Research theme: Performance

About our research

In the Performance Research Group (PRG), we nourish world-leading, industry-focused and interdisciplinary work in the field of performance. We build practices, structures and projects that bring performance artists and researchers into productive dialogue with each other.

Manchester Met’s history of innovation and impact is reflected in our practice-based artistic research. The work of our members includes:

performance
theatre studies
acting
contemporary drama
laboratory theatre
performer training
dramaturgy
cross-disciplinary dialogue, collaboration and praxis

We are internationally recognised theatre makers, performers, directors, scholars and curators. Our relationship with the theatre and performance community is broad and longstanding. Organisations and artists in Manchester and beyond turn to our specialist expertise for training, support and contextual research, as well as creative leadership.

We are also keen to support and grow our community of doctoral student researchers. PhD students are a key part of our research culture. Recent PhD examples include actors’ mental health, the British Muslim community’s engagement with theatre, actor training, the performativity of photography and more. We are interested in hearing from potential PhD candidates with proposals in the areas we cover.

Get in touch about PhD study.

Our research informs our teaching on the BA Acting, BA Drama and Contemporary Performance and MA Performance programmes. The MA/MFA Performance includes specialisms in Contemporary Performance and Laboratory Theatre.

Our research areas

The politics of performance, including race and identity
The politics of spectating, space, arts policy and the public sphere
The working conditions of the theatre industry, especially in the wake of COVID-19
The overlaps between performance and religion
The international community of Third Theatre, group theatre practice and an expanded notion of Laboratory Theatre.
The use of musical scores as stimuli for contemporary performance
Verbatim plays
Interdisciplinary festival curation
Comedy and female empowerment
Making one-to-one performance in an online space

Selected projects

Bric-19

How British religious communities adapted during COVID-19.
Go to project
Bunker Talks

Talks with artists and researchers about their work.
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Third Theatre Network

Interrogating the value of Third Theatre.
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Key publications
Deeney, JF and Gale, MB eds (2015) Fifty Modern and Contemporary Dramatists London: Routledge
Edelman, J (2020) Mike Daisey’s False Witness in Theatre Scandals: Social Dynamics of Turbulent Theatrical Events eds Cremora, VA et al, Leiden: Brill
Edelman, J, Hansen, LE, and van den Hoogen, Q (2016) The Problem of Theatrical Autonomy Amsterdam University Press
Gale, MB and Deeney, JF eds (2016) The Routledge Drama Anthology: From Modernism to Contemporary Performance Second edition, London: Routledge
Pikes, M and Campbell, P (2019) Owning our Voices: Vocal Discovery in the Wolfsohn-Hart TraditionLondon: Routledge.
Pinchbeck, M (2020) Acts of Dramaturgy: The Shakespeare Trilogy Bristol: Intellect
Pinchbeck, M and Baynton, R (2022) Co-creation In Reason, M, Conner, L, Johanson, K and Walmsley, B (eds)Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts Routledge: London.
Pinchbeck, MD. and Egan, K (2022) Staging Scores: Devising Contemporary Performances from Classical Music Open Library of Humanities 8(1)
Turner, J (2018) Eugenio Barba (Performance Practitioner Series) Abingdon: Routledge (2nd edition)
Turner, J and Campbell, P (2021) A Poetics of Third Theatre: Performer Training in Dramaturgy, Cultural Action, London: Routledge.
Westerside, A and Pinchbeck, M eds (2018)Staging Loss: Performance as CommemorationLondon: Palgrave MacMillan
Videos

Dr Patrick Campbell
Patrick Campbell's academic research focuses on the ways in which contemporary theatre artists in Europe and Latin America are challenging monolithic, phallogocentric framings of subjectivity, representability and heritage through performance and training.
Dr Michael Pinchbeck
Michael Pinchbeck's practice-research explores the dramaturgy of devised and one-to-one performance. He is currently creating immersive adaptations from the books of John Berger and Jean Mohr. Another Way of Telling is the final piece of The Berger & Mohr Trilogy. Supported by Manchester School of Art Research Centre.
Dr Rachel Rimmer-Piekarczyk
Rachel Rimmer-Piekarczyk’s practice-research focuses on dance and performance training more broadly. Her work explores the relationship between critical reflection, embodiment and post-structuralist perspectives on agency, investigating how the presence of reflection in body-based training environments disrupts dominant understandings of training in the west.