Panellists 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.

The panel was chaired by Annabel Ali, research assistant for the Department of English research strand for Creative Practice, Performance and Theatrical Cultures, and a King’s PhD student analysing theatrical approaches to codifying collective experiences and black cultural expression.

Performance@King's Seminars