Celebrating Success – Dr Sue Kirk and Dr Sara Zaeemdar

Congratulations to Dr Sue Kirk and Dr Sara Zaeemdar whose chapter “Performing leadership for radical change: Women’s embodied activism through theatre” has been accepted for publication in the book “Embodied Somatic Leadership for Peacebuilding and Protest: Women’s Counteroffensive to Violence and Injustice Edited by Randal Joy Thompson and Lazarina Topuzova”

This chapter aims to highlight examples of the power of theatre to protest oppression and resist through forms of embodied, creative leadership. In the UK, there is a long history of women’s activism in theatre and more recent projects have centred the right to protest given new legislative powers being introduced to restrict public, embodied acts. We offer two cases as examples of the ways in which women’s bodies are critical for leadership in protest for social justice, demonstrating how performance can resist forces of restriction and punishment.