Umuntu, ngumuntu, ngabantu: the story of the African choir

This article is an extended version of two papers exploring White Spectatorship in Victorian Britain. The article describes the process and methodology of the practice-as-research project ‘The Story of the African Choir' that Collins developed with the Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg between 2005-07. This work as well as revealing hidden aspects of the colonial period speculates about the extent to which the black educated middle class in the late nineteenth century exercised agency and self-determination in terms of the ways in which they ‘fashioned' their identity. In the article Collins offers a critical perspective on the way in which this group attempted to construct a ‘stage' persona designed to meet the expectations of western audiences, and speculates about the extent to which the failure of the tour may be attributed to the Choir's failure to fulfil these expectations. Placing the work within the broader context of nineteenth century spectacle and using Erlmann's notion of the ‘co-authorship of identity as part and parcel of imperial practice', Collins argues that these aspects of the colonial past have not disappeared in the post-colonial era. Rather the mutual reinforcement of ‘false' identities continues as part and parcel of the trade in global cultural commodities. By implication this raises questions about the production and reception of current work from the continent of Africa and specifically the ways in which live performance is contributing to the construction of identity/identities in the relationships between South Africa and the West

Theatre and performance design: a reader in scenography

This volume, the first of its kind in this field, brings together over fifty key texts and newly commissioned works that provide a critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. The collection and analysis of material for the volume was undertaken with Andrew Nisbet, but Jane Collins was responsible for all of the additional writing, including the essays that frame each section. The volume was nominated for the TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) David Bradby Award for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2011. Collins was invited to talk about the book at the opening of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2011 and as guest speaker at the 15th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, International Theatre Festival in Delhi in January 2013. It has been reviewed in international journals including New Theatre Quarterly and Australasian Drama Studies. Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices. Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design. The volume is organised thematically in five sections: Looking, the experience of seeing; Space and place; The designer: the scenographic; Bodies in space; and, Making meaning. This major collection of key writings provides a much needed critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. By locating this study within the broader field of scenography - the term increasingly used to describe a more integrated reading of performance - this unique anthology recognises the role played by all the elements of production in the creation of meaning. Edited and with an introduction by Jane Collins and Andrew Nesbit, contributors include Josef Svoboda, Richard Foreman, Roland Barthes, Oscar Schlemmer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Crary, Elizabeth Wilson, Henri Lefebvre, Adolph Appia, and Herbert Blau

Interpreting Craig for new audiences

Kate Bailey, Curator of Space and Light: Edward Gordon Craig, will introduce the exhibition and discuss the interpretation of the subject, the creative process and the engagement of new and international audiences with Craig's work. Scriptwriter Jane Collins will provide insight into the development and production of the audio script for the exhibition

Mãe Africana, Pátria Brasileira: negotiating the racial politics of identity, freedom and motherhood in nineteenth-century Bahia, Brazil

Margarida Ignácio de Medeiros was one of up to twelve million enslaved Africans brought to Brazil. She did not, however, remain enslaved all her life. Margarida’s trajectory from enslavement to freedom was typical of many enslaved African women labouring in urban centres of nineteenth-century Brazil. Although regarded as a domestic slave her enslaved working life, and day, was divided between house and street. Margarida’s work in the house provided her owner with domestic comfort, while her work in the street provided her with an income. Allowed to retain a portion of that income, Margarida was eventually able to purchase her freedom. While living with her owner, Margarida also (re)produced free born children over whom her owner tried to obtain custody. Through an intersectional approach this study attempts to disentangle the conditions of race, gender and status to understand how these conditions interfaced to shape African women’s lived experience as ‘domestic’ labourers and mothers in enslavement and in freedom, and how those experiences shaped ideas about resistance and identity. The very personal battle for the custody of Margarida’s children examined here is also understood as an ideological one about the shape of the nation, about rights and power vis-à-vis freedom, property, family and citizenship. Within this case, then, lies a political struggle for the control of labour as a pre-requisite for citizenship, a racial struggle for supremacy and hegemony of white over black, Brazilian over African, and a cultural contestation over the conditions of creolization. For Margarida, though, as a ‘domestic’ labourer, and in ways similar to her free counterparts in the U.S., her act of litigation against her former owner was an assertion of her right as a freedwoman to an independent economic and emotional existence

Excerpts from Freshman Themes

Themes Include: Night Scene by, Maxine Peters; Beware of the Bovines! by, Maxine Peters; On Being Nineteen by, Betty Davenport; Smart Fish by, Nelson Collins; and Artistic Indianapolis by, Jane Colsher

Playing with Materials: Performing effect on the indoor Jacobean stage

A chapter in the Routledge Companion to Scenography edited by Arnold Aronson. This is the largest and most comprehensive collection of original essays, brought together in one volume, to analyse the historical, conceptual, critical and theoretical aspects of this increasingly important area of performance studies. Commissioned especially for the volume, this chapter, ‘Playing with materials: performing effect on the indoor Jacobean stage,’ appears in the sub section History and Practice. It examines the move away from text based analysis in early modern scholarship to the study of plays in performance, with an increasing emphasis on materials and space

