About

Principal Lecturer at Roehampton and director of the London-based arts organisation PUR. www.theatrepur.org

My research and teaching explores the overlap between the practices of the making of performance and those of other (non)disciplines, including philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the arts of organisation; contemporary curatorial practice engaged with participatory, relational and 'socially-engaged' art; the aesthetic dimensions of political activism; exploring questions raised by 'research' considered as a strategy for artistic production - and vice versa.

My book A Pathognomy of Performance was published by Palgrave in Spring 2011. This is a study of performance that weaves together analyses of a wide range of phenomena - from the celebrity on stage to revolutionary thought – with the work of contemporary philosophy. It elaborates the themes of interruption and undoing that have perpetually shadowed the uneasy relationship between philosophy and theatricality in particular - and which continue to form the basis of many claims for the political potency of art in general.

I am currently convenor of the MA in Performance & Creative Research, a programme for early and mid-career artists, academics, curators and producers interested in exploring the intersection between performance practice and research in a collaborative framework.

Presentations and papers since 2005:
Invited panel speaker, 'The Author as Provocateur – playingthe space of politics in the age of dissensus',Authoring Theatre conference, Central School of Speech & Drama, London, 14-15 July 2011.

‘Practice-as-Research’, keynote presentation and workshop at the conference Theatre, Science, Power: The Making of a Theory, Free University, Berlin Feb 2010.

‘The Art of Research’, keynote presentation at Central School of Speech and Drama Research Methods event,London, Jan 13th 2009.

‘Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast’, keynote presentation at Iceland Academy of the Arts, Reykjavik, 3- 4th October 2008.

'Trouble with Seeing', paper for Performance Studies International, New York City, 8-11 Nov, 2007.

‘What is a university?’, philosophical enquiry session facilitated for inaugural conference of the British-Irish Theatre and Performance Research Association, 8-10 September 2005.

‘Group Analysis and the Dynamics of Dialogue’, paper presentation at The Challenge of Dialogue , International Conference, 25-29th July, 2005, Berlin.

‘Free Associations’, series of philosophical enquiry sessions facilitated at Towards Tomorrow?, International Gathering 2005, Centre for Performance Research, Cardiff, 7-10th April 2005.

Convener and chair of ‘Inhumanities: Animals, the Stage and the Anthropological Machine’, panel presentation for the 11th Performance Studies International conference, Brown
University, USA, March 30-April 5, 2005 and for Towards Tomorrow, International Gathering 2005, Centre for Performance Research, Cardiff, 7-10th April 2005.

‘When is Philosophy Any Use?’, facilitated session for Quorum, Queen Mary Drama and Performance Research Forum, Jan 12, 2005.

Performance work since 2000:
Babel of Tower: A Report to the Academy (2007), a comedic autocritque about failure, stupidity and free association, taking the form of a staged dialogue with computer projection, functioning as an alternative 'project report' for an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts. Performed by invitation at the LSE, University of Cambridge and Birkbeck College, London.

Dear All (2006), performance for any formal meeting room involving 99 index cards, 30 people, 30 chairs, a large table, and a collection of emails, both real and possibly fictional, harvested from the 'all users' email service of a large public service organisation over a period of 15 years. An encounter with institutional life in all its mundanity, triviality and beauty - and with the peculiar rituals and efforts at communication through which any collective body tries to get a grip on itself. First performed at Birkeck College, University of London, June 2006.

‘Zero’, commissioned text for Forced Entertainment’s 12 hour durational performance Marathon Lexicon, performed at Mousunturm, Frankfurt, Nov 2003 and Riverside Studios, London, Nov 2004.

Take Cover! (2003), commissioned performance for Civic Centre: Reclaiming the Right to Performance conference held in London 9-16th April 2003. A contemporary, minimalist ‘pastoral’ set in a series of small tents in a large open space, featuring extensive use of performance mediated via headphone playback of pre-recorded dialogue as well as a complex audio score using a range of ‘on-site’ sound equipment.

Running Time (1998/2000). Performance based on the impossible task of a live recreation of the classic John Cassavettes’ film Faces. Performed at Young Vic Studio in 1997, and at The Brady Centre, east London in 2000.