As Divorce Approaches, a Bilingual Blood Wedding Opens a New Door

In May 2018 I travelled to Spain with a company of 8 undergraduate student actors to meet 8 acting students from the Escuela TAI, Madrid with whom they had been sharing an intensive, virtual rehearsal process since January. Our shared project was the development of a bi-lingual adaptation of Lorca’s Blood Wedding for ensemble performance firstly in Madrid and subsequently in London. This Erasmus funded project aims to promote language learning through high-level engagement with the dramaturgical processes involved in working with text in translation whilst also developing young artists’ performance skills and professional networks.

However, over the years of developing this project I have increasingly come to understand that whilst there are numerous educational and artistic outcomes for project participants, the primary one may, in fact, be the opportunity to engage personally with European culture and society in such a way that creates life-long impact and fundamentally transforms young actors’ ability to forge a fully invested identity transcending national borders and enabling them to consider themselves as European citizens and artists.

I therefore propose to explore not only the project’s dramaturgical approach but also its socio-linguistic impact and the implications post-Brexit for collaborative arts practice of this kind. I will consider the ways in which European funding streams promote opportunity for young artists by creating lifelong learning opportunities, as well as broader access to employment outside the UK, and will consider the possibility of a post-Erasmus world.