Role
Director of the Doctoral Training Centre in the Arts & Humanities
Faculty of Arts MRes programmes convenor
Teaching, supervision, and programme management: MRes Theatre & Performance
Project supervision & teaching: BA(Hons) Theatre & Performance and MA Performance Practice
Postgraduate Research Supervision: currently 8 MPhil/PhD candidates (including 4 as Director of Studies)
Co-ordinator of Theatre, Dance & Performing Arts Research Group
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
Higher Education Academy
TaPRA (Theatre & Performance Research Association)
Roles on external bodies
Member of AHRC Peer Review College (2006-present); Member of AHRC Fellowship Committee (2008, 2009); Member of AHRC Research Grant Panel (2010); Chair of AHRC Research Grant Panel (2010/11); Chair of AHRC Fellowship Panel (2011); Advisory Board Member of Part Exchange Co. (2009-11); 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-present); BA Drama, University of Exeter (2010-present); BA Performance Studies, University of Northampton (2005-2008); MPhil (Res), University of Glasgow (2007); PhD, Edinburgh College of Art (2008); PhD, Central School of Speech and Drama (2011); PhD, University of Northampton (2010/11); PhD, University of Lancaster (2012).
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.
Research degrees awarded to supervised students
3 PhDs and 5 MPhils, including as
Director of Studies: 'Memory & Site Responsive Installation Art' (James Barber, 2011); 'The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Needs of Mid-Career Artists in South West England' (Dr Karen Smith, 2010); 'Information Art' (David Topping, 2010); 'Nostalgia and Contemporary Chanson Cabaret in Berlin' (Julia Harris, 2008); 'Articulations of Equity: Practice, Complexity and Power in Facilitated Art Projects' (Dr Gill Melling, 2006); ‘Creating Emotionally Aware Performance Spaces’ (Dr Richard Povall, 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
Most Recent & Forthcoming:
'Lynn Hershman and the Creation of Multiple Robertas' in Susan Broadhurst & Jo Machon (eds.) Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
'Stand up Comedy and the Legacy of the Mature Vagina,' Women and Performance, forthcoming.
with Baz Kershaw & Gillian Hadley. Doing Performance Research. Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
'Really Jewish? Joan Rivers Live at the Apollo,' Comedy Studies, Vol 2, No. 2, 101-111; 2011.
with Jennifer Parker-Starbuck. 'Researching the Body in/as Performance' in Helen Nicholson & Baz Kershaw (eds.) Research Methods in Theatre Studies. Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
with Erica Stevens Abbitt, Johanna Frank & Geraldine (Gerry) Harris. 'Aging Provocateurs and Spect(er)acular Pub(l)ic Performances,' Performance Research, Vol 16, No. 2, 50-56; 2011.
• Series Editor (since 2002):
Playtext, a list of plays & theatre writing published by Intellect Books.
Other Publications:
• Books:
(as editor) Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts by Deirdre Heddon, Carl Lavery & Phil Smith. Intellect, 2009.
(as co-editor with Colin Counsell) Performance, Embodiment & Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.
Jewish Women on Stage, Film, and Television. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
(as editor) Performing Processes: Creating Live Performance. Intellect, 2000.
• Book Chapters:
'Visions of Xs: Experiencing La Fura dels Baus's XXX and Ron Athey’s Solar Anus (May 2003)' in Karoline Gritzner (ed.) Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance. University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010.
'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. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
'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.
'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. Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.
'Vaginal Voyages: Performances of Sexuality and the Female Jewish Body' in Nathan Abrams (ed.) Jews and Sex. Five Leaves Press, 2008.
'Globalization's Marginalia: Anglo-Canadian Identity and the Plays of Brad Fraser' in Anne Nothof (ed.) Theatre in Alberta. 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. 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].
'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.
• Essays:
'Imagining the Hams of Tomorrow' in Paula Orrell (ed.), Marina Abramovic and the Future of Performance Art. Prestel, 2010.
'Oreet Ashery's Site-Specific Corporeal Turns' in Oreet Ashery, Dancing with Men. Live Art Development Agency, 2009.
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 Performance and Screen. Palgrave Macmillan, 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
Keynotes: Metropolis Laboratory, Copenhagen (2012); Cultural Memory Symposium organized by the Centre for Critical Cultural Research (University of Plymouth, 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 (2002); West Yorkshire Playhouse (1993).
Conferences organised
International Research Forum on Guided Tours. 7-9 April 2011 at the University of Plymouth. Co-organized with Petra Adolfsson (GRI, University of Gothenburg), Anette Hallin (The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), Mikael Jonasson (Halmstad University) and Phil Smith (University of Plymouth).
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.
