The Hub holds the archive of Many Voices, a four-year research project, 2004-2007, which investigated the theatre’s response to the UK’s multicultural profile and the potential for intercultural performance, and features the contributions of distinguished artists and scholars from four continents and UK companies including Pan Intercultural Arts, Yellow Earth Theatre, Kali Theatre Company, Nitro, Border Crossings, Talawa Theatre Company and Tara Arts. The Centre continues this work through Sustained Theatre and BME initiatives.
The College holds also The David Bolland Collection of Film and Video on Kathakali, with additional material on other performing arts of Kerala. This unique archive was donated by David Bolland, curated by Anthony Hozier, Professor Emeritus of the College, and blessed by Kalamandalam Gopi, Director of the Kala Chethena Kathakali Company.
Current projects: 48 Minutes for Palestine, is a collaboration between Mojisola Adebayo, a College Key Practitioner and Associate Researcher, and the Ashtar Theatre Company. A case study is in process through interviews between the director and actors conducted by John Martin, and sequences recorded during a performance of the play at Symposium 2014. This Flesh is Mine by Brian Woolland for Border Crossings, directed by Michael Walling, College Visiting Professor, created in collaboration with Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah and London, and workshopped at Symposium 2013, an analysis of which will take the form of a digital essay.
Previous now archived projects: Encounters with Kantor, led by Andrzej and Teresa Welminski, practitioners based at Cricot 2 Theatre of Tadeusz Kantor, Krakow, resulting in two devised pieces Traumatikon and Pages from the book of, both performed by graduates and students of the European Theatre Arts Programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the Summerhall venue, and by invitation at the Grotowski Centre, Wroclaw, Istropolitana Project, Bratislava, and Moscow Art Theatre School, 2011/12/13. The performances and subsequent report were moderated by Kantor specialists Professor Noel Witts and Richard Demarco CBE.
Visiting Professor W. Staniewski, Director, Centre of Theatre Practice Gardzienice, has collaborated with Alexia Kokkali who wrote and delivered the commentary on two films by the CPT Gardzienice for Routledge Online Performance Archive, 2013; she conducted “In conversation with W. Staniewski” and chaired the public discussion following the premiere of his film Iphigenia at Aulis and introduced the performance Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris at the Michalis Kakogiannis Foundation, Athens, Greece, 2011; and was also a member of the round table prior to the UK premiere of Iphigenia at Aulis at Magdalen College, Oxford, 2009.
Platform for Intercultural Europe held its Fourth Intercultural Practice Exchange, Interculturalism: Arts and Policy, at RBC in 2010, a two day event in partnership with Border Crossings, facilitated by the DoR and moderated by Michael Walling, Artistic Director of the Company. The College’s collaborations with Border Crossings have resulted in expert seminars, professional workshops, the development of original texts and intercultural performances, particularly Consumed and The Orientations Trilogy, involving practitioners from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, France, Sweden and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre.
Fellows of the College associated with the work of the Centre include Yvonne Brewster OBE, David Tse Ka-Shing, Paulette Randall, Janet Steel, and Ben Thomas, and Honorary Fellows Richard Demarco CBE, Philip Hedley CBE and Jatinder Verma; and the Centre’s Visiting Professors are Michael Walling, Artistic Director, Border Crossings; and Wlodzimierz Staniewski, Director, Centre of Theatre Practices Gardzienice.