Funding award for research into performers’ employability

Visiting professor Robin Nelson has been awarded up to €1000 to assist his funding application for a project on performer training to extend curricula and ultimately improve performers’ employment options. The award will cover travel costs to finalise an application to the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme.

The project, called ‘The Intermedial Performer Prepares’, will investigate practical approaches to extending actor training in the light of increased use of digital media in performance across a range of platforms. The results will inform the design of actor-training programmes in Europe and perhaps world-wide.

Formal partners for the application in progress include the Toneelacademie, Maastricht, the Hochschulübegreifendes Zentrum Tanz, Berlin and Manchester Metropolitan University (both the Theatre School and Department of Contemporary Arts).

Professor Nelson says about this project, ‘The past two decades have seen a European (and worldwide) industry shift of performances into spaces deploying a range of digital technologies. Where to date theatre training has focused primarily on the voice and body of the actor in established theatre spaces, there is now an urgent need for performer preparation to respond to new industrial circumstances. A more flexible performer who can work in new “intermedial” contexts will have better employment prospects in future.’