This document discusses a research project that used performance practices to investigate how communities experience and relate to the concept of "place". It tested models with three case studies: refugee families in Oldham, disabled adults in Aberystwyth, and urban youth in Half Moon. The Half Moon study sought to identify and ease fears of place, examine how everyday place is performed and shifted through performance, and explore if special places are important and how performance enhances relationships with them. It establishes a Facebook page to facilitate exchanges and working relationships between participants.

1. Exchanging Places
A Collaborative Research Project
between CSSD and Half Moon

2. The Research Project
• AHRC Grant awarded to ‘investigate ways in
which specific communities experience and
relate to the concept of 'place' by testing new
models of performance practices’ (Mackey
2010)

3. Three case studies identified to ‘test and
challenge mainstream theories about place and
the meaning of 'dislocation' in contemporary
society’ (Mackey 2010):
• Newly located refugee families (Oldham
Theatre Workshop)
• Learning and physically disabled adults (Cyrff
Ystwyff, Aberystwyth)
• Urban youth (Half Moon)

4. Half Moon Research Questions
• How might the performance project at Half
Moon identify and ‘ease’ a fear of place?
• How is everyday place ‘performed’? How does
expressing everyday place through performance
shift the quotidian?
• Are extra-ordinary e.g. ‘special’ places
important? How do performance practices help
demonstrate ‘special places’? How does
performance help enhance a relationship with a
special or extraordinary place?

5. The Facebook Page

6. The Facebook Page

7. Exchanges and working relationships