April Panel Discussion on Theatre in Europe Today that Challenges our Understanding of European Belonging

NUI Galway to host leading intercultural theatre companies to share experiences of their work with ethnic minorities to form future collaborative projects across European borders

NUI Galway Drama and Theatre Studies lecturer, Dr Charlotte McIvor will host a public panel on ‘Theatre as Intercultural Dialogue? Migration, Interculturalism and Theatre in Europe Today’ with practitioners from four of Europe’s leading intercultural theatre companies.

The panel of theatre practitioners will engage in ongoing debates about migration, minority representation and cultural diversity in the European Union and beyond. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is currently reporting the highest number ever on record of displaced people worldwide at more than 65 million. How does the work of theatre companies who directly engage contemporary and historical experiences of ethnic minorities with recent or family backgrounds of migration help challenge and complicate understandings of European belonging? How might these companies’ theatrical experimentation generate strategies for intercultural dialogue capable of moving beyond the theatre? Is theatre the catalyst for intercultural dialogue that might be needed now?

The event forms part of Dr McIvor’s ongoing research on the relationship between migration, interculturalism and theatre in Ireland and beyond. Speaking about the event Dr McIvor from the O’Donoghue Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance at NUI Galway, says: “This line-up of speakers represents a wealth of national and international best practice in this area. I am bringing this group together to facilitate sharing of experiences and hopefully catalyse plans for future collaborative projects across European borders.

“It is my belief that creative work that addresses experiences of migration not only in its immediate aftermath needs to be supported more consistently and actively in Ireland given the racial and ethnic diversity of our national population, many of whom come from backgrounds of migration. I hope this event might inspire new practice not only from the gathered speakers, but those who might be sitting in the audience or hear about the event and didn’t think that there actually is a place in the Irish theatre and arts industry for their voices and their stories.”

Featured speakers from four leading international theatre companies include; Haider Al-Timini and Bart Cappelle, Kloppend Hert, Belgium, Suman Bhuchar, Tamasha Productions, UK, Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly, Outlandish Theatre Platform, Republic of Ireland and Andrea Montgomery, Terra Nova Productions, Northern Ireland.

The event will take place in the Human Biology Building, NUI Galway beside the Bailey Allen Hall on Friday, 27 April from 2pm-4pm.

For more information contact Dr Charlotte McIvor at charlotte.mcivor@nuigalway.ie.

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