Lily Janiak takes a look at San Franisco-based Mugwumpin’s The Great Big Alsoas it explores the new frontier: what that meant to the first American settlers, and what the frontier means now.
Hannah Hessel writes about the intersection of her Jewish and artistic identities, and how the decline of Jewish theatre companies is encouraging artists to create their own work.
Every four years, Catholic seminaries across Nigeria come together for the All Saints Seminary Festival of Arts and Culture, which features theatre rooted in the cultures of Nigeria’s various ethnic groups. Israel Wepke sits down with Eseovwe Emakunu to discuss the process of making theatre with All Saints Seminary, Uhiele.
Neoliberal and colonial empires have devastated Muslim communities across the globe. Whether it is British imperialism in South Asia or the military adventurism of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, geopolitical violence has moved Muslims from homelands to colonizers’ lands. Throughout these migrations, theatre and the telling of stories have been sources of strength and solidarity, a legacy drawing on the origins of Muslim history. Indeed, the dates of today’s Islamic calendar bear the acronym “AH” or “After Hijrah,” a term that references the migration of early Muslims from the religious oppression they faced in Makkah to a more tolerant context in Medina. Drawing on this legacy of migration to escape subjugation, Transatlantic Muslim Voices examines the ways that contemporary British and US theatre artists have continued or drawn inspiration from this practice through their own work. The contributors to this series are diverse in their racial, ethnic, gender, linguistic, and sexual identities, but all of them meditate on what it means to be a Muslim on the move.
Each of the dialogues in this series speaks of the connection between political activism, creativity, and spirituality— and highlights the importance of intergenerational knowledge-sharing for the future of the Live Arts and Theatre sectors of the UK.
