Challenging Concepts of 'Liquid' Place through Performing Practices in Community Contexts

Challenging concepts of 'liquid' place ...' (abbreviated to 'Challenging liquid place') brings together two research teams - Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, and Aberystwyth University - and three community arts project partner organisations: Half Moon Young People's Theatre, London; Oldham Theatre Workshop (OTW); Cyrff Ystwyth, Aberystwyth. Using recently devised performance practices with each organisation, the research asks to what extent contemporary theories of dislocation and transience are evidenced in particular 'real world' contexts, how performance practices can be used to consider relationships to place and how dislocation can be eased through such practices. The projects will stimulate theorisation together with 'best practice' models for further dissemination as material for facilitation in community arts organisations.

Traditionally, 'place' is associated with longevity, continuity, community, the normative and security - as well as boundaries, defence and exclusion. In contrast, contemporary existence is more frequently described as place-less, characterised by transience, wayfaring and deterritorialisation. This project makes use of current academic thinking about place, mobility, globalisation and cosmopolitanism while also raising questions about how we define and experience place and 'dislocation'. In real social contexts, there is wide variation and the situation is hugely complex: whilst deterritorialism has led to geographical dislocations, with all the concerns and problems that displacement can imply, other people may experience place very differently.

The research comprises three stages, each of a year's duration. First, three participatory performance-related research projects will be developed and refined. The research teams will work with project partner organisations (all of whom have established reputations in community drama) to create place-based projects that use models of performance practice previously derived within research environments. The community groups comprise newly located refugee families (with OTW), unemployed predominantly second generation translocated migrants (with Half Moon) and learning and physically disabled adults who do not have mobility of place (Cyrff Ystwyth). The choice of the three organisations offers a diversity of location, target community group and form of practice. While all the participating groups might be described as socially vulnerable, most importantly they have been selected as demonstrating different relationships to place.

In Year 2, a range of performance manifestations will take place. Forms of performance will include fully realised devised performance, a workshop series and short residencies. The researchers will provide guidance, 'training', oversight and evaluation as well as some hands-on facilitation. The focus is the participants' response to their sense of place and 'locatedness'. The projects will be documented through recorded interviews, questionnaires, film footage and observation notes. This will provide material to judge the effectiveness of the practical research, to prompt refinements of both the models of practice and current theory.

In Year 3, analysis and organisation of the outcomes of the research will take place. This includes re-forming the models of practice into material for use by other community arts organisations, the completion of three journal articles and a book proposal. The models of practice will be disseminated through an industry-related symposium held at Central with approximately 75 representatives from international and UK community-related organisations. The flexible models of practice will be presented through web-based documents that offer a series of performance-based activities with graphic representations, DVD clips and reflections on appropriate usage. This work will then be made available on dedicated website pages at Central.

Users and beneficiaries of this research are: 1. participants in the project working with the research team and project partners 2. the project partners 3. additional community drama organisations, their own participants and partners such as local authority officers.

1. Community participants in the project will be the primary users. Through undertaking work with arts facilitators the intention is that participants will consider their relationship with their dwelling place. The new refugee families in Oldham face loss, mourning, deep unsettlement, discomfort and prejudiced local people. This project will look specifically at how the past might be reconciled with the present and how, once a place is performed, it could become an environment that is more familiar, comfortable and re-visioned. It is sensed by Half Moon staff that the young adults not in education, employment or training (NEET) who will take part in the Half Moon project perceive themselves as in a position of stagnation and uncertainty in an inner city environment. Many are expected to 'inhabit' dual places: the homeland of their elders together with contemporary, quotidian inner city London. This research project is expected to enhance the quality of life and creative output of these users with a particular emphasis on understanding place as a site of fusion. The members of Cyrff Ystwyth have lived and worked together for over twenty years in rural west Wales. As CI Ames says of them: 'They are overly located and defined in terms of community and disability' because their disabilities limit their ability to move away. But, she suggests, they are dislocated in other ways: from the centres of power, from art, from a normative aesthetic. One of the aims of the work with Cyrff Ystwyth will therefore be to open up responses to long-inhabited, embedded place through physical performance, whilst simultaneously enquiring into less obvious perceptions of dislocations.

2. Project Partners comprise the staff and artists of OTW, Half Moon and Cyrff Ystwyth. These partners will benefit from developing new performance practices for realisation in community contexts, from participating in discussions about theoretical interpretations of place and from the findings of the research in which their work will be strongly represented and used as 'best practice' for further organisations. It is anticipated that the evaluation of the impact of the research will be of particular use when planning further projects. (See Impact Plan for further details.)

3. With an increasing focus on understanding how we inhabit places 'successfully' (see Case for Support), this research could benefit many hundreds or even thousands in the long term. The dissemination of the research includes a symposium for around 75 community arts organisations where the results of the research will be presented. This will comprise, specifically, the launch of the webpages where the facilitation 'pack' will be placed; this will be the result of the remodelled practices from the three community projects. Central has excellent relationships with its industries. 80 undergraduate and postgraduate students a year undertake placements in community theatre settings and Central's outreach work has attracted Leverhulme Trust funding. Together with Aberystwyth University, we fully expect to disseminate this work very effectively to the current and future practitioners in community theatre settings.

Please see Impact Plan for further details.