Introduction to Aesthetics of Absence, Texts on Theatre by Heiner Goebbels

This is the first English translation of a a collection of essays by the German Opera and Theatre Director, Heiner Goebbels. Collins was commissioned by Routledge to edit the English text and write the introduction

Mãe Africana, Pátria Brasileira: negotiating the racial politics of identity, freedom and motherhood in nineteenth-century Bahia, Brazil

Margarida Ignácio de Medeiros was one of up to twelve million enslaved Africans brought to Brazil. She did not, however, remain enslaved all her life. Margarida’s trajectory from enslavement to freedom was typical of many enslaved African women labouring in urban centres of nineteenth-century Brazil. Although regarded as a domestic slave her enslaved working life, and day, was divided between house and street. Margarida’s work in the house provided her owner with domestic comfort, while her work in the street provided her with an income. Allowed to retain a portion of that income, Margarida was eventually able to purchase her freedom. While living with her owner, Margarida also (re)produced free born children over whom her owner tried to obtain custody. Through an intersectional approach this study attempts to disentangle the conditions of race, gender and status to understand how these conditions interfaced to shape African women’s lived experience as ‘domestic’ labourers and mothers in enslavement and in freedom, and how those experiences shaped ideas about resistance and identity. The very personal battle for the custody of Margarida’s children examined here is also understood as an ideological one about the shape of the nation, about rights and power vis-à-vis freedom, property, family and citizenship. Within this case, then, lies a political struggle for the control of labour as a pre-requisite for citizenship, a racial struggle for supremacy and hegemony of white over black, Brazilian over African, and a cultural contestation over the conditions of creolization. For Margarida, though, as a ‘domestic’ labourer, and in ways similar to her free counterparts in the U.S., her act of litigation against her former owner was an assertion of her right as a freedwoman to an independent economic and emotional existence

Bioaugmentation mitigates the impact of estrogen on coliform-grazing protozoa in slow sand filters

Exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as estrogens, is a growing issue for human and animal health as they have been shown to cause reproductive and developmental abnormalities in wildlife and plants and have been linked to male infertility disorders in humans. Intensive farming and weather events, such as storms, flash flooding, and landslides, contribute estrogen to waterways used to supply drinking water. This paper explores the impact of estrogen exposure on the performance of slow sand filters (SSFs) used for water treatment. The feasibility and efficacy of SSF bioaugmentation with estrogen-degrading bacteria was also investigated, to determine whether removal of natural estrogens (estrone, estradiol, and estriol) and overall SSF performance for drinking water treatment could be improved. Strains for SSF augmentation were isolated from full-scale, municipal SSFs so as to optimize survival in the laboratory-scale SSFs used. Concentrations of the natural estrogens, determined by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), revealed augmented SSFs reduced the overall estrogenic potency of the supplied water by 25% on average and removed significantly more estrone and estradiol than nonaugmented filters. A negative correlation was found between coliform removal and estrogen concentration in nonaugmented filters. This was due to the toxic inhibition of protozoa, indicating that high estrogen concentrations can have functional implications for SSFs (such as impairing coliform removal). Consequently, we suggest that high estrogen concentrations could impact significantly on water quality production and, in particular, on pathogen removal in biological water filters

The Currency of Art: a collaboration between the Baring Archive and the Graduate School of CCW.

This publication arises from a collaborative project undertaken by The Baring Archive and the Graduate School of CCW (Camberwell College of Arts, Chelsea College of Art and Design and Wimbledon College of Art, three of the constituent colleges of University of the Arts London). In 1995, ING acquired the business of Barings plc, after Barings became insolvent as a result of unauthorized trading. Along with the acquisition of the company came a collection of archival material relating to the long history of Barings, whose origins stretch back to 1717 when John Baring of Bremen settled in Exeter and set up business as a merchant and manufacturer. In 1762, his three sons established the London merchant house of John & Francis Baring & Co., later known as Baring Brothers and, by the nineteenth century, the firm had expanded to become a leading financier for overseas governments and businesses. Documentation and objects relating to the illustrious history of the bank were augmented by portraits – eighteenth and nineteenth century paintings of the Baring family by leading practitioners of the period, such as Thomas Lawrence, Benjamin West, John Linnell, Ambrose McEvoy and William Orpen. From the 1970s onwards, a distinguished collection of water-colours was added to the historical archive, containing works by artists such as Paul Sandby, Francis Towne and David Cox, and Barings, with great discernment, had also accrued an impressive group of modern British artworks to hang on its office walls.Prunella Clough, L.S. Lowry, Paul Nash, Matthew Smith, Stanley Spencer, Keith Vaughan and Carel Weight are just a few of the artists represented. The Currency of Art is one outcome of a collaboration initiated with ING seven years ago. Staff and students from Wimbledon College of Art, and pupils from three of its neighbouring secondary schools, were invited to create new works in response to the painting collection which now hangs in ING’s offices at 60 London Wall. The staff, students and schoolchildren – diverse communities in themselves – brought fresh perspectives, distinct from those of financial historians or more traditional academics, to the collection. Residencies, symposia and workshops generated responses to the paintings, culminating in two exhibitions hosted by ING, re:MAKING and re:INVENTING, whereby the newly created works were hung alongside the originals that had inspired them. This represented an unusual opportunity, given the problems associated with conservation and stewardship that often inhibit such a combination