Drama For Life Creative Research Hub Director, Hamish Mabala Neill, takes up a Fellowship at the University of Glasgow, Scotland for the next 2 weeks. The first of its kind offered by the university’s Theatre Studies department, the Fellowship aims to facilitate meaningful research and pedagogical exchange opportunities between the Global North and South.
As the inaugural fellow, Hamish seeks to set a meaningful frame not only for his research but also for the Fellowship as a whole. In his role as a lecturer, project manager and director at DFL, Hamish has been at the forefront of holding conversations around the ethics of cross-cultural exchange and theatre-making, as informed by socio-political history. His most recent championing of this cause was as a key organiser of the 28th Performance Studies International Conference, hosted by DFL. Hamish challenged the international organisation to acknowledge the imbalances in cross-culture exchange and to use the arts not only to hold these but also to disrupt them. The video is seen on the PSi Instagram page at the link: https://www.instagram.com/reel...
DFL thanks Prof Deirdre Heddon, Head of Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow, for hosting Hamish in this Fellowship. This is not the first connection between the two institutions with DFL alumnus Dr Shariffa Abdullah, DFL class of 2012, lecturing in the department.
Hamish is set to teach a series of lectures and workshops that look at South African theatre-making practices and aesthetics. Speaking on Monday night on the DFL LifeBeats radio show, Hamish noted, “I hope I carry the right bricks in my bag so that when I open the door, I place them at its foot so that others can come after me.”
DFL wishes Hamish well on his journey and looks forward to the enrichment from his time in Scotland.