University of Glamorgan

August 29, 2008

Rea Dennis, a senior lecturer in drama at the University of Glamorgan is taking part in a performance as part of ‘Performing the World ’08’ (PTW ’08), an international conference and festival that will take place from 2nd – 5th October in New York City.

 

Rea will join with Brazilian actress Magda Miranda from Scripti Artes e Desenvolvimento, São Paulo and dynamo Welsh community artist Miranda Ballin, who works with young people Valleys Kids, to present “Performed stories of migration and place in Cultural Development”.

PTW ‘’08 is expected to attract over 400 grassroots practitioners, activists, scholars and researchers from throughout the United States and around the world.

The trio will present Train tracks and rooftops, a contemporary performance piece drawing inspiration from childhood places of refuge and with extracts from Dennis’ solo work, Apart of and apart from. The works explore experiences of displacement and migration.

Rea explained, “Magda and I devised the piece to explore embodied memory of place. We have the Australian coastline of my childhood and the São Paulo inner city of Magda’s infused with our research of South Walean childhoods. The work plays with fixed boundaries and fixed identity positions by blending autobiography, theatrical language, and local memories of places. In a way we are asking: Where is place? Who owns place? Do I have a place?”

The performances offer potent metaphors for spatial and relational alienation and belonging in contemporary organisations and communities that are constantly negotiating transitional change.

Part of a larger research agenda in creative industries, the appearance in New York follows the premier of Train Tracks and Rooftops in UK in June.

Performed Stories is just one of over 150 presentations and performances that will take place at PTW ’08, a bi-annual conference co-sponsored by the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy (Institute) and the All Stars Project.

New Yorkers from throughout the city are opening up their homes to out-of-towners as a way to build person-to-person ties between New Yorkers and performers, presenters and scholars from around the world.

PTW ‘08 will be based out of the All Stars’ performance and development centre on 42nd Street, though workshops and performances will also take place at other venues throughout the city.