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Current Postgraduate Research Projects

The Department of Performance Studies supervises a wide range of dissertation projects in three degrees: PhD, MPhil and MA(Research).

The titles of current projects are listed below, as well as contacts for the supervisors involved in each project.

All research students in the Department are encouraged to attend, and at least once a semester, to present to, the Department's weekly Research Seminar, held between 3pm and 5pm every Friday during semester. The seminars are open to all interested visitors; a program is available here.

PhD Projects

May-Brit Akerholt "The Dramaturgy of Performance"

  • Supervisors: and Ian Maxwell

"Off the Saddle: Sport as a live(d) event."

How does performance shape our understandings of time, place, movement and memory? Through a series of case studies from mountain biking events in Australia and overseas, this project uses anthropological and phenomenological methods to rethink the relation between sport, performance and culture. Submitted, awaiting examination

Terrance Crawford

Peta Downes

  • Supervisor: Associate Supervisor: Amanda Card

Cassy Duell "Vision and Vernacular: implications of origin for the contemporary Australian theatre director"

The mainstage theatre culture in Australia has, hitherto, chiefly been discussed in terms of the productivity of its playwrights. Acknowledging the pivotal and influential role that the director now occupies in contemporary theatre, the research draws upon sociological and cultural theories to explore notions of national identity which are subsequently played out in practice and performance (as impelled by the director) and considers how the working methods and artistic principles of key directors are shaped by their Australian upbringing and affiliation.

Rosie Findley "O HAI GUYZ: Between Style Blogging and Modern Fashion"

My research is makes a study of the phenomenon of personal style blogs, with a particular focus on the intersection of self and fashion on an online context. This project seeks to understand what this practice means for those who participate in it (both bloggers and their readers) as well as what the implications of this kind of fashioned self-expression has over a range of contexts. These include the changing societal conceptualisation of publics and privacy, the increasing blur between public selfhood, consumerism and branding, and the cult of the individual as inspirational. These readings are drawn from the nexus between fashion theory, digital theory and theories about selfhood and identity. My work will also draw out the embodied aspects of blogging, reading online and offline selfhoods as different iterations of one embodied self, and examining the ways in which online spaces are inhabited and negotiated by their users.

  • Supervisor: Ian Maxwell Associate Supervisor:

Christopher Hay "Brave souls pushing boundaries: emerging directors and cultural capital"

  • Supervisors: Associate Supervisor: Paul Dwyer

Miranda Heckenberg "The practice and discourse of Australian Theatre designers: an ethnographic approach." (working title)

While theatre is widely regarded as the most intensely collaborative artform, our understanding of how theatre designers make their specific contribution to this process has been limited. The aim of borrowing from ethnography is to bring the design process and the lived experience of the designer back into scenographic and performance theory and our understanding of design on stage.

Janice Hinckfuss title to be confirmed

Adrian Johnson "Ideology in Performance: A Semiotic Analysis of Cultural Mediation in Performance"

  • Supervisors: Paul Dwyer Associate Supervisor:

"Performing Pasts for Present Purposes"

  • Supervisors: Associate Supervisor: Laura Ginters

Niamh Kearney "A life that didn't tame you: Representations of mystery in text-based performance"

My research investigates representations of the mysterious in various text-based performance works, including Maurice Maeterlinck's "Pelleas and Melisande" and Mikis Theodorakis/Odysseus Elytis's "Axion Esti". I am interested in how writers create a secure harbour for mystery in their work while allowing it ti remain fluid, and in how their treatment o such slippery subject matter translates from page to stage. I am particularly interested in work where the treatment of mystery is joyous, or attempts to be so.

Jason Marchant

"Country Awakening: Amateur theatre in New South Wales regional communities 1945-1970"

I am examining amateur theatre in New South Wales regional communities between 1945 and 1970, a period of unprecedented growth, with the proliferation of new dramatic societies, the establishment of playreading groups, drama festivals and playwriting competitions, the introduction of training schools in country areas, and the opening of community theatres. I am interested in why this development occurred at this particular time and what the key influences were. I will be conducting three case studies as part of my research.

Jodie McNeilly "Restoring Ontology in the Live and the Mediatised"

Micaela Nathan Title (to be confirmed)

Justine Shih Pearson "In the Inbetween: embodying the intercultural in performance"

Caught in a space between a body’s habitual moves and something new, we perform different, sometimes unexpected manoeuvres. Asked to walk in the shoes of another, or embody a new form of cultural performance, or occupy the transit spaces of global mobility, the normally second nature way in which we perform our bodies gives way to more fluid, multiple, and confusing performances of self. These inbetween moves, these moments of being ‘out of place’ or even ‘out of body’, are examined in this thesis as performances of interculturality.
Tracing developments in intercultural performance scholarship within the broader performance studies field, I argue for greater accounting of what it is, in embodied terms, to perform in the inbetween. Submitted, awaiting examination

DArts Projects

Liza-Mare Syron "The Emergence of the Indigenous Actor in Australia: The Cultural, Socal and Political influences on training"

  • Supervisor: and Ian Maxwell

MA (Research) Projects

Wendy Buswell

Aine de Paor "Opunk’sky Theatre Company and their contribution to the Sydney Theatre Scene in the 1990s"

Rebekah Hanna

Trischelle Roberts "Artist Run Initiatives and Urban Revitalisation in Newcastle, New South Wales"

This research aims to discover and document the experiences of and meanings created by artists involved in urban revitalisation projects - projects which seek to revitalise ailing urban areas by making 'empty' spaces temporarily available to artists. Moving away from previous analyses, which have tended to focus on the function of such projects,I aim to delve into the worlds of particular artists through ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Newcastle, New South Wales.

