This research seminar will explore how real personal narratives are deployed in two different performances that tell the stories of forced migration and resettlement: each are devised with refugee-actors and draw on their lived experiences. Focussing on Queens of Syria (Refuge Production and Developing Artists 2016) and All the Beds I Have Slept In (Phosphoros Theatre, 2021), researchers Dr Amanda Stuart Fisher and Kate Duffy-Syedi will consider how modes of self-narration used in both productions dramaturgically navigate the binary of self and other to enact a dynamic and affecting negotiation of the personal and the political in a form of ‘life performance’.
Speakers: Dr Amanda Stuart Fisher (Reader in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) and Kate Duffy-Syedi (Co-Director Phosphoros Theatre and PhD Candidate Royal Central School of Speech and Drama)
Respondents: Professor Elleke Boehmer (Faculty of English and Centre for Life Writing, University of Oxford) and Yousif M. Qasmiyeh (Faculty of English and author of Writing the Camp, Broken Sleep Books, 2021)
The event is free and open to all, run on relaxed principles, and refreshments will be provided midway through the event.
Tuesday 10 May, 2.30-4.30 pm
Tsuzuki Theatre, St Anne’s College, Woodstock Road, OX2 6HS
Further information and free registration: https://torch.ox.ac.uk/event/a-form-of-life-performance-dramaturgies-of-solidarity-and-resistance-in-exploring-refugee-expe
Please email Dr Hannah Simpson at hannah.simpson@st-annes.ox.ac.uk or reimaginingperformance@torch.ox.ac.uk with any queries about the event.