Curtains Up
This workshop took place on 21st September 2024 at 1-4.30 pm at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford.
About the event
This event was free and in person, and took place at the Working Class Movement Library in Salford in September 2024.
Union reps, artists, and academics working in the UK and in Brazil gave workshops on creative approaches to political organising, using theatre, music, poetry, and song.
The event celebrated the culmination of the Performing Resistance project. Participating groups included:
- Bridgwater TUC
- Exeter & District Trades Council
- Stop Shopping Choir UK
- Viva a Palavra
- Banner Theatre
- We Shall Overcome!
- Tipping Point UK
Extracts of the event are available to watch in a video of the event. Please contact performingresistance@exeter.ac.uk for the link.
EVENT PROGRAMME
‘WELCOME & HOUSEKEEPING 1 PM
Nathan Godfrey (Working Class Movement Library Events Coordinator), Rebecca Hillman (Principle Investigator of Performing Resistance, Exeter & District Trades Council Chair, Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter)
TALKS & DISCUSSION – 1.10—2.10
‘We Shall Overcome: Soundtrack of Anti Austerity’, Pete Yeandle (Senior Lecturer in History, University of Loughborough, We Shall Overcome founder member)
‘Picket line dramas: breaking off and walking out in the Royal Mail.’ Dave Chapple (Chair of Bridgwater Trades Council, rep to the Southwest TUC, Caretaker of Somerset Socialist Library)
‘Hamesha Saamida’ Komita Dhanda (actor, writer, director and organiser for Jana Natya Manch since 2004. PhD scholar in the School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.)
TEA BREAK/COLLECTIONS VISIT – 2.10-2.30
WORKSHOP 1 – 2.30-3.20
- Viva a Palavra — with Claudiana Alencar, Sandra Gadelha, Ernandi Mendes. Gibson Zucca will offer translation. A workshop on ‘sceno-poetry’ from Brazillian activist-academics, who work with young people in Forteleza and the Landless Workers’ Movement.
WORKSHOPS 2 & 3 – 3.20-4
Artivisim with Tipping Point UK
- Advice on creative campaigning using examples from the Climate Justice movement and workers in the cultural sector. Led by Clara Paillard. (Clara is a trade union organiser with Tipping Point UK and was a museum trade union rep for over 15 years. She has been involved in many worker struggles.)
Stop Shopping Choir UK
- learn strategies of activism through song! Led by Chris Garrard (founder member of BP or Not BP?, Culture Unstained, the Stop Shopping Choir(s) – and postdoctoral fellow on the Performing Resistance project!)
RETURN TO THE ANNEXE VIA THE COLLECTIONS
SONGS FROM BANNER THEATRE – 4.10
CLOSE OF EVENT – 4.30
More tea and biscuits… and the pub for those who want to!‘