Jane Collins: Presenter Biog

Fig 1. The Duchess's flight as viewed from the windows of the Nightingale Theatre photograph by Matthew Andrews.

READER

BIOGRAPHY: Jane Collins is a Reader in Theatre at Wimbledon College of Art. She is a writer, Director and theatre maker who works all over the UK and internationally. She has a long association with the continent of Africa and for The Royal Court, with the National Theatre of Uganda, she co-directed Maama Nalukalala N_dezze Lye (Mother Courage and her Children) by Bertolt Brecht, with a Ugandan cast in Kampala. This production which was funded by the British Council was the first official translation of a play by Brecht into an African language and toured internationally funded by the World Bank. Her AHRC funded research into ‘performing identities’ resulted in a new work for the stage The Story of the African Choir which was developed in conjunction with the Market Theatre Laboratory in Johannesburg and performed at the Grahamstown International Festival in 2007.

Throughout 2008–09 her research was mainly concerned with co-editing Theatre and Performance Design: a reader in scenography, which was published by Routledge in January 2010. This book, with over 52 texts is the first of its kind in this field. In addition, in 2009, her performance research included re-staging the award winning Ten Thousand Several Doors for the Brighton International Festival.

In November 2009 Collins was commissioned by the V&A to research and produce a soundscape to accompany the forthcoming Space and Light: Edward Gordon Craig Exhibition which opens in London in September 2010 and tours to Europe in 2011. Edward Gordon Craig is credited with being the founder of modern stage design. She was one of a group of artists who participated in re:SEARCHING playing in the archive an exhibition at the ING Bank in the city of London in May 2010 in response to the Baring archive. Collins has been asked to contribute an essay on Ten Thousand Several Doors to the forth coming collection Performing Site-Specific Theatre edited by Anna Birch and Joanne Tompkins to be published in late 2011.

RESEARCH STATEMENT: My research continues to focus on performance which re-engages the ‘theatrical’ as a means of interrogating contemporary society. In 2007 I wrote an article for Studies in Theatre and Performance which examined the efficacy of performance as a means of investigating the construction of post colonial identities through the ‘staging’ of an African ‘past’. One aspect of this research was an analysis of the scenographic framing of these performances for western audiences. Among the many outcomes of this process was the identification of a dearth of material with which to interrogate critically the visual aspects of performance in particular and the scenographic in general. Concurrent with this, in my role as Contextual Studies Co-ordinator for Theatre at Wimbledon, I was also concerned that students of theatre design did not have a comprehensive body of accessible written texts to help them situate their own work and analyse the work of others. Theatre and Performance Design, a reader in scenography aims to fulfil this need and continues to be the main focus of my research as a practitioner and in my critical writing.

RECENT SELECTED OUTPUTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
SELECTED PERFORMANCES
2007 ‘The Story of the African Choir,’ Grahamstown International Festival, South Africa.
2006-9 Devised and Directed Ten Thousand Several Doors the Brighton International Festival. Best Production of the Festival Joint Winner, 2006, restaged 2009
2005–06 Wrote and Directed The Voyages of Harriet Herring ING Bank.
2005–06 Wrote and directed workshop performance: The Story of the African Choir, The Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa.
2005–06 ‘Bright Angel Point’ Selected Finalist The Croydon Warehouse International Playwriting Festival.
2005 Bright Angel Point shortlist finalist; The Croydon Warehouse International Playwriting Festival.
2003–04 Completed draft Bright Angel Point. Reading at the Royal Shakespeare Company, ‘The Other Place’, Lawrence Boswell (dir).
2003–04 Shakespeare’s Dream on Sea, performance development project including workshop production, Northbrook Theatre, W. Sussex.

SELECTED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2010 International Federation of Theatre Research, Munich
2009 International Federation of Theatre Research, Lisbon.
2007 Rhodes University Summer School Guest Speaker.
2007 Royal National Theatre ‘Agendas’ Seminar with John Carni.
2007 National Maritime Museum / Tate Gallery Travel and Narrative (paper).
2006 Theatre and Performance Research Association TAPRA (paper).
2006 The International Federation of Theatre Research Helsinki (paper).

SELECTED AWARDS
2007 AHRC Practice-led and Applied Research grant
2005 AHRB Small Grant in the Creative and Performing Arts.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Theatre and Performance Design: a reader in scenography, co-editor Routledge 2010
2007 ‘“Umuntu, Ngumuntu, Ngabantu”: The Story
of the African Choir’ in Studies in Theatre and Performance, 27.2.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2007 ‘Stages Calling’ Ruphin Coudyzer, Thirty Years of Stage Photography, The Market Theatre Johannesburg; Royal National Theatre (co-curated by Michael Pavelka)