2010-01-19
Giving Voice to the Nation
The Arts Council of Great Britain and the Development of Theatre and Performance in Britain 1945-1995. Regional Spaces, National Stages: Performance beyond London 1945-2010. This symposium at the University of Reading at 17th Sept 2010 will analyse the role of performance outside London in Britain's theatrical ecology.
The traditional historical narrative of performance outside London suggests a series of peaks and troughs relating directly to state subsidy and responsiveness to Arts Council policy. In this scheme, 1945 marks the establishment of the Arts Council of Great Britain which continued the work of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts in funding individuals and companies to perform throughout Britain. In the 1960s, the Arts Council launched its Housing the Arts scheme to build more performance venues outside London creating a network of regional theatre spaces. In the 1970s, it funded a large variety of touring companies who took work to a variety of performance spaces beyond this network. In the 1980s and 90s,reductions in funding saw the closure of spaces and companies before the noughties ushered in a new renaissance in cities such as Birmingham, Sheffield and Liverpool, as well as new national theatres in Scotland and Wales.
'Regional Spaces, National Stages' seeks contributions which supplement or challenge this narrative either through studies of specific companies, venues or localities or by addressing wider topics such as
- notions of local, regional and national and their relationship to performance
- ethnicity & regional theatre
- metropolitan / urban / suburban / rural theatre;
- regional theatre as a conceptual / imagined space
- relationships between regional theatres and touring companies
- the role of regional theatre in training and developing practitioners
- regional theatre's contribution to the social and economic impact of an area
- models of regional theatre outside the UK
This is by no means meant as an exhaustive list and papers on other areas
would be welcomed.
Confirmed speakers include:
- Daniel Evans, artistic director of the Crucible Theatre Sheffield
- Lyn Gardner, theatre critic of the Guardian
The symposium forms part of a five year AHRC funded project, 'Giving Voice to the Nation': The Arts Council of Great Britain and the Development of Theatre and Performance in Britain 1945-1995. The project, a collaboration between the University of Reading and Victoria & Albert Museum, aims to explore the relationships between subsidy, policy and practice through an investigation of the archive of the Arts Council of Great Britain held at the V&A.. The project comprise of three major strands: histories and policy of regional theatre, touring companies and new writing and this symposium is the first in a series of events aimed at exploring these areas.
Please send a 250 word abstract of your paper to Dr Graham Saunders, University of Reading. Email: g.saunders@reading.ac.uk by 31st May 2010
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