Roehampton University
Open Spaces. Open Minds.
School of Arts
Dr Simon Bayly
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Job Title: Principal Lecturer Qualifications: PhD Telephone: +44 (0)20 8392 3582 Email Address: S.Bayly@roehampton.ac.uk |
Current Activities & Interests
I'm currently Principal Lecturer at Roehampton and director
of the London-based theatre company PUR.
www.theatrepur.org
My interests are in the overlap between the practices of the
making of performance and those of other (non)disciplines,
including philosophy, psychoanalysis, and the arts of
organisation; the aesthetic dimensions of political activism;
the relationship between performance and pedagogy; para-
education (yet to be defined); exploring questions raised by
'research' considered as a strategy for artistic production -
and vice versa.
Recent presentations and papers
‘The Art of Research’, keynote presentation at Central
School of Speech and Drama Research Methods event, 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.
‘Some thoughts on Desire and Hate in the Theatrical
Encounter’, paper presented to the London Theatre seminar,
November 8, 2004.
‘Shocking Stuff: The Very Simulating Modern Drama of
Electricity, Experiment and Ethics’, paper presented at the
Theatres Of Science conference, University of Glamorgan,
Pontypridd, Wales, UK, September 8-11, 2004.
‘Thinking Talking, Thinking Writing’, paper presented at the
Sharing Excellence conference at Roehampton University,
London, April 23, 2003.
‘Tingles, twinges and twangles: the affect of the instant in
the making of theatrical memory’, paper with audio-visual
accompaniment for presentation at the XIV World Congress
of the IFTR, Amsterdam, 30 June-6 July 2002, with Igor
Zvonic, PUR company member.
‘Resonant Cavities: An Ethico-Acoustic Appreciation of
Vibration.’ Paper presentation with audio soundtrack at
Performance Studies International 2001, Mainz, Germany.
‘Spawing External Viewer’, a conference paper-cum-
performance event delivered at Performance Studies
International 2000 in Phoenix, Arizona with James Eastaway,
PUR company member.
Recent performance work
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. Recently performed by invitation at the
LSE,University of Cambridge and Birkbeck College.
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 7 years. An
encounter with institutional life in all its beauty, insanity and
triviality 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.
Research Supervision
I am currently supervising the following PhD projects:
The Event of Laughter, a practice as research
project exploring philosophies and phenomenologies of
laughter in relation to performance. Completion 2009.
An investigation into the nature of spectatorship in
contemporary performance.
An action research project, taking place in collaboration with
3 secondary schools, exploring the use of art, performance
and new media practice to interrogate the grassroots
experience of educational institutions undergoing
restructuring through controversial PFI initiatives.
Completion 2011
I am interested in supervising PhD projects in any of the
following areas: performance practice as research; live art &
experimental theatre; philosophies of theatre and
performance; psychoanalytic theory and practice in relation
to performance; teaching and pedagogy as performance
practice; psychogeography, everyday life and performance;
the history and contemporary application of Situationism to
art practice; 'participatory' or 'relational' art practices in
relation to political activism & social change.
Publications
(2009) Figuring the Face, Performance Research, 13(4), 25-37.
with Lisa Baraitser (2008) On Waiting for Something to Happen, Subjectivity: International Journal of Critical Psychology, 24, 340-355.
(2006) What State am I in?, or How to be a Spectator, in Contemporary Theatres in Europe (eds. J. Kelleher & N. Ridout).
(2005) Group Analysis and the Dynamics of Dialogue, The Challenge of Dialogue: International Conference, 25-29th July, 2005, Berlin..
with Adrian Kear, Joe Kelleher, Alan Read, Nicholas Ridout (2005) Inhumanities: Animals, the Stage and the Anthropological Machine , 11th Performance Studies International conference, Brown University, USA, March 30-April 5, 2005 and for [i]Towards Tomorrow[/i], International Gathering 2005, Centre for Performance Research, Cardiff, 7-10th April 2005.
(2005) Spit Not in the Fire: the art of manners, Performance Research (artist's pages), 9:4.
(2005) What is a university? , Inaugural conference of the British-Irish Theatre and Performance Research Association, 8-10 September 2005..
with Hester Reeve, Bulent Diken, Tony Trehy (2004) Art on Terror: the incendiary device of philosophy, London: Artswords Press, 44pp.
(2004) Shocking Stuff: The Very Simulating Modern Drama of Electricity, Experiment and Ethics , Theatres Of Science conference, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, Wales, UK, September 8-11, 2004..
(2004) The Socratic Dialogue Facilitator's Training Handbook, London: Society for the Furtherance of Critical Philosophy, 98pp.
(2003) ‘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.
(2003) Take Cover! (theatre performance), for 'Civic Centre: Reclaiming the Right to Performance' conference held in London 9-16th April 2003 .
(2002) Tingles, twinges and twangles: the affect of the instant in the making of theatrical memory, XIV World Congress of the IFTR, Amsterdam, 30 June-6 July 2002.
with Lisa Baraitser (2001) Now and Then: Psychotherapy and the Rehearsal Process, in Psychoanalysis and Performance (eds. A Kear and P. Campbell), 60-72.
Research Projects Undertaken
2004-2007. Three year research project supported by an AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts investigating the practices of academic research and the figure of the expert through an engagement with the practices of experimental theatre, psychoanalysis and philosophical inquiry.
Qualification Details
PhD, Roehampton University, 2002.
MA in Theatre Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London, 1990.
MA in English Literature & Drama, University of Edinburgh, 1984-1988.
Consultancies Undertaken
Design and facilitation of a 1-day event for PLATFORM, London, bringing together 28 people to develop working groups for the organisation’s project ‘Unravelling the Carbon Web’, 20th Sept 2006.
Project design and management for Introduction to Socratic Facilitation, 3 residential weekend training programme: Society for the Furtherance of Critical Philosophy, Claridge House, Lingfield, June/July 2004.
Training courses for school teachers and school-excluded under 16s in digital video production and media literacy (funded by London Borough of Hackney and London Arts Board): Sidecar, 1999 and 2001.