Author: Laura Jones

Students and graduates of the University are invited to a special industry panel event which will share insights into careers in the entertainment industry this coming Wednesday (7^th February) in the LPAC.

Taking place from 6.30pm until 8pm, the free panel discussion will focus on the current state of the industry, and on how to best respond to the ever-evolving needs of the theatre, media and entertainment sector. The panel will include:

• Simone Reynolds – one of the UK’s most celebrated film, TV and theatre Casting Directors
• Amy Dawson – Student and Events Co-Ordinator for the actors’ union, Equity
• Andy Rowley – Executive Director, Stage Management Association, and award-winning TV Producer
• Tarquin Shaw-Young – Managing Director and Head of Casting, the Stagecoach Agency, and National Council Member, Entertainment Agent’s Association
• Paul Moore – Council Member, Association of British Theatre Technicians, and Technical and Capital Projects Director, Curve Theatre, Leicester

There will also be three free talks and workshops from the industry experts focusing on specific areas of the industry taking place throughout the day, including one on Production Management with Paul Moore, another with Andy Rowley for students and graduates interested in Stage Management and Technical Theatre, and another with Tarquin Shaw-Young for those interested in acting.

The programme of events forms part of the Careers and Employability team’s Creative Careers Festival which runs from Monday 5^th to Wednesday 7^th February and covers the six different schools within the College of Arts.

All sessions are open to students and graduate from any subject discipline and level.

For the full details of all events taking place as part of the Creative Careers Festival go to: www.eventbrite.com/e/creative-careers-festival-2018-tickets-40869468681. You can also keep up to date with schedule changes and additions on the Careers and Employability team’s Facebook event page.

Staff and students across the University can celebrate LGBT History Month 2018 through a series of events across campus, including the launch of a major new exhibition funded by the Wellcome Trust.

LGBT History Month starts on 1^st February 2018 and to mark this year’s campaign the University will fly rainbow flags on areas of the Brayford campus.

The University will also host a video art exhibition and series of public lectures as part of a Wellcome Trust-funded project investigating how hormone research has impacted medical sexual knowledge in the twentieth century. The project is led by Dr Chiara Beccalossi from the School of History and Heritage.

The exhibition, ‘Transitional States: Hormones at the Crossroads of Art and Science’, opens in the Project Space Plus gallery this Friday (2^nd February) and runs until Tuesday 27th February 2018. Featuring the work of 14 international artists and collectives, it showcases a range of thought-provoking artistic works exploring the role of hormones in our everyday lives.

A series of public discussions will run alongside, featuring guest speakers and panellists, including prominent artists, activists, psychologists, journalists and academics.

• Thursday 8th February: “From Silence of the Lambs to Orange is the New Black: Changing Representations of Trans People”. Speakers include writer and broadcaster, Paris Lee, artist and non-binary trans activists, Fox Fisher and Owl, and actress Rebecca Root.
• Thursday 15th February: “Sex, Science and the Body: Medicine and LGBTIQ People”. Speakers include Dr David A. Griffiths, University of Surrey, Dr Janet Weston, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and psychologist, Dr Christina Richards.
• Thursday 22nd February: “Girls Gone Wild: Women Use Hormones to Take Control?” Speakers include Dr Hera Cook, University of Otago, Dr Alana Harris, King’s College London, and artists Holly Slingsby and Sarah Homewood.

All the discussions will take place from 6pm until 8pm in the Jackson Lecture Theatre, Minerva Building, on the University’s Brayford Pool campus.

Admission to the exhibition and discussions is free for staff, students and members of the public.

To find out more, visit the Transitional States website.

The artistic talents of students, graduates and staff at the University of Lincoln have brought new meaning to an old legend of Robin Hood and his Merry Men this Christmas as the classic tale comes to the city.

Creative teams from across the University’s Drama, Music and Fashion degree programmes began delighting audiences earlier this week when they raised the curtain on this year’s festive family show at the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre.

Performed by a cast of final-year Drama students from the University’s School of Fine and Performing Arts, The Adventures of Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Winter in Sherwood strengthens the link between the tale and the city – going beyond the Lincoln Green cloth the characters are famed for wearing.

The production tells the story of Robin Hood and his fight against the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham to re-establish the rights of free men, which would become reality in 1217 when King Henry III issued the Charter of the Forest. Only two of the original copies of the Charter have survived, one of which is housed in Lincoln Castle alongside Magna Carta.

The show also pays homage to Nicola de la Haye – the first female Sheriff of Lincoln and Castellan of Lincoln Castle in 1217 – casting Robin’s adversary as a female Sheriff of Nottingham.

