UWL performance piece wins best new work award at student theatre festival in Bulgaria
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Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre Alejandro Postigo is particularly interested in researching the impact of this cultural exchange and created a musical theatre performance piece called Miss Brexit, with six international UWL musical theatre, acting and actor musician students to consider just that. The group performed it at Danail Chirpanski International Student Theatre Festival which took place in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria at the end of September, where it took the award for best new work.
Our students have unique backgrounds, cultures and stories and they are exploring their identities in this context,” he says. “In the UK, they are an audible minority as they don’t sound the same as a native speaker.”
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The performing arts is dominated by the English language – but the industry is changing fast, he adds, and diversity is increasingly encouraged and welcomed.
The piece deals with the realities of feeling like you are losing your cultural and personal identity and living parallel lives at home and at university.
We question the idea of assimilation, and the piece is also therapeutic as all of us have ‘otherness’ in common,” Alejandro says. “There are some funny moments too, and the students are aware of how lucky they are to be having such a rich cultural experience.”
The diversity of our students and staff is highly enriching for UWL and is one of the things that makes it such a special place to study,” says University of West London Deputy-Vice Chancellor, Professor Anthony Woodman. “I am delighted to see the creativity of our musical theatre department being recognised internationally in this way.”
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