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When Social Policy Meets Performance Practice: Interculturalism, the European Union and the ‘Migratory and Refugee Crisis’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2019

CHARLOTTE MCIVOR
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship among migration, performance and intercultural dialogue as social policy in the European Union since the late 2000s. Intercultural dialogue is currently enjoying a second wave of prominence with several recently published reports by the European Union explicitly highlighting the relationship between this strategy's transformational possibilities and the role of the arts. Crucially, in both European social policy and performance theory today, interculturalism is increasingly used to mean an embodied practice and site of encounter that strategically multiplies – rather than binarizing or reifying – cultural differences between individuals and within groups. This article compares the work of three European theatre companies who describe their work as theatrical interculturalism and use it as a means of practising and furthering intercultural dialogue: Kloppend Hert (Belgium), Terra Nova Productions (Northern Ireland) and Outlandish Theatre Platform (Republic of Ireland).

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , October 2019 , pp. 230 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2019 

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References

Notes

1 European Union, How Culture and the Arts Can Promote Intercultural Dialogue in the Context of the Migratory and Refugee Crisis, p. 15, at https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/4943e7fc-316e-11e7-9412-01aa75ed71a1/language-en, accessed 29 August 2018.

2 Ibid., p. 15.

3 Elaine McGregor and Nora Ragab: European Expert Network on Culture and Audiovisual (EECNA), The Role of Culture and the Arts in the Integration of Refugees and Migrants (15 February 2016), at www.merit.unu.edu/publications/uploads/1473335881.pdf, accessed 2 November 2018.

4 European Union, Report on the Role of Public Arts and Cultural Institutions in the Promotion of Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue, at http://ec.europa.eu/assets/eac/culture/library/reports/201405-omc-diversity-dialogue_en.pdf, accessed 2 November 2018.

5 Knowles, Ric, Theatre & Interculturalism (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knowles, Ric, Performing the Intercultural City (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mitra, Royona, Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stewart, Lizzie, ‘“The Future Market and the Current Reality”: Zaimoglu/Senkel's Black Virgins and Interculturalism in the German Context’, in McIvor, Charlotte and King, Jason, eds., Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions? (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)Google Scholar; McIvor, Charlotte, Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland: Towards A New Interculturalism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Knowles, Theatre & Interculturalism, p. 79.

7 Cox, Emma and Wake, Caroline, ‘Envisioning Asylum/Engendering Crisis; Or, Performance and Forced Migration 10 Years On’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23, 2 (2018), pp. 137–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 141.

8 See Jeffers, Alison, Refugees, Theatre and Crisis: Performing Global Identities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)Google Scholar; Guterman, Gad, Performance, Identity and Immigration Law: A Theatre of Undocumentedness (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cox, Emma, Theatre & Migration (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cox, , Performing Noncitizenship (Melbourne: Anthem Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

9 Cox and Wake, ‘Envisioning Asylum/Engendering Crisis’, p. 142.

10 European Commission, ‘The EU and the Migration Crisis’, at http://publications.europa.eu/webpub/com/factsheets/migration-crisis/en, accessed 3 August 2018.

11 Creative Europe, ‘Call for Proposals EACEA/12/2016’, at https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/sites/eacea-site/files/refugees-guidelines_en_2016_2.pdf, accessed 1 September 2016.

12 Creative Europe, ‘Refugees, Migration, and Intercultural Dialogue’, at https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/cross-sector/refugees-migration-intercultural-dialogue_en, accessed 1 September 2018.

13 See McIvor, Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland; Charlotte McIvor and Matthew Spangler, eds., Staging Intercultural Ireland: Plays and Practitioner Perspectives (Cork: Cork University Press, 2014). Studies of theatrical multiculturalism and interculturalism in local and national European contexts have primarily been confined to the study of single nation states, as in my work (Republic of Ireland) and the work of Emine Fișek (France); Dominic Hingorani (UK); and Katrin Sieg, Lizzie Stewart and Azadeh Sharifi (Germany), among others. However, there is increased need for a comparative perspective, particularly post-Brexit, where immigration has been conclusively demonstrated as a key issue driving the UK's Leave vote. See Fișek, Emine, Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theatre in Twenty-First Century Paris (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hingorani, Dominic, British Asian Theatre: Dramaturgy, Process and Performance (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharifi, Azadeh, Theater für Alle? Partizipation von Postmigranten am Beispiel der Buehnen der Stadt Koeln (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011)Google Scholar; Sieg, Katrin, Ethnic Drag: Performing Race, Nation, Sexuality in West Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Knowles, Performing the Intercultural City, p. 5.

15 Knowles, Theatre & Interculturalism, p. 79.

16 Claire Bishop, ‘The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents’, Artforum, 2006, pp. 176–83, here p. 180.

17 Jackson, Shannon, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Ibid., emphasis mine.

19 Arts Council, ‘Arts and Cultural Diversity’, at www.artscouncil.ie/Arts-in-Ireland/Arts-participation/Arts-and-cultural-diversity, accessed 19 September 2018.

