Confronting alienation: bringing theatre to 'areas of low cultural engagement'

面对疏离：将戏剧带入“文化参与度低的地区”

• 批准号: AH/T012250/1
• 负责人: Ben Harker
• 金额: $ 9.81万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FT012250%2F1
• 关键词: Confronting; alienation; bringing; theatre; areas

The Leadership Fellow research focussed on campaigns and episodes in twentieth-century Britain which challenged the opposition between "politics" and "culture" as usually understood. Its impact was confined to the North West of England, and primarily museum-based. The Follow-on project delivers new UK-wide social, cultural and educational impact by recasting key elements of the research in the form of an accessible and engaging multi-media documentary play produced by the political touring theatre company Townsend Theatre Productions. The play is about the 1971-2 UCS work-in, a shipyard occupation which knowingly possessed a strong 'cultural' or performative dimension in an age of mass television. Rather than withdrawing their labour, employees facing redundancy continued to work, demonstrating their industrial creativity and imagining a workplace freed from alienation, the speed-up and the bottom line. Though some in the labour movement saw class collaboration (working for free), the work-in caught the popular imagination and was a partial victory. The proposed closures were mitigated and over six thousand skilled Clydeside jobs saved. The play retells the story of the UCS work-in in its fiftieth anniversary year, and will be performed to an estimated UK-wide audience of 10,000 people in 50 performances (2020-21) across 35 venues, including theatres, libraries and community spaces. As well as returning the dispute to its original form--it was always a type of political theatre--this project creatively 'returns' the work-in to the community that made this history. The play will twice be performed at Clydebank Town Hall (the centre of UCS operations fifty years ago) where tickets for the first performance will be free to members of the local community, thanks to a trade union subsidy. The second performance will be supplemented by a free day-school. Drawing on the PI's and TTP's links with trade councils, trade union education departments and community support groups, the event will situate the meaning of the UCS work-in in relation to contemporary debates about worklessness and automation through accessible presentations from a gender-balanced panel of former shipyard workers and their families, community activists, academic researchers, local historians and archivists. Both production and day-school will be professionally filmed and uploaded onto the websites of the theatre company and the University of Manchester, prefaced by a brief statement from the PI contextualising the production and its underpinning research. In the spirit of that original research, the project connects past and present. At a moment when the Bank of England predicts that automation will displace 15 million jobs from the British economy in the decades ahead--40% of the total labour market--the issues at stake in the UCS work-in are by no means historical. The production, day-school, films and promotional material will illustrate how the key themes of the UCS struggle--creativity, alienation, the meaning of work--shed light on contemporary debates about de-growth, precarity, joblessness, automation, Universal Basic Income and what Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams' widely-discussed book, Inventing the Future, terms 'a world without work' (2016).

领导研究员的研究重点是二十世纪英国的运动和事件，挑战了通常理解的“政治”和“文化”之间的对立。它的影响仅限于英格兰西北部，主要以博物馆为基础。后续项目提供了新的英国范围内的社会，文化和教育的影响，通过重铸研究的关键要素，在由政治巡回剧院公司汤森剧院制作制作的一个访问和参与多媒体纪录片的形式发挥。该剧讲述的是1971-2年的UCS工作，这是一个造船厂职业，在大众电视时代，它具有很强的“文化”或表演维度。面临裁员的员工没有撤回劳动力，而是继续工作，展示了他们的工业创造力，并想象了一个没有异化、没有速度和底线的工作场所。虽然工人运动中的一些人看到了阶级合作（免费工作），但工人运动抓住了大众的想象力，是一个部分胜利。拟议中的关闭得到了缓解，超过6000个熟练的克莱德赛德工作岗位得到了保护。该剧重述了UCS在其五十周年之际工作的故事，并将在35个场馆（包括剧院，图书馆和社区空间）的50场演出（2020-21）中向全英国约10，000名观众演出。除了将争端恢复到原来的形式--它一直是一种政治戏剧--这个项目创造性地将工作“归还”给创造这一历史的社区。该剧将在克莱德班克市政厅（50年前UCS的运营中心）演出两次，由于工会的补贴，第一场演出的门票将免费提供给当地社区的成员。第二场演出将由免费走读学校补充。利用PI和TTP与贸易理事会、工会教育部门和社区支持团体的联系，该活动将通过由前造船厂工人及其家人、社区活动家、学术研究人员、当地历史学家和档案管理员组成的性别平衡小组的无障碍演讲，阐述UCS工作的意义。制作和走读都将被专业拍摄并上传到戏剧公司和曼彻斯特大学的网站上，由PI的简短声明作为序言，介绍制作及其基础研究。本着原创研究的精神，该项目连接了过去和现在。英格兰银行预测，自动化将在未来几十年内从英国经济中取代1500万个工作岗位-占劳动力市场总量的40%-UCS工作中的问题绝不是历史问题。制作，走读学校，电影和宣传材料将说明UCS斗争的关键主题-创造力，异化，工作的意义-如何阐明当代关于去增长，不稳定，失业，自动化，普遍基本收入的辩论以及Nick Srnicek和Alex威廉姆斯广泛讨论的书，发明未来，术语“没有工作的世界”（2016）。