Oops!! Missed the boat on this one! I had heard talks about some kind of study or collection of records being created and as usual there is no organisation as far as Asian artists are concerned in the UK, but there you have it! Of course I have missed the deadline of 1st September as is stated in the write up below, but I guess there is no harm in writing in to them, if only to show the vast numbers who have missed the deadline simply because they were not aware of it. So if you are involved in the theatre and have a history to tell and are of South Asian decent then I urge you to write in.
This is the call out from the Department of Drama, University of Exeter:
British Asian Theatre: From Past to Present
Dates: 10/4/2008 – 13/4/2008
Institution: Department of Drama, University of Exeter
Contact: Gayatri Simons
Contact details: G.Simons[@]exeter.ac.uk [remove brackets when emailing]
Papers and presentations are invited for a 4-day conference to be held at the Department of Drama, University of Exeter, 10-13 April 2008, a key event in the final year of the AHRC-funded project ‘British Asian Theatre: critical history and documentation’.
The conference will bring together practitioners and academic scholars to discuss and review the history and achievements of the practitioners and performers who have made British South Asian theatre. The debate will bring new critical perspectives to the fields of British theatre history and performance, popular culture, and the history and cultural presence of South Asian diasporas.
Live performances and workshops by leading British Asian artists will be scheduled as part of the conference programme, and the keynote address will be given by Naseem Khan, author of the seminal report The Arts Britain Ignores. Those participating will include:
The conference organisers are now inviting proposals for papers and presentations from practitioners and academics that address the many issues affecting the development of this performance history and theatre practice. Presentations can also be done through practice. Suggested themes for individual contributions or panels are:
The location of performance – from domestic to public spaces
Critical analyses of Asian-led theatre companies and specific productions
Language theatres and bilingual theatre
The role of dance, music and film in British Asian theatre
Profiles of the work of specific performers
Script and adaptation in British Asian theatre production
The role of design and designers
Histories of community-based and amateur Asian-led theatre initiatives
New Writing and other training initiatives for British Asian practitioners
The role of host theatres and venues in the development of British Asian theatre
Asian aesthetics, techniques and traditions in non-Asian-led work
Preserving histories – resources, archives and the documentation of British Asian theatre
Live art and new media
Assessments of the impact of funding policies and specific funding schemes
Histories of audiences of Asian-led theatre and assessments of the impact of specific audience diversity initiatives
The interconnectedness of Asian-led theatre practice between the UK, the Indian subcontinent and South Asian diasporic communities
Deadline for proposals: 1 September 2007
Please send abstracts of around 250 words to the Drama Department secretary, Gayatri Simons, G.Simons[@] exeter.ac.uk by 1 September 2007.
Selected papers and presentations from this conference will be published in a special edition of the journal South Asian Popular Culture in 2009, to be guest-edited by Sarah Dadswell and Graham Ley.
For more information about the AHRC-funded project, please see the project website at www.spa.ex.ac.uk/drama/research/batp/welcome.shtml
About Film 
January 7, 2008 at 8:53 pm
very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader