Developing Theatre: Building Expert Networks for Theatre in Emerging Countries after 1945
Theatrical Epistemic Communities
This subproject has the twin aim of 1) elaborating theoretically the concept of a theatrical epistemic community and 2) tracing historically its consolidation and differentiation in the pre- und post-WWII period.
Philanthropy and Theatrical Development
In this sub-project, theatre and media historian Nic Leonhardt investigates funding policies and Activities of both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundation in the realms of culture and theatre.
Theatrical Heterotopias in Conflict Zones
This sub-project traces the impact of foreign funding on theatre with additional examples from the visual arts and music in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from 1983 to the present day.
Theatre for development: Historiographical and institutional perspectives
The Sub-project focuses on historicizing the Theatre for Development (TfD) phenomenon. It will examine the histories, networks and theories that undergirds the genre. Key among its aim is to investigate the epistemic networks, philanthropy and the development agenda that propelled its institutionalization within and outside higher education institutions globally and particularly Africa.
'Theatre Artists from Postcolonial India in the Eastern Bloc, 1950-80
This sub-project aims to focus on, primarily, Soviet and East German cultural politics and institutional frameworks that were engaged in training and influencing budding Indian theatre artists during the Cold War
Festival Networks
These two sub-projects focus on arts festivals on the African continent as nodes in a postcolonial Pan-African, diasporic and international network of an expanding theatrical epistemic community. They inquire into the ways in which this network generates new forms of performance culture at the dawn of independence.
Theatre Experts for the Third World: ITI and the globalization of theatre
This sub-project examines how the International Theatre Institute coordinated ‘international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts’ and support for ‘third world’ theatre in the Cold War era.