Boucicault 2020: Circuits of Skill and Entrepreneurialism in Theatre Practice Now.

Dion Boucicault was probably born in 1820 in Dublin. That his birth date is debatable is a sign of the man and his times. Actor, playwright, impresario, inventor, enfant terrible, entrepreneur, bigamist, showman: Boucicault represented the spirit of the nineteenth century and its theatrical cultures. Famous for his stage-Irish melodramas, his technical innovations, and his stage virtuosity, he made his mark on the transnational theatre circuit of the 19th century, staging his sensation dramas in London and New York, Belfast and Dublin, California, Auckland, Sydney and New Orleans. Boucicault's career embodied the boom and bust years of the mid-19th century, capturing the energies of his age in his creativity, contrarianism and ruthlessly entrepreneurial approach to the stage as producer and virtuosic performer.

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth, this series of workshops will investigate the legacies of Boucicault's approach to skill in theatre practice now. These events will investigate the relationship between entrepreneurial values and performance skill, asking how one relates to the other in the theatre. In the past twenty years, entrepreneurialism in the arts has been a question of intense interest for scholars, funders, policy makers and artists. However, the issue of what kind of art - particularly what kind of performer - we get, when the theatre emphasises entrepreneurship, has been less well explored. It is the intention of this network to investigate the outcomes of entrepreneurialism for the work of the performer as well as the producer by drawing on a historical antecedent in the work of Boucicault.

Boucicault is a particularly good catalyst for this discussion, since he constantly drew attention to his innovative and highly skilled approach to the domains of acting and producing. This display of skill both on and off the stage took place against a backdrop of transnational trade in the display of virtuosity, with skills circulating between countries through touring circuits, performers, technological innovation and legislation. The aim of this network is to ask what the relationship between entrepreneurialism and virtuosity might be now, and to explore what 19th century residues might be discovered lingering within current theatre practices today.

These events will enable an exchange of knowledge and practice between theatre historians and contemporary theatre theorists, and between scholars and archivists from across a range of fields such as Law, Business Management, Irish Studies, Dance Studies, Popular Culture, and Design History. The events will also bring scholars together with contemporary theatre practitioners, archivists, and institutions (such as the V&A, the Museum of Literature, Ireland, Elevator Repair Service Theatre Company, and the Lir Academy, Dublin) and artists from a range of practices, such as Irish dance, theatre producing and theatre directing.

Ultimately this network investigates what the nineteenth century stage has to teach us about the sort of art we get when the entrepreneurialism of artists is emphasised, as it is today. It investigates the distinctive ways in which skills circulate and shape each other at the theatre through the twin figures of the virtuoso performer and the showman theatre producer.

"Circuits of Skill" will impact on a diverse array of research interests in academia. The potential beneficiaries of the collaboration are extensive since the network is deliberately designed to bring together a range of interdisciplinary academic stakeholders. But our goal is also to achieve a wider impact on a range of potential "research users": theatre artists, producers, curators, policymakers, community groups, funders, and the general public.
This engagement aims to impact directly on the practice and approach of leading artists and producers by curating one-to-one dialogues with academics and archivists in order to enable artists and producers to reflect upon the historical antecedents of their own practice. They will then share this insight with an academic audience and with the general public, transforming the artist's own approach and understanding of their own work by taking the longer view.
Curators and archivists will also benefit from this engagement by artists, which means that the archive will be 'translated' into new materials, performances, talks, documents and even performances, which will be documented on the museums' websites.
Likewise, the workshop and public panel with funders and policymakers in London will enable those directly responsible for funding the arts to reflect on the historical antecedents of terms that are often treated as purely benign - entrepreneurialism, risk, resilience, flexibility. While funders and policymakers will benefit from the opportunity to historicise these terms, academic participants will also gain from learning more about how these constituencies use these concepts in their decision making. The panel will be open to practicing artists, in order to interrogate some of the interconnections between performance skill and entrepreneurialism.
Community dance groups will benefit from an evening of public events themed around 'folk dance in the city' at the V&A museum, in which scholars of 19th-century dance and contemporary popular dance will be asked to spend some time in the V&A archives and discuss this material in a public panel discussion. The project will also facilitate danced 'dialogues' between community dance groups, who will learn each others' dance forms, with Irish and Bhangra or Salsa dancers taking polka lessons with the Historical Dance Society, and vice versa, culminating in an open dance night that invites the general public to join in. These groups will also benefit from the presentation by the Irish dancer Jean Butler (of Riverdance) who will respond to the 19th-century archival materials in relation to her own dance practice in a combination of performance and talks with Monks open to the public.
Acting students and those teaching them at the Lir Academy, Dublin will benefit from the opportunity to historicise acting training, with techniques unearthed from archival sources, investigating the performance of stage-Irish roles, becoming a lasting resource for The Lir Academy.
A wider public audience will benefit from the results of our collaboration by being prompted to reflect upon the historical conditions in which current approaches to skill and performance emerge and are circulated at the theatre. Tthrough the public panels and workshops on funding, folk dance, law and performance, acting training and producing.
Please note that the V&A is not listed as a formal project partner for this bid. This is because staffing gaps have meant that the museum is not in a position to sign letters of support until at least November 2019. However, the membership of Simon Sladen on the steering group, and the discussions with the V&A performance festival to host the related community dance events, means that we can confirm that the V&A are working with us on this project.