Dr Victor Ukaegbu was a much loved and respected Principal Lecturer in Theatre at the University of Bedfordshire.

He taught Drama and Theatre at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and published widely on African, Black British and Diaspora theatres, applied theatre, intercultural and postcolonial performances, on performance-making, histories and theories as well as supervising research degree students in some of these areas.

Qualifications

• PhD Theatre and Performance Studies; University of Plymouth, England
• MA Theatre Arts; University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria
• Postgraduate Certificate in Research Degrees Supervision, University of Northampton, England
• Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching in Higher Education; University College, Northampton
• BA (Hons) English (with Drama); University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria

Research projects

• Ewu, J., Ukaegbu, V. and Hollingum, R. (2013) Production of: Such a Long Journey, by Dipo Agboluaje. Performance at: Such a Long Journey Inspiration FM 107.8, 18-19 July 2013.
• ‘Who Can Tell?; a collaborative practice-as-research project and performance with JAWI Theatre Collective, based on historical and archival materials and Heritage-funded oral histories research on the contributions of Black peoples in Northampton / Northamptonshire from sixteenth Century to the present. Funded by University of Northampton and Northampton Black History Project.
• ‘The Journey of the Spoken Word: Who Am I?: Collage on Tales of Migration and Representation’; a collaborative project on “Telling Tales: Migration, Identity and the Postcolonial”, part of ‘Making the Connections’, University of Loughborough and University of Northampton’s Centre for Contemporary Fiction and Narrative Network initiative.
• ‘Voice, Text, and Stage: Mediating Biographical Narratives’; a Performing Histories research project presentation.
• ‘Voice to Text, Text to Stage: Making Performance from Oral Histories’, part of ‘Performing Histories Project’ sponsored by The Bridges Forum.
• “‘Performative Images’: presenting and re-telling history”; a research workshop series with secondary schools on Northampton Black British History.
• ‘Medea Project’; an intercultural/postcolonial project based on Euripides’ Medea.
• ‘Common Grounds’; Arts for Everyone-funded international collaborative research project on Theatre and Interculturalism / the adaptation and tour of Femi Osofisan’s Once Upon Four Robbers to UK audiences.

External roles

• Founding General Secretary; African Theatre Association (AfTA)
• Associate Editor; African Performance Review (APR)
• Co-founder, African Theatre Association (AfTA)
• Member and contributing researcher for North Africa /Middle East), World
• Scenography Research project
• Co-Artistic Director; Jawi Theatre Collective
• Member, Black and Asian Studies Association (BASA)
• Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Applied Arts and Health (JAAH)
• Member, Postcolonial Visual Culture and Narrative Research Cluster
• Member, Management Committee of ANKOBIA (Black and African Arts
• Management Group)
• Member, Northampton Black History Association (NBHA)
• Member, Race Action Northampton (RAN)
• Member, Board of Trustees, Abington Christian Centre, Northampton
• Member, Board of Trustees, Lighthouse Trust, Northampton
• Chairman, Seeway Trust, Eggesford, Chulmleigh, Mid-Devon
• Publishers’ Manuscripts Reader/Reviewer for:
  Palgrave Macmillan
  Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd, London
  The Edwin Mellen Press

