Role
Responsible for the management of postgraduate research activity in the School of Humanities & Performing Arts, as well as all MRes programmes in the Faculty of Arts
Teaching, supervision, and programme management: MRes Theatre & Performance
Project supervision & teaching: BA(Hons) Theatre & Performance and MA Performance Practice
Postgraduate Research Supervision: currently 7 MPhil/PhD candidates (including 5 as Director of Studies)
Research Co-ordinator for Theatre, Dance & Performing Arts Unit
Qualifications & background
PhD in Drama (University of Exeter)
MA in Theatre Studies (University of Leeds)
BA (Hons) in French Drama by Independent Study (East London Polytechnic)
Certificate of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (University of Plymouth)
Professional membership
Memberships: Higher Education Academy; TaPRA (Theatre & Performance Research Association)
Roles on external bodies
Member of AHRC Peer Review College (2006-present); AHRC Fellowship Committee (2008, 2009); TaPRA Executive (2007-present)
Teaching interests
Gender & Sexuality in Performance
Critical Theory and Performance Theory
Directing, Devising and Scenographic Practices
Research Skills & Methodology
Avant-Garde Performance Practice
Staff serving as external examiners
MA Performance Practice, University of Chester (2009 -); BA Performance Studies, University of Northampton (2005 - 2008); MPhil (Res), University of Glasgow (2007); PhD, Edinburgh College of Art (2008)
Research interests
Cultural identities in performance, with a specific interest in performances by Jewish women;
Representations of gender and sexuality in performance;
Radical and avant-garde performance practice;
Practice-based research focusing on feminist performance practices; the role of the director in the collaborative construction of visual & interdisciplinary theatre; and live art.
Other research
Member of the Theatre, Dance & Performing Arts Research Group
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
2 PhDs and 3 MPhils, including as
Director of Studies: 'Nostalgia and Contemporary Chanson Cabaret in Berlin', MPhil (2008); 'Articulations of Equity: Practice, Complexity and Power in Facilitated Art Projects', PhD (2006); ‘Creating Emotionally Aware Performance Spaces’, PhD (2003).
Creative practice & artistic projects
Let's Talk Cadavers (digital video). Performer and co-creator with Tamsin Buckley-Bell. Film dir. Siobhan McKeown. Screened: The Phoenix, Exeter (with live performance), 2004; The 5 Second Theatre, Hull, 2004; The Lamp, Hull, 2005; The Packhorse, Leeds, 2005.
Runner Up, Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for experimental theatre-makers, 2003.
The Maternal Cloister by Christine Roberts. Performer in rehearsed reading at ‘Politics and Performance in Latin America Conference’, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2000.
The Dolphin Opera. Associate Director of large-scale community project for English National Opera’s Baylis Programme, Plymouth, 1994.
Publications
• Authored Book:
Jewish Women on Stage, Film, and Television. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
• Edited Books:
Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts by Deirdre Heddon, Carl Lavery & Phil Smith. Bristol: Intellect, 2009.
with Colin Counsell. Performance, Embodiment & Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
Performing Processes: Creating Live Performance. Bristol: Intellect, 2000.
• Book Chapters:
'La Fura dels Baus's XXX: Deviant Textualities & The Formless' in Susan Broadhurst & Josephine Machon (eds.)Sensualities/Textualities & Technologies: Writings of the Body in 21st Century Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2009.
'Tohu-bohu: Rachel Rosenthal’s Performances of Diasporic Cultural Memory' in Colin Counsell & Roberta Mock (eds.) Performance, Embodiment and Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
'Oreet Ashery's Site-Specific Corporeal Turns' in Oreet Ashery, Dancing with Men. London: Live Art Development Agency, 2009.
'Memories, Hauntings & Exorcisms in Brad Fraser's Snake in Fridge' in Marc Maufort & Caroline de Wagter (eds.) Signatures of the Past: Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Drama. Bruxelles: Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.
'Vaginal Voyages: Performances of Sexuality and the Female Jewish Body' in Nathan Abrams (ed.) Jews and Sex. Nottingham: Five Leaves Press, 2008.
'Globalization's Marginalia: Anglo-Canadian Identity and the Plays of Brad Fraser' in Anne Nothof (ed.) Theatre in Alberta. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2008. This is an extended version of the article that appeared in CTR (2006), listed below.
'HeteroQueer Ladies: Some Performative Transactions Between Gay Men & Heterosexual Women' in Birgit Haas (ed.) Der postfeministische Diskurs. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006; Previously published in Feminist Review, 75, 21-37, 2003.
with Christine Roberts. 'Shading the Crime: Acting Hopelessness as an Act of Hope' in Christine Roberts, Tormented Minds: Three Plays. Intellect, 2003; Previously published in Studies in Theatre Production; no 19, 22-35, June 1999.
