists in the 21st century’.

 

Partnerships and Links

I have created links between the Drama department and multiple art and activist organisations including Art Not Oil, BP or Not BP, Brandalism, Banner Theatre, Townsend Productions, Reel News, Salford Community Theatre, Queer Tours London, Beautful Trouble, Manchester People’s History Museum, The Working Class Movement Library, Theatre Uncut, TerrorBull Games, Theatre Deli/Broadgate Theatre, as well as links between these respective organisations e.g. Brandalism and Unite the Union (‘Street Art 4 Corbyn’).


In 2019 I was invited to form a new cultural partnership tackling homelessness in Exeter with Colab, Exeter Phoenix, the Bike Shed/Boat Shed, and University of Exeter Medical School and Impact Innovation and Business.

Teaching

My work as a lecturer, activist, and theatre-maker intersect. I use my practical experience and research to guide students in making original work at university and in broader community contexts, while students influence my research through discussion and practical collaboration. In 2016 I created a module for second year students called Activism and Performance, which considers creative dimensions of political organisation and protest around the world historically, and as they continue to emerge. I am looking to deveop this module as an MA pathway. 

I explore with students how critical thinking and collaborative methods developed on their degree pathways can be applied to question  social and political frameworks, and create them anew. I encourage self-reflexive participation and awareness of issues of justice, power, and our personal, scholarly and artistic connection with them. I am interested in critical pedagogical approaches including peer learning and support, and in student wellbeing, and broadening access to higher education. I am a fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE and member of the University's Centre for Social Mobility. My Masters in Education focused on centralising widening participation ito universities, national and local policies towards social inclusion, and developing a social justice model to provide ongoing support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds beyond their entrance into university. 

Prior to working at Exeter I taught in the Department of Film, Theatre & Television at the University of Reading and Kingston University, and worked as a learning mentor at Haybrook College pupil referral unit in Slough. Since taking up my post at Exeter I have been nominated for teaching awards in 2017, 2018, 2019 and twice in 2020.

As well as teaching on the courses listed below, I have also taught on the MA Research Project Development and Performance Practice Project modules. 

Modules taught

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