WORKSHOP | Adaptation, Re-make, Risk-taking

Adaptation, Participation, Risk-taking aims to take a fresh look at the reinterpretation of pre-existing sources in contemporary performance, and situates radical intervention as an innovative and risk-taking form of adaptation for the stage.

This event will stage a WORKSHOP by ZU-UK as a provocation, which will be followed by an afternoon PANEL DISCUSSION as a response to address relational and visual dramaturgies as alternative and equally valid ‘text’. We will examine processes of moving away from script-driven dramatic theatre by working with untrained performers and with audiences in relational environments.

WORKSHOP

ZU-UK (http://zu-uk.com/)

Formerly known as Zecora Ura and Para-Active, ZU-UK have been making live art works since 2001. Led by joint artistic directors Jorge Lopes Ramos and Persis-Jade Maravala, the company has an international reputation for creating high quality, critically acclaimed socially engaged performances and digital artworks that put the audience at the centre of the experience. ZU-UK believes that when individuals are not underestimated, the strength of the collective experience builds thoughtful, playful and engaged communities. The more fractured the world becomes, the more out of touch we are with the rituals that unite us with our sense of self, and the essential desire to connect meaningfully. Therefore, ZU-UK seek to design secular contemporary rituals as an invitation to ease loneliness and make communities out of our audiences. ZU-UK’s six hour, overnight performance Hotel Medea (2009-2012) is considered a pioneer of what is today referred to as ‘immersive theatre’. ZU-UK’s work on the Dramaturgy of Participation has been widely written about and forms the basis for the company’s approach to audience experience.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Speakers

Intermediality, Professor Andy Lavender (University of Warwick)

Theatre criticism and dramaturgy, Dr Duska Radosavljevic (Central Shool of Speech and Drama)

Visual dramaturgies/theatre design, Simon Banham (Aberystwyth University)

ZU-UK’s Dr Jorge Lopes Ramos (University of East London) and Persis-Jade Maravala will also join the panel, together with UAL’s Professor Jane Collins and Dr Jozefina Komporaly.

Panelists will respond to ZU-UK’s provocation deployed in the course of the morning from their particular disciplinary perspective, and will engage in a conversation with other workshop participants. The event will include a brief presentation and public launch of Jozefina Komporaly’s recent monograph Radical Revival as Adaptation: Theatre, Politics, Society (Palgrave, 2017).

Tickets: £8

Limited places available.

Early booking strongly recommended.

This event is convened by Dr Jozefina Komporaly and presented by the Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Graduate School Public Programme.