From its beginning, Border Crossings has been involved with Education, Theatre Training and Research.
We work regularly with schools, from the early years right through to 6th form. The ORIGINS Festival has given Primary Schools the amazing opportunity to come off timetable for an entire week and to work with our visiting First Nations artists, as well as participating in exciting follow-up work in Oral History, Photography, Horticulture and Food.
"The best week of my teaching career"
(Simon Shand - Assistant Head Cavendish Primary School - ORIGINS 2015)
Border Crossings also has strong ties to the University Sector and to Drama Schools. Since 2005, we have been working closely with the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. An early version of DIS-ORIENTATIONS was devised and performed there with final year students, two of whom (Tori Hart and Billy Hiscoke) went on to work professionally on THE ORIENTATIONS TRILOGY in London and Shanghai. We have co-produced with the college on several occasions, offering students the chance to engage with professional productions, where they can be mentored and developed while gaining valuable work experience and exposre to professional practice from a range of cultures and forms. We have also worked with East 15, RADA and Mountview. East 15 student Carlota Arencibia went on to work as Assistant Director on THE GREAT EXPERIMENT.
Rose Bruford College is a crucial partner for our research and education work: Michael is Visiting Professor of Multicultural and Intercultural Performance.
Outside the Drama School sector, we have worked closely with University research projects, including Prof. Helen Gilbert's project on Indigeneity in the Contemporary World. Helen worked as Artistic Associate for Border Crossings' ORIGINS FESTIVAL, with her project co-producing the 2013 edition. The Open University and the Menzies Institute at Kings London have both co-presented a number of ORIGINS projects, and the research project BEYOND THE SPECTACLE at the Universities of Kent and East Anglia co-produced ORIGINS WRITERS in 2021.
We are frequently asked to talk about our work at academic conferences: examples have included the Universities of Cambridge, Paris, Leeds, Saarbrucken, Nottingham University's Ningbo campus in China, and Jiaotong University, Shanghai, as well as online conferences at Kent and the Open University.
Research publications about Border Crossings work include articles in New Theatre Quarterly, African Theatre (vols. 2, 7, 12, 15), Journal for Drama in Education, and numerous conference publications.
We are always excited to hear from academic and training institutions who would like to partner with us!
