My Granddad was digging, My Dad was digging and I will not
- Submitting institution
-
Falmouth University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 60
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- GogolFEST, Kiev, Ukraine
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- September
- Year of first performance
- 2016
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
3
- Research group(s)
-
F - Inequality and storytelling
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The central research question of the production My Granddad was digging … was how can a devised theatre practice explore those connections between individual and collective memory that constitute history. Can the stage, a space of fictional characters, become a place to explore mechanisms of memory and a complex relation with the past?
As director, I collaborated with Polish dramaturg Joanna Wichowska, and we invited Ukrainian director Roza Sarkisian, and Ukrainian dramaturg Dima Levytskyi, to work with four actors from different parts of Ukraine and one actor from Poland. This diversity allowed the team of mixed nationalities to address the complex Polish-Ukrainian colonial relationship within the performance space.
These questions were explored through various methodologies: qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with participants, devising and improvisation techniques drawing upon Forced Entertainment’s methodology, choreographic exercises exploring physical presence and narratives of body within a space, and techniques from Michael Chekhov.
The research resulted in the creation of a methodology for approaching non-linear narrative for performance, and addressing personal and collective experiences in a context of historical events and identity. This methodology has been recognised in Ukraine as a significant insight into possible creation of political and critical theatre.
My Granddad was digging … premiered at International Festival of Contemporary Art GOGOLFEST/ ГОГОЛЬFEST in Kyiv (September 2016) and toured to various locations in 2016-2018. The production is a theatrical outcome of the project “Maps of fear/Maps of identity” which involved Polish theatre practitioners, theoreticians and nearly 40 artists from different regions of Ukraine.
Research output: Video of performance
Contextual: Reviews, audience recordings
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- Yes
- English abstract
- This performance is in Polish and Ukrainian but with English subtitles. One piece of contextual evidence (the Facebook page for the Polish-Ukrainian Performative Project) is in Russian