This thesis consists of three distinct but interconnecting case studies that took place between 2007 and 2010 in collaboration with Warwick Arts Centre (WAC), Britain’s second largest multi-arts venue. The study developed practice-led methods to investigate the dynamic interactions between notions and perceptions of ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘internationalism’ in relation to WAC’s theatre and performance programming and education activities. The first case study is a qualitative audience reception study designed to make sense of WAC’s programme in relation to multicultural and international issues. The second case study focuses on an educational outreach project that placed two local schools in collaboration with a commissioned teacher-artist and a University of Warwick academic. These encounters inspired the final case study, which made use of WAC’s newly built Creative Space as a site for a devising project with young people from nearby Coventry, culminating in a performance for an invited audience. The thesis explores the varied complexities that frame ‘multiculturalism’ by focusing on its origins as a political concept in post-1945 Britain and its subsequent association with contemporary contentious social, political and cultural national and international issues. An analysis of the negative effects of ‘multiculturalism’ is balanced by considerations of the project’s emergent concepts: ‘hospitality’ and ‘conviviality’, which articulate the possibilities of living in diversity in more ‘positive’ terms. These paradigms reverberate throughout each case study, informing their methodologies, influencing their conceptual frameworks and placing ‘multiculturalism’ in more dynamic and relevant dimensions of pedagogical and creative practices. Each case study considers collaboration between strangers and investigates the potential of WAC as a hospitable and convivial environment. These new perspectives demonstrate the optimistic possibilities of creative and humane action for producing a ‘positive multiculturalism’.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:582485 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | King, Rachel E. |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/58049/ |
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