Finding a New Centre: Theatre Production, Archives and the Magic of the Margins
On Thursday 6 February, Central’s MA/ MFA Creative Producing students hosted a special event Finding a New Centre: Theatre Production, Archives and the Magic of the Margins in collaboration with Decolonising the Archive and curated by Connie Bell. The evening featured a dramatic provocation and discussion with actors, writers, directors and producers from Black theatre collective African Tales From The Hip.
Buzzwords like ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ index our times, but what is the practical reality behind these words for theatre producers? Is it really possible to produce work from our own ‘centres’ or does the subconscious expectation to conform censor our artistic truths? What if the margins were the new centre? Finding a New Centre: Theatre Production, Archives and the Magic of the Margins sought to address these questions and more during the evening of performance and discussion.
Directed by Nadine Woodley, the event featured performances from African Tales From The Hip artists including Oluchi Nwabuwa, Odd Boy Ten, Kai Gama, Princess Zya and Tez Munroe.
Founded by Connie Bell, African Tales From The Hip is a collective made up of African and Caribbean writers, actors, theatre practitioners, costume makers, make up designers and more who are inspired to reinstate the African traditional fingerprint in contemporary theatre.
Born from work done with archive intervention organisations like Decolonising the Archive, African Tales From The Hip’s work to date is both a celebration and a continuation of the Black Atlantic cultural formations of the past 500 years. As a collective, they produce a series of ritual dramas, monologues and artistic sketches drawing their inspiration from a range of archival materials including ‘traditional’ African oral narratives.
Jessica Bowles, Principal Lecturer and Central’s Course Leader for the MA/MFA Creative Producing course said:
“There is a power and a generosity in the collective’s work that makes us as the audience lean forward, want to know more, want to think about how we can use our whole selves in the way we make productions.”
Connie Bell from Decolonising the Archive, Curator, Heritage Arts Practitioner and Playwright said:
“It was a truly inspiring experience to be able to create a platform where people whose experience resonates with our own, were able to share and benefit from each other’s contributions. Depending on who you are, the theatre sector can be quite a lonely place, so spaces of solidarity like these are really important for sharing practice and creating support networks.”
To find out more about the work undertaken by Decolonising the Archive, you can visit their website, subscribe to their podcast, or follow them on Twitter and Instagram. In 2020 they will also be collaborating with Black Cultural Archives to launch a new radio station, DTA Live Radio which will provide insights on history, identity and culture.
The radio station and podcast will host an audio recording of events from the evening in the very near future, so sign up to their mailing list to receive your link.
