KININSO AT KINGS 

As part of Africa Week, an annual celebration hosted by the African Leadership Centre, based in the School of Global Affairs at the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, The Global Cultures Institute and the Department of English hosted us for a workshop and panel discussion on March 4, 2025 at Kings College London exploring the intersections of performance, youth agency, and environmentalism. 

Our creative Director led a highly interactive workshop on innovative storytelling techniques. Participants explored how to draw from personal experiences and cultural narratives to create compelling theatre, engaging in hands-on activities that encouraged experimentation and bold creativity. Participants played physical drama games to hone group-thinking and sharpen senses, before reflecting on stories that inspire (or otherwise) and learning songs to sign together. Learning from these activities was compiled to create short performances using poetry and music to address themes of migration, climate and coloniality.

We were also part of the panel discussion, chaired by Annabel Ali, research assistant for the Department of English research strand for Creative Practice, Performance and Theatrical Cultures.  We performed an exerpt  of our play Waterside, which explores totemisim and cultural memory against the backdrop of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. The Panelists then responded to the themes of the play from their diverse areas of expertise. 

Raidat Karim, PhD student in the African Leadership Centre, described the power of youth-led social movements in Nigeria, focusing on the close bonds of mutuality and young friendship that were also represented in Waterside. 

Picking up on questions of ecology and extraction, Dr Adelene Buckland, Reader in Nineteenth-Century Literature in the Department of English, offered an intricate close reading of ‘Mine Mine Mine‘, a poem by Uhuru Portia Phalafala examining gold mining in South Africa and its consequences in pollution, contamination, health, and bereavement. 

Dr Clement Sefa-Nyarko, Lecturer in Security, Development and Leadership in Africa at the African Leadership Centre, reflected on approaches to the climate emergency. He emphasised that humans must consider ourselves of the environment, not outside of it, as similarly demonstrated by the depiction of animism in Waterside. 

This was such a precious opportunity to bring together Kininso’s vibrant socially engaged theatre-making with the research and pedagogy happening at King’s. It was great to see a huge range of participants and audience joining us in the workshop – from undergraduates to professors, to artists and producers at King’s and beyond – and to see interdisciplinary insights coming together through the panel discussion. It was a privilege to be part of such a joyful and thought-provoking gathering. 

-Dr Ella Parry-Davies, Lecturer in Theatre, Performance and Critical Theory