RESEARCH

RESEARCH

My research pioneers an innovative devising model, offering new understanding in the fields of contemporary performance practice and performer training. Drawing on Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy of the ‘poetic body’, the writings of French philosopher Gaston Bachelard on the ‘poetics of imagination’ and the French anthropologist Marcel Jousse, I propose an interdisciplinary ‘embodied poetics’ for the actor-creator.

Bachelard identifies the material elements of earth, air, fire, and water as conductors of human imagination - ‘poeticising substances’ that guide our orientation to the world around us. My artistic practice and research interrogate this assertion by exploring the dynamic relationship between the human body, the environment, and the imagination as a force for making new live and digital performance. This original and empowering approach offers infinite possibilities for a permanent renewal, expansion, and transformation of practice.

More recently, I am looking at how this embodied model of creative practice can raise awareness of the challenges faced by communities living in volatile environments. Performance outputs aim to highlight the pivotal role of human experience in tackling escalating environmental challenges and negotiating more life-sustaining relations with the natural world.

QUALIFICATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS

  • PhD, Performance Practice, University of Exeter
  • PGCE, Arts University Bournemouth
  • The Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School, 1987 – 1989
  • BA (Hons) Performance Arts, Middlesex University
  • Editorial Assistant - Theatre, Dance & Performance Training Journal 
  • Fellow - The Higher Education Academy
  • Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)
  • Performer Training Working Group (TaPRA)
  • International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR)
  • Embodied Research Working Group (ERWG) (IFTR)
  • Research Centre for Environmental Humanities (BSU)
  • Intercultural Communication through Practice Research Group (ICP) (BSU)

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming

'The Imagining Body in Performer Training: The Legacy of Jacques Lecoq and Gaston Bachelard' in eds. Maria Kapsali and Rebecca Loukes, Perspectives on Performer Training  (book series), Routledge.

List of Services

2018 

  • Moving Rock, Embodied Correspondences with the Material World as a Force for Performance-Making - presentation at Performing Mountains Symposium, Leeds

2017

Moving Rock, interdisciplinary collaborative research project with Professor Louis Nixon
  • Funded by HEQR Seed Funding, Bath Spa University and Kingston University
Embodied Poetics: The Poetics of the Imagination in Devising Practices, paper presented at the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) Conference, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. 
  • Funded by Bath Spa University and BSU Research Centre for Environmental Humanities (RCEH)
Sourcing From Within, practice-led presentation for Knowing From the Inside: Anthropology, Art, Architecture and Design (KFI), a 5-year project funded by a European Research Council
  • Principle investigator: Professor Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen. 
  • Funded by University of Aberdeen and Bath Spa University

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    Practice

    Images courtesy of Nick Sprattling and Carolina Malbrán Conte
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