Exchange Talks and Events

Theme: Expanding Narratives

Caitlin Marziali — Dancing Identity: How Ballet and Indigenous Dance Reflect Cultural Narratives

20 January 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/351ffac7-b2a2-42cc-a38e-5c74618b9758@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

This talk will explore the ways ballet and Indigenous dance, specifically Canadian Pow Wow dances, serve as powerful forms of storytelling, embodying the histories, values, and identities of their respective cultures. By examining their similarities and differences, it highlights how dance can bridge cultural divides and inspire conversation.

About the Speaker: Caitlin Marziali is a dedicated professional dancer and dance educator with mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. A proud member of Taykwa Tagamou Nation in Northern Ontario, she is pursuing her Master’s in Canadian and Indigenous Studies at Trent University, focusing on comparisons between Classical Ballet and Pow Wow dances. Caitlin serves as the Coordinator of Indigenous Relations and as a Ballet Teacher at Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto, where she is passionate about fostering cultural understanding and inclusivity through dance. Committed to making movement accessible to all, she balances her academic pursuits and teaching with her dance career, bridging cultures with artistry and education.

Jess Thorpe — BESIDE ME: Making theatre with Dads in prison and their children

27 January 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/b5546cff-ec65-454b-9883-6dbbde205e7a@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

Between March and October 2023, Jess Thorpe led a team from Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre to create BESIDE ME, a project for Dads currently living in HMP Perth and their children. The goal was to co-create a performance that would enable the families to connect, spend quality time and co create something brand new together. Supported by Families Outside and the Scottish Prison Service, BESIDE ME was part family party, part performance and part creative learning project. It was structured around weekly rehearsals held in the social hub (former wood assembly shed) at HMP Perth and culminated in three performances for a public audience. This exchange talk aims to share the key learning and experiences that have emerged from the project and in so doing so examine the power and potential of the arts as a tool to support families separated by incarceration

About the Speaker: Jess Thorpe is a Lecturer in the Arts in Justice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she designs and delivers creative projects in prisons and with communities impacted by the criminal justice system. Outside her work at RCS, Jess was the Associate Director (Engage) of Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre (2020-2024). She is Co-Artistic Director of Glass Performance, through which she also developed long-term initiatives such as young people’s performance company Junction 25 and Polmont Youth Theatre, the first youth theatre in a Scottish prison. In 2015, Junction 25 won a CATS Whiskers for an outstanding contribution to Scottish theatre. Jess has published several works on theatre including ‘A Beginners Guide to Devising Theatre’ (for Methuen) which won a Drama and Education prize in 2021.

Theme: Art and Health

Claire Ruckert-Fagan — Psychophysiology, Performance Anxiety, and the Conservatoire Musician

3 February 2025, 6-7pm, Fyfe Lecture Theatre

Performance anxiety is prevalent among conservatoire musicians, yet accessible and evidence-based strategies for its management are often lacking. This talk explores some considerations and challenges in researching performance anxiety among conservatoire music students, set against the alarming prevalence of mental health concerns within the music profession. It is proposed that further education and training in psychophysiology may be a means to address this issue.

Drawing on five years of interdisciplinary PhD research at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, this talk will share findings from data collected at the RCS with students on the Bachelor of Music programme. It will conclude with practical recommendations for supporting students as they embark on careers in a field marked by unique and demanding occupational pressures.

About the Speaker: Claire is an interdisciplinary doctoral researcher based at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) and the University of St Andrews, where she researches interventions to manage performance anxiety in conservatoire musicians. Her research interests include performing arts health and wellbeing, psychophysiology, the impact of parenthood on musicianship, and attitudes towards body weight in the music industry. She is a co-founder of the Flourish network, an initiative aiming to make performance science literature more accessible to musicians.

Dieter Declerque, Dave Chawner and Cat Papastrvrou — Comedy and Mental Health

10 February 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/dea8b9d8-2b8c-4b25-a014-1eb3caf9f3d9@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

This panel discussion will explore research and practice around comedy and mental health. We will be joined by Dr Dieter Declercq, a researcher in media and mental health, Dave Chawner, a stand-up comedian with lived experience of anorexia, and Cat Papastavrou-Brooks, an NHS mental health researcher. They will talk about research they have developed together on comedy and mental health, especially a stand-up comedy workshop for people in recovery from eating disorders. They are currently writing a book together on comedy and mental health (forthcoming with Emerald in 2026) and will reflect on the importance of setting up collaboration across academia, artistic practice and healthcare to advance the uses of comedy for mental health.

About the Speakers: Dr Dieter Declercq is a Lecturer in Medical Humanities (Narrative Medicine) at the University of Glasgow, where he teaches on the Film and Television programme. His work seeks to foster fruitful interaction between arts, humanities, and health. He has a particular interest in playful media, like satire, comedy and games.

Dave Chawner is a number 1 best selling author, award-winning stand up and presenter. Sensitively using humour to explore his experience of mental illness Dave aims to change the tone around mental health.