Publications

• Duggan, P and Ukaegbu, V. (2013) ‘Setting the Scene Introducing Reverberations’, Reverberations’: ‘British-ness’, Aesthetics and Small-scale Theatres. Bristol: Intellect Publishers; pp. ix – xxiii.
• Ukaegbu, V (2013) ‘Intercultural to Cross-Cultural theatre: Tara Arts and the Development of British Asian Theatre’; Reverberations: ‘British-ness’, Aesthetics and Small-scale Theatres. Bristol: Intellect Publishers; pp. 117 - 135.
• Duggan, P and Ukaegbu, V. (eds.) (2013) Reverberations: ‘British-ness’, Aesthetics and Small-scale Theatres. Bristol: Intellect Publishers; ISBN 978-1-84150-810-8.
• ‘Introduction’ in Oladipo Agboluaje (2013) Oladipo Agboluaje Plays One. London: Oberon Modern Playwrights; ISBN978-1-84943-239-9, pp. 7-16.
• Ukaegbu, V. (2012) [Contributing researcher] World Scenography: 1975-1990. Taiwan: International Organisation of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT). 9781848422797.
• ‘African Funeral Rites: Sites for performing, participating and witnessing of Trauma’; Performance Research: On Trauma. Vol. 16, No. 1, March 2011, London & New York: Routledge; ISBN: 978-0-415-674423. pp. 131 – 141.
• ‘Anansegoro: Modern Storytelling as Narrative Trope in Contemporary Ghanaian Literary Theatre’; Tales, Tellers, and Tale-Making: Critical Studies on Literary Stylistics and Narrative Styles in Contemporary African Literature, Berlin: Verlag Dr Muller (VDM); ISBN: 978-3-639-31137-2. pp. 246 – 265
• Co-authored book chapter; ‘Performing Histories, Voices of Black Rural Community; From Oral History to Ethnodrama: the Journey of the Spoken Word’, In Performing Research: Tensions, triumphs and trade-offs of Ethnodrama. Judith Ackroyd and John O’Toole, Stoke-on-Trent, UK and Sterling, USA; Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-1-85856-446-3 pp. 169 – 185.
• ‘Performative Encounters: Performance Intervention in Marketing Health Products in Nigeria’; in Journal of Applied Arts and Health Vol. 1 No. 1; pp. 35 – 51, ISSN 2040-2457.
• Monograph: The Use of Masks in Igbo Theatre in Nigeria: the Aesthetic Flexibility of Performance Traditions; published by Edwin Mellen Press, USA. ISBN 13 – 978 -0 - 7734-5175 – 9, 371pp.
• ‘Grey Silhouettes: Black Queer Theatre on the post-war British Stage’; Book chapter, Alternatives within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatres in post-war Britain. Godiwala Dimple (Ed.), Cambridge Scholars Press; pp. 322 – 338; ISBN 1-84718-306-9; ISBN 13: 9781847183064.
• ‘Written Over, Written Out: The Gendered Misrepresentation of Women in Modern African Performance’; Published in African Performance Review Vol. 1 No. 1 (2007); pp. 7 – 23. ISSN: 1753-5964.
• ‘Talawa Theatre Company: The Likkle Matter of Black Creativity and Representation on the British Stage’; Book chapter, Alternatives within the Mainstream I: British Black and Asian Theatres. Godiwala Dimple (Ed.), Cambridge Scholars Press; pp. 123 – 152.
• ‘Mythological and Patriarchal Constraints: The Tale of Osofisan's Revolutionary Women’, Portraits for an Eagle: Essays in Honour of Femi
• Osofisan; Sola Adeyemi (Ed.), Bayreuth African Studies Series (BASS) 78 ISBN: 3-927510-95 -5 pp. 179 – 192.
• ‘The Problem with Definitions: An Examination of Applied Theatre in Traditional African Context(s); published in National Drama; Volume3, June 2004; pp. 45 – 54.
• ‘Performing Postcolonially: Contextual Changes in the Adaptations of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Femi Osofisan’s Once Upon Four Robbers; published in World Literature Written in English (WLWE). Vol. 40, No 1 (2002 – 03); pp. 71 – 85.
• ‘Femi Osofisan’s Once Upon Four Robbers: Continuing the Intercultural Debate’; published in African Theatre 2: Playwrights and Politics; pp. 42 – 56.ISBN: 0-85255-598-9
• ‘Zakes Mda’; published in Contemporary Dramatists, by St. James Press, Detroit, Michigan.
• ‘Athol Fugard’ ; published in African Writers by Charles Scribner Sons & Co. Publishers; New York, U.S.A; pp. 263 – 275.

Book reviews and review articles

• Nwando Achebe ()The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe:; Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS) African Studies Bulletin, No 74, December 2012.
• Osita Okagbue (2007) African Theatres and Performance.
  London & New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 200 pp,
  ISBN: 978-0-415-30453-5 (hbk). In African Performance Review Vol. 2 No. 1 (2008); p. 90 – 95.
• Frances Harding (ed.) (2002) The Performance Arts in Africa: A Reader. London & New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), 364 pp, ISBN: 0-415-26198-8 (pbk). In Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 13(2), 2003, p. 88 – 90.
• Mpalive-Hangson Msiska (1998) Wole Soyinka: Writers and their Works. Plymouth: Northcote House Publishers Limited, 98 pp. ISBN: 0-7463-0811-6 (pbk). In African Literature 23: South and Southern. (2002)Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. ISBN: 978-0-85255-523-7. p. 131 – 132.
• Osonye Tess Onwueme (1997) The Missing Face: Musical Drama for the Voices of Colour. New York & Lagos: Africana Legacy Press, 64 pp. ISBN: 1-57579-053-X (pbk). In African Literature 23: South and Southern. (2002)Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. ISBN: 978-0-85255-523-7. p. 133 – 134.
• Festus Iyayi (1996) Awaiting Court Martial. Lagos, Jos & Oxford: Malthouse Press Limited, 255 pp. ISBN: 9-78260-179-9 (pbk). In African Literature 23: South and Southern. (2002)Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. ISBN: 978-0-85255-523-7. p. 134 – 135.
• Chigbo Onyeji (1998) Polite Questions and Other Poems.
• Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 70 pp. ISBN: 9-78156-445-8 (pbk). In African Literature 23: South and Southern. (2002)Woodbridge, Suffolk: James Currey. ISBN: 978-0-85255-523-7. p. 136 – 137.

Jane Carr PhD ARAD
Head of School of Media and Performance
University of Bedfordshire