This year the show is set on a thrust stage, bringing the action closer to the audience and creating large-scale set pieces to transform the auditorium and transport theatre-goers directly into a snowy Sherwood Forest.

Staff and students have worked on every component of the production, from set design and lighting to costume and choreography, to bring this timely adaptation to life.

For the second time, the production will run alongside a Christmas performance aimed specifically at younger children. This year, University of Lincoln Drama graduates Jozey Wade and Martyn Bignell will take on the roles of Anja and Karl in The Winter Whale. The production tells the story of two best friends who find themselves cast adrift on an epic journey through rolling waves and frozen seas in search of the magical Winter Whale who can help guide them safely back home.

Robin Hood is written and directed by Professor Dominic Symonds, Professor of Musical Theatre in the School of Fine and Performing Arts, with music composed and directed by Mark Wilde, lecturer and vocal coach in the School and an Olivier Award-winning opera singer.

Professor Dominic Symonds said: ““Whatever version you’ve seen, you’re likely to have an image of Robin Hood in your head—a sword-swinging hero who battles for the good of the people with his gang of Merry Men.

“For us, this is a story of the countryside and the people who live in it—of the crofters and farmers, the villagers and the foresters, who suffered until the land was made available through the Charter of the Forest in 1217.

“2017 has been another year of celebrations for the city of Lincoln, marking the 800th anniversary of the Charter, and it felt fitting to draw it to a close with a festive retelling of this particular story.”

Tickets are priced from £8.50. For more information on both productions and to book tickets, visit https://lpac.co.uk/whats-on/ or contact the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre on 01522 837600.

*Photo courtesy of Hannah Phizacklea

Uni Imps tickets for the Lincoln City vs Accrington Stanley on Saturday 16th December and Lincoln City vs Stevenage on Boxing Day are now available from the SU reception in the Engine Shed. 

Tickets are £4 each and you can purchase up to four tickets for the game. On purchase you will be asked to provide a valid staff or student card.

Please note that the tickets for Boxing Day are allocated in the Stacey West Stand. This is to support Lincoln City in ensuring that they can optimise the stadium’s capacity.

If you have any questions, please contact Rosie Damarell at rdamarell@lincoln.ac.uk or call extension 5014.

A team of scientists has provided the first evidence that dogs can learn to categorise odours and apply this to scents they have never encountered before.

The research reveals how the animals process odour information and is likely to have a profound impact on how we train sniffer dogs.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Lincoln, UK, and funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global in the US, found that dogs are able to categorise odours on the basis of their common properties. This means that dogs can behave towards new smells from a category in the same way as smells that they already know.

As humans, we do not have to experience the smell of every fish to know that it smells ‘fishy’; instead we use our previous experience of fish and categorise the new smell in the correct way. The new research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, reveals that dogs can do the same.

Researchers separated dogs into two groups and then trained them to respond to 40 different olfactory stimuli – or smells – half of which were accelerant-based. The dogs in the experimental group were trained (through a reward) to offer a behavioural response, for example “sit”, when they were presented with smells which fit a specific category, but to withhold that response for other non-category stimuli. The remaining dogs were trained on the same stimuli but were not rewarded for the categorical variable.

The researchers found that only the dogs in the category group were able to learn the task. Even more significantly, when presented with completely unknown smells, the dogs were able to place them in the correct category and to remember the odours six weeks later.

The researchers concluded that this means that dogs can apply information from previous experience to novel – or new – scents in order to apply an appropriate response.

Dr Anna Wilkinson from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln said:  “As humans, we are very good at assigning different things to different categories; for example, we know something is a chair because there are identifiable aspects such as a flat space to sit on, or four legs. Categorising odours works the same way, and we were keen to discover whether dogs would be able to learn those skills.

“This was an extremely hard task for the dogs as the odour stimuli varied in strength, so animals were never trained on exactly the same stimulus. As such, it is even more impressive that the experimental group dogs learned and retained the information.

“These findings add substantially to our understanding of how animals process olfactory information and suggest that use of this method may improve performance of working animals.”

The findings have implications in the field of working dog training as it implies that it may be possible to improve the way we train detection dogs.

Ayodeji Coker, the ONR Global Science Director sponsoring the research, said: “The threats being faced by today’s warfighter are constantly evolving, especially as it pertains to explosives. Developing new capabilities to better train dogs to categorize explosives odours will help save lives.”

Camp Counselors USA (CCUSA) offers university students the chance to spend a summer in America or Canada working at a summer camp. There’s a range of placements in a variety of roles, ranging from sport to arts and everything in between. Each placement last nine weeks, and once your contract ends you have an additional 30 days to travel and explore. To find out more, come along to the information session in the Library in UL110 at 4pm today.