Cat Papastavrou-Brooks is a mental health researcher working across Sussex Partnership NHS foundation trust and the University of Bristol. She specializes in creative approaches to mental health, eating disorders, trauma, iatrogenic harm and public health.

Mariem Omari — Writing the Personal: Crafting stories for the stage and screen with care and intention

17 February 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/221f43f1-5903-4c42-bd07-b8b03f4c7fb9@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

Writing from personal experience can create profound, moving work, and has the potential to bring about unexpected healing for the writer and their audience. But how can we bring greater awareness to this process? And what does it mean to apply ‘considered intention’ to creating work for the stage and screen? In this session, Mariem will interrogate the plays and films she has created and the impact they have had. She will invite us to examine our personal experiences, the values that guide us in our creative choices, and how this can have a lasting effect on others.

About the Speaker: Mariem (Mim) is a playwright, screenwriter, and Artistic Director/Co-Founder of Bijli Productions.  Her productions are described as “political, sensitive, and compelling,” often confronting societal taboos. Mariem left Australia for her father’s homeland in the Middle East to work as a humanitarian. This inspired her commitment to promoting stories that strengthen the voice for equality. Her next move was to her mother’s homeland, Scotland, where she has been working closely with ethnically diverse communities. She was one of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Starter for 10, selected to develop her play, One Mississippi, which showcased at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2017, and toured nationally in 2022.  She had three plays commissioned in 2019 – The Trojans, performed by Syrian Refugees; Paper Memories, 2019 National Puppetry and Animation Festival; and Walkin’ the Line, part of SMHAF 2019. In 2021 she was commissioned by BBC Scotland to create Breaking Point -  a series of five short monologues for radio/digital platforms.  She is currently developing her first feature for BBC FILM.

Theme: Art in the Archives

Lucy Weir — What moves them: A global history of modern dance

24 February 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/a0bd2f95-92e7-494f-a98a-9983b4c473b2@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

In this session, Dr Lucy Weir (Reader in History of Art, University of Edinburgh), charts the evolution of modern dance across the span of a century, focusing on the migrations and cultural exchanges that have shaped its story from the outset. Beginning in Japan, and concluding in Senegal, her presentation draws upon extensive archival and oral history research, presenting a radical retelling of the history of modern dance as an inherently global art form. Lucy’s new book, What Moves Them: A Global History of Modern Dance, will be published by Allen Lane (Penguin) in 2025.

David Cutler — Beniamino Gigli: The Peoples’ Tenor by David Cutler

3 March 2025, 6-7pm, Fyfe Lecture Theatre

The name of Italian tenor, Beniamino Gigli is virtually forgotten in 2024. Certainly by those who are outside the field of opera. He was the Italian tenor for a very long time, certainly from after Enrico Caruso until the early 1950s. Gigli’s golden voice placed his tenor in a class by himself. He was born a warm-hearted musician, who sang because he had to.

About the Speaker: An amateur tenor, David Cutler studied singing with the Polish bass, Marian Nowakowski, who was himself a pupil of Adamo Didur. He sang in concert in Dublin, London and Perugia. He reviews new releases of classical music for the U.S. publication, Fanfare. In late 2021, he took on responsibility for finding a home for the Beniamino Gigli Archive belonging to the late Mark Ricaldone. It is now housed by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has compiled a website (www.beniaminogigli.co.uk/) which he composed the new Live Recordings of Beniamino Gigli discography for which he won the Association for Recorded Sound Collection (ARSC) 2022 award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.

Rudy Kanhye — What was, What is and what might become, Archive as practice

10 March 2025, 6-7pm, Online: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/87f8d752-baed-41a6-905f-4e8cf87b10a0@09ab91a8-e6d6-4fba-98da-63eac7ab3ce2

The powerful use of art in re-telling complex stories; From archive to artwork: The Indian indentured immigration and Coolitude through the exhibition “Each body wakes up on a wave”

About the Speaker: Rudy Kanhye is a disabled artist and researcher from the global majority working between Mauritius, France and Scotland. His research interests include archives, memories, oral histories, extending this focus through Mauritius Island, the Global South and its neo-colonial relationship to the West. Born in Dijon, France, to a Portuguese mother and a Mauritian father, his childhood dual culture, mixed-race heritage and working class background influenced his practice. As a descendent of Indian indentured immigrants, he experiments with collaborative, interactive artworks which re-imagine archival research, delving deeper into the collective memories of migrant communities and the role of semiotics in relation to labour, migration and the environment within a colonial diasporic narratives. His work re-imagines archival research and delves deeper into the collective memories of migrant communities at the intersections between race, disability and the environment. His research explores mixed-race diaspora, and broader Indian oceanic perspectives, including the history of indentured immigration.

Research Showcase

17 March 2025, 6-7pm, Fyfe Lecture Theatre

Our yearly Exchange Talk event showcasing research being undertaken by students in the Research and Knowledge Exchange department. The event consists of short, fast-paced presentations focusing on each student’s field of work.