Professor Jerri Daboo, University of Exeter, British Asian Performance

Professor Jerri Daboo gives a talk about the history, tensions and creativities of British Asian Theatre, with particular focus on female theatre-makers and practitioners, and representations of British Asians in margins and the mainstream of UK Theatre, whilst also reflecting on the premiere of Elizabeth Kuti’s new play Cold Season in Calcutta. The discussion session at the end was rich and impassioned, with many professional artists in the audience wanting to talk about issues of cultural appropriation, roles for Asian women artists, and how we might have a collective responsibility towards generating more spaces for British Asian artists.

Jerri Daboo is Professor of Performance at the University of Exeter, where her research and teaching focus on a range of diverse areas, which explore issues of the body, culture and identity in training and performance. She has trained and taught for many years in martial arts, yoga, Buddhism, Indian dance, movement, physical theatre, body awareness and improvisation, and utilises principles from these in her work with actors and dancers. She worked professionally as a performer and director for fifteen years, before taking up the position of Lecturer in Exeter in 2004. Jerri was awarded a major grant from the AHRC to be the Principal Investigator on a large research project entitled 'The Southall Story', to research and document the cultural history of the diasporic town of Southall, focusing on the development of arts and performance, as well as the relationship to socio-cultural events and political organisations. Jerri's monograph, Ritual, Rapture and Remorse: a study of tarantism and pizzica in Salento (Peter Lang, 2010) has received two awards: a special citation for the de la Torre Bueno prize awarded by the Society of Dance History Scholars in America; and runner-up for the Katherine Briggs Award, 2010.