Sarah Hart
Assistant Professor of Theatre
Office:
Phi Beta Kappa Hall 273
Email:
[[sahart]]
Phone:
757-221-7673
Areas of Specialization
Applied theatre, performance studies, human rights, practice as research, Latin American theatre, devising, testimonial performance, embodiment, affect, trauma, memory, witnessing, migration, carceral studies, decolonial thought.Courses Taught
Theatre for Social Change, Introduction to Theatre, Latin American Theatre & Performance, Practice as Research: Performance ActivismBackground
Dr. Sarah Ashford Hart is a socially-engaged performance practitioner/scholar from a Canadian-Venezuelan-American background. She employs participatory performance techniques to encourage freedom of expression and promote equity, amplifying voices not usually heard in society and inviting active listening from the body. The focus of her practice/research (developed in the US, Russia, the UK, Venezuela, Chile and Colombia) has been unsettling self/other divisions and crossing sociocultural, linguistic and geographical barriers, in an effort to facilitate experiences of human connection.
Sarah completed her BA in Theatre at Barnard College, Columbia University, her MA in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, Falmouth University, and her Ph.D. in Performance Studies with designated emphases in Human Rights and Practice-as-Research at the University of California, Davis. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on methods of expressing/witnessing experiences of violence, displacement, and enclosure among incarcerated, migrant and victimized women and children in California, Chile and Colombia. She conducted fieldwork in Bogotá, Colombia, as a Fulbright US Student Researcher.
Her recent publications, written in both English and Spanish, address contemporary performance in Latin America and specifically in the context of Colombia’s armed conflict, devised theatre methodology, the importance of affect to applied theatre in contexts of dehumanization (such as prison and immigrant incarceration), and her embodied practice of witnessing testimonial narratives of deportation and state violence. Her current book project, “Affective Facilitation”, rethinks applied theatre from a hemispheric perspective to revalue its impact, showing how facilitation can work against dehumanization, in a decolonial sense, by centralizing affect and embodiment in a way that potentiates life-affirming relationalities, especially in Latin American spaces.
Before coming to William & Mary, Sarah taught theatre at the Pontificia Javeriana University, in Bogotá, and collaborated as a co-researcher on interdisciplinary projects in the fields of migration, gender and performance, as well as arts, global health, and community engagement. She is now collaborating on a new research project, funded by the Colombian Ministry of Culture, about the history of community-based and popular theatre in Colombia.
Sarah completed her BA in Theatre at Barnard College, Columbia University, her MA in Devised Theatre at Dartington College of Arts, Falmouth University, and her Ph.D. in Performance Studies with designated emphases in Human Rights and Practice-as-Research at the University of California, Davis. Her Ph.D. dissertation focused on methods of expressing/witnessing experiences of violence, displacement, and enclosure among incarcerated, migrant and victimized women and children in California, Chile and Colombia. She conducted fieldwork in Bogotá, Colombia, as a Fulbright US Student Researcher.
Her recent publications, written in both English and Spanish, address contemporary performance in Latin America and specifically in the context of Colombia’s armed conflict, devised theatre methodology, the importance of affect to applied theatre in contexts of dehumanization (such as prison and immigrant incarceration), and her embodied practice of witnessing testimonial narratives of deportation and state violence. Her current book project, “Affective Facilitation”, rethinks applied theatre from a hemispheric perspective to revalue its impact, showing how facilitation can work against dehumanization, in a decolonial sense, by centralizing affect and embodiment in a way that potentiates life-affirming relationalities, especially in Latin American spaces.
Before coming to William & Mary, Sarah taught theatre at the Pontificia Javeriana University, in Bogotá, and collaborated as a co-researcher on interdisciplinary projects in the fields of migration, gender and performance, as well as arts, global health, and community engagement. She is now collaborating on a new research project, funded by the Colombian Ministry of Culture, about the history of community-based and popular theatre in Colombia.
