Our research at UNSW School of the Arts & Media in theatre,Ìýperformance and dance studies involves contemporary theatre and dance, interdisciplinary performance studies,Ìýcreative practice-as-research and performance archives.
We’re a hub for research into making and experiencing performance in all its forms. We draw on aesthetic theory, philosophy, cultural studies, performance writing and creative practice. Â
We’re interested in the politics of performance, and the ways that ideas and forms of performance intersect with other cultural practices and perspectives. Much of our work focuses on arts, activism and human rights. We also explore how theatre works in non-theatrical spaces, locations and institutions like schools, hospitals, aged-care centres, prisons, immigration detention centres, and beyond. Â
Our ¹û¶³app engage with many areas, including memory studies, refugees and asylum seekers, returned military personnel, children,Ìýcultural diversity and ageing, Indigenous training and practices and trans-Indigenous interaction and exchange,Ìýand creative activism and political protest. We also investigate how international relations intersect with performance in nightclubs, television and popular entertainment,Ìýand museum studies and visual arts. Our academics contribute to the arts and health hub within ±«±·³§°ÂÌýSchool of the Arts & Media. Â
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Our theatre, performance and dance studies ¹û¶³app contribute to our local arts ecology through relationships with , , the ,Ìý, , , and ´¡°ù³Ù¾±²õ³Ù²õ.Ìý
We’re active in arts criticism and reviewing, and have produced publications on Australian theatre-makers such as Wesley Enoch, Roslyn Oades, Tom Holloway,ÌýBack to Back Theatre and Urban Theatre Projects. We’ve also published works on choreographers and movement artists such as Lizzie Thomson, Shelley Lasica, Gideon Obarzanek and Helen Herbertson, among others.Â
Our academics engage with performance practices throughout the Asia-Pacific, collaborating with artists and scholars in Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines and Aotearoa New Zealand. Further afield, our ¹û¶³app have engaged with the and in London and the , and in Berlin. We work at the cutting edge of international scholarship through editorial leadership of journals such as Performance Research,ÌýPerformance Philosophy,ÌýThe Brecht YearbookÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýPerformance Paradigm.
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UNSW School of the Arts & Media boasts the Esme Timbery Creative Practice Lab, a production unit with an extensive creative team and facilities to support teaching, practice-led research at honoursÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýpostgraduate levels, and artistic residencies. We support creative practice alongside scholarly research, with strengths in movement and screendance, dramaturgy and devising,Ìýperformance writing and collaborative practices, theatres of the real and global Indigenous dramaturgies.
Our teaching informs and is informed by research that supports creativity and collaboration. We also undertake research into digital learning and virtual collaboration, blended learning and flipped classrooms, and practice-based learning and research.Â
We support research in dance through either traditional thesis or practice-as-research. Past ¹û¶³app include Nalina Wait,ÌýLisa Synnott, Gavin Clarke, Rhiannon Newton, Victoria Hunt, Lizzie Thomson and Tess De Quincey. Dance artists in residence have included Sue Healey, Meryl Tankard, Victoria Hunt, Martin del Amo and Justin Shoulder.
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Our research at UNSW School of the Arts & Media engages with archival practice and documentation in the performing arts. Theatre and performance studies is a founding partner of , the online research database.Â
Our academics have published on digital humanities, data visualisation and network analysis in theatre research and have projects on local performance histories such as Dancing Sydney. Our archival research connects with , , ,Ìý, and other organisations in Sydney. We also conduct research in international institutions such as the and Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin. Â
Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (2021-2023) brings artists, ¹û¶³app and institutions into dialogue about best-practice to support both the choreographer and the museum, and to sustain momentum in theory and practice around dance and the visual arts. We’re also working on the Dennis Wolanski Library collection through the with the UNSW Library and the Wolanski Foundation. Exhibiting archival content is an emerging research area in partnership with the UNSW Library Exhibition Space, with and related exhibitions.