20 Ibid.

21 These remarks were made during a workshop run by the company as part of a three-day intercultural intensive that I ran at the National University of Ireland, Galway, in April 2018 with participants from OT Platform, Kloppend Hert, Tamasha Productions (UK) and Terra Nova Productions (Northern Ireland). Digital recording by the author, 24 April 2018.

22 OT Platform, at www.outlandishtheatre.com/company.html, accessed 1 September 2018.

23 Charlotte McIvor, ‘Introduction’, in Charlotte McIvor and Jason King, eds., Interculturalism and Performance Now: New Directions? (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 1–26. here p. 19.

24 Create, ‘Between Land and Water: Outlandish Theatre Platform and Women from the Dublin 8 Community’, at www.create-ireland.ie/evaluations-and-case-studies/between-land-and-water, accessed 19 September 2018.

25 OT Platform, ‘About’, at www.outlandishtheatre.com, accessed 5 December 2017.

26 OT Platform, Nothing, at www.outlandishtheatre.com, accessed 19 September 2018.

27 Terra Nova Productions, ‘What We Do’, at www.terranovaproductions.net/what-we-do, accessed 11 September 2018. My use of ‘script’ here follows on from Ric Knowles's treatment of the ‘multicultural script’ in a Toronto context which he uses to describe the set repertoires of encounter and dramaturgical repetitions in work of this kind. Knowles, Performing the Intercultural City, pp. 23–43.

28 Interview with the author, 27 July 2017.

29 Ibid.

30 Terra Nova Productions, ‘Arrivals Project’, at www.terranovaproductions.net/arrivals-2014-1, accessed 7 September 2018.

31 Terra Nova Productions, The Belfast Tempest, at www.terranovaproductions.net/belfast-tempest, accessed 1 November 2018.

32 Terra Nova Productions, Dream, at www.terranovaproductions.net/dream, accessed 7 September 2018.

33 Hainsworth, Paul, ‘Introduction’, in Hainsworth, , ed., Divided Society: Ethnic Minorities and Racism in Northern Ireland (London: Pluto Press, 1998), pp. 1–10Google Scholar, here p. 3.

34 See Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Intercultural Arts Strategy: Executive Summary, at www.artscouncil-ni.org/images/uploads/publications-documents/Exec_Summary_(2).pdf, accessed 7 September 2018.

35 The original Racial Relations Strategy (2005–10) sought to ‘tackle racial inequalities in Northern Ireland and to open up opportunity for all’, to ‘eradicate racism and hate crime’ and ‘initiate actions to promote good race relations’. It has since been updated with a 2015–25 plan as well. Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, A Racial Equality Strategy for Northern Ireland: 2005–2010 (July 2005), p. 7, at www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/ofmdfm_dev/racial-equality-strategy-2005-2010.pdf, accessed 7 September 2018.

36 Fact Sheets on the European Union, ‘Northern Ireland PEACE Programme’, at www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/102/northern-ireland-peace-programme, accessed 7 September 2018.

37 Special EU Programmes Body, Citizens’ Summary: Peace IV Programme (2014–2020), at https://seupb.eu/sites/default/files/styles/PEACEIV/PEACE%20IV%20-%20%20Draft%203.pdf, accessed 7 September 2018.

38 Terra Nova Productions, Dream, emphasis mine.

39 Knowles, Theatre & Interculturalism, p. 79.

40 These remarks were made by Timimi during the same three-day intercultural intensive at NUI Galway in April 2018. Digital recording by the author, 25 April 2018.

41 Martiniello, Marco, ‘Immigrant Integration and Multiculturalism in Belgium’, in Taras, Raymond, ed., Challenging Multiculturalism: European Models of Diversity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 120–37Google Scholar, here pp. 120–1.

42 Ibid., p. 122.

43 Milica Petrovic, ‘Belgium: A Country of Permanent Immigration’, MPI: Migration Policy Institute, at https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/belgium-country-permanent-immigration, accessed 11 September 2018.

44 Martiniello, ‘Immigrant Integration and Multiculturalism in Belgium’, pp. 129–30.

45 Jackson, Social Works, p. 14, emphasis added.

46 Kloppend Hert, ‘About’, at www.kloppendhert.be/site/about, accessed 6 July 2018.

47 Email between Haider Al Timimi and the author, 30 June 2018.

48 Orozco, Lourdes and Boenisch, Peter M., ‘Editorial. Border Collisions: Contemporary Flemish Theatre’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 20, 4 (2010), pp. 397–404CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 397.

49 There is much more work to be done considering the parallels between Timimi and Akram Khan, especially in terms of how Royona Mitra claims Khan's work as new interculturalism grounded in a ‘political and philosophical stance’ connected to his experiences as a ‘simultaneous insider–outsider to multiple cultural and national realities and identity positions’, a statement equally true of Timimi's practice and subject position. See Mitra, Royona, Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 These remarks were made by Timimi during the same three-day intercultural intensive at NUI Galway in April 2018. Digital recording by the author, 25 April 2018.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Cox, Emma and Zaroulia, Marilena, ‘Mare Nostrum; Or, On Water Matters’, Performance Research, 21, 2 (2016), pp. 141–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here p. 148.