• Journal Articles:
'Anywhere (No, Devon),' Western European Stages, Vol 19, No. 1, 15-20; 2007.
with Christine Roberts & Ruth Way. 'The M(other) Project,' Body Space & Technology, Vol 06; 2006 [online] http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol06/home.html.
'Globalisation's Marginalia: Anglo-Canadian Identity and the Plays of Brad Fraser,' Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol 16, No. 01, 86-96; 2006.
with Ruth Way. 'Pedagogies of Theatre (Arts) & Performance (Studies),' Studies in Theatre & Performance, 25.3, 201-213; 2005.
with Franc Chamberlain, Simon Ellis, Nicholas Till & John C Whelan.'Reflections on practice as research following the PARIP conference 2003,' Studies in Theatre & Performance, 24:2, 57-70; 2004.
'Without You I’m Nothing: Sandra Bernhard’s Self-Referential Postmodernism,' Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 30, 543-562; 2001.
'Female Jewish Comedians: Grotesque Mimesis and Transgressing Stereotypes,' New Theatre Quarterly; vol XV (2); NTQ 58, 99-108; 1999.
'Ionesco in Transylvania,' Studies in Theatre Production; no 8, 76-79; Dec 1993.
• Series Editor:
Playtext, a list of plays & theatre writing published by Intellect (Bristol).
• Essays:
'Imagining the Hams of Tomorrow' in Paula Orrell (ed.), Marina Abramovic and the Future of Performance Art. Prestel, forthcoming 2010 (in press).
5 articles on Hanoverian actors: 'Dennis Delane'; 'John Evans'; 'Elizabeth Furnival'; 'John Moody'; 'John Lennergan Owens'. New Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Practice as Research:
Tree (digital video). Performer & co-creator. Dir. Siobhan McKeown. Text by Dee Heddon. First screened: TaPRA conference (Body & Performance Working Group), University of Birmingham, September 2007.
M(other)3 (digital video). Performer and co-creator with Ruth Way and Christine Roberts. Film dir. Russell Frampton. Screening: INPORT - International Video-Performance Art Festival, Tallinn, Estonia, 2005. Also included in the following book (with DVD): L. Allegue Fuschini, S. Jones, B. Kershaw, and A. Piccini (eds.) Practice-as-research in the Performing and Screen Arts. London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2009.
M(other)2: Research as Practice. A performative presentation with Christine Roberts and Ruth Way. PARIP conference, Bretton Hall, June 2005. A previous version was presented to the Performance as Research Working Party, FIRT conference, St. Petersburg, May 2004.
M(other)1. Director and performer for Lusty Juventus theatre company; performed in Athens at the Argo Theatre as part of Transformation of Movements Programme (co-organized with Alter-Art, Greece; 2.tants.promotions, Estonia; Giardini Pensili, Italy), October 2002.
Us by Karen Malpede. Director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; European premiere, Exeter Phoenix, October 1999.
The Duchess. Writer/director of production for radio; broadcast on Resonance FM, 4 July 1998 as part of South Bank Festival; Commissioned by London Musicians Collective.
Shading the Crime. Co-director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; 16 performances in 4 Devon & London venues, January 1998.
Ceremonial Kisses. Co-director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; 2 tours between September 1996 - September 1997; approximately 30 performances at 6 venues throughout UK.
Reports & invited lectures
Keynote: Cultural Memory Symposium organized by the Centre for Critical Cultural Research (University of Plymouth), Hazlewood House (2008).
Invited Speaker: 'I Confess...' Symposium, University of Glasgow (2009); Windsor Jewish Community Centre, Canada (2007 and 2008); University of Wolverhampton (2007); Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London (2005);
Theatrical Aesthetics of Eroticism and Death Symposium, University of Wales Aberystwyth (2004);
‘Cultivating Cultural Co-operation’ conference, organized by EUCLID, London (2003);
‘Alternative Methods on Stage and Use of Multimedia’ conference, Athens, Greece (also webcast, 2002); West Yorkshire Playhouse (1993).
Conferences organised
Live Laboratory Symposium. 22-24 January 2010 at Royal William Yard (Plymouth), in collaboration with Plymouth Arts Centre and the Marina Abramovic Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art. Co-organized with Lee Miller and Paula Orrell.
Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA) annual conference. 7-9 September 2009 at the University of Plymouth. Co-organized with Lee Miller & Victor Ramirez Ladron de Guevara.
The Hidden City Symposium: Mythogeography, Writing & Site Specific Performance. 4 October 2008 at the University of Plymouth. Co-organized with Phil Smith and Chris Hall.