Jasmine Robertson "Drawing us in: The Australian Experience of Butoh"

Kat Thomas

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Completed Research Degrees

PhDs awarded

Robin Dixon "Spaces and Places of Plautine Theatre" 2011

Supervisors: Ian Maxwell

Nicholas Hope "Landscape and Performance" 2011

Kathryn Leader 2009
"Trials and performance"
Supervisors: Laura Ginters and

  • Kate is currently studying postgraduate law at Birkbeck, the University of London

Celina McEwen 2008
"Investing in Play: Expectations, Dependencies and Power in Australian Practices of Community Cultural Development"
To access the thesis in digital form, follow this link
Supervisors: Paul Dwyer and Lowell Lewis

  • Celina is now a Project Officer at the Griffith Institute of Higher Education.

Daniel Johnston 2008
"Active Metaphysics: Phenomenological Readings of Acting"
To access the thesis in digital form, follow this link
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

  • Daniel is currently teaching with the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney and at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).

Yana Taylor, 2007
"Doctors of Presence: Tadashi Suzuki's Training Methods in Sydney Contemporary Performance"
To access the thesis in digital form, follow this link
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

Pauline Manley 2007
"Opening the Pod: Involution and Dehiscence in Contemporary Dance"
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

  • Pauline is now a Lecturer in the Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University link

Stuart Grant 2007
"Gathering to Witness"
To access the thesis in digital form, follow this link
Supervisors: and Lowell Lewis

  • Stuart is now Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at Monash University link

Andrew Filmer 2006
"Backstage Spaces: The Place of the Performer"
Supervisors: Gay McAuley and Paul Dwyer

  • Andrew is now a Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance at Aberystwyth University, Wales link

Paul Moore 2005
"Longing to Belong: Trained Actors' Attempts to Enter the Profession"
Supervisor:
To access the thesis in digital form, follow this link

  • Paul is now a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Ulster link

Mark Seton 2004
"Forming (In)Vulnerable Bodies: Intercorporeal Experiences in Actor Training in Australia"
Supervisor:

  • Mark is now Head of Learning and Teaching at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School link

Glen McGillivray 2004
"Theatricality: A Critical Genealogy"
Supervisor:

  • Glen is now a Lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney link and in the School of Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney link.

Kate Rossmanith 2004
"Making Theatre-Making: Rehearsal Practice and Cultural Production"
Supervisors: and

  • Kate is now a Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Macquarie University link

Michael Cohen 2002
"Performance as Artefact: Objectification and Agency in International Spectacle" Supervisors: and Jenny Lindsay

  • Michael is a founding member of Theatre Kantanka and now the event manager for the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority.

Peter Snow 2002
"Imaging the In-Between: Training Becomes Performance in Body Weather Practice in Australia"
Supervisor:

  • Peter is now Professor and Head of the School of English, Communications and Performance Studies at Monash University link

Lono Simatupang 2002
"Play and Display: An Ethnographic Study of reyog Ponorogo in East Java, Indonesia"
Supervisors: Jenny Lindsay and

  • Lono is now a Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia

Jason Saltearn 2001
"The History of Sacrifice: Theatres of Sacrifice and the Planetary Struggle for Human Dignity"
Supervisor:

John Glynn 2001
"Kathakali: A Study of the Aesthetic Processes of Popular Spectators and Elitist Appreciators Engaging with Performances in Kerala" (with Anthropology)
Supervisors: and Vivienne Kondos (Anthopology)

Paul Dwyer 2000
"On Shifting Ground: Challenges to the Theory and Practice of Theatre of the Oppressed"
Supervisor:

  • Paul is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney link

Laura Ginters 2000
"History and Her Story: Georg Buchner's Dantons Tod on Page and Stage" (with Germanic Studies)
Supervisors: and Udo Borgert (Germanic Studies)

  • Laura is now a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney link

Kerrie Schaefer 1999
"The Politics of Poaching in Postmodern Performance: A Case Study of the Sydney Front's Don Juan in Rehearsal and Performance"
Supervisor:

  • Kerrie is now a Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter link

Ian Maxwell 1997
"Phat Beats, Dope Rhymes: Hip Hop Down Under Comin' Upper"
Supervisor:

  • Ian is now Associate Professor in the Department of Performance Studies at the University of Sydney link

Kerry Williams 1994
"Joking Apart: Modalities of Feminist Humour in Performance"
Supervisor: Dr Terry Threadgold

MPhils awarded

Teresa Crvenkovic, 2005
"Dancing in Koleda's Circle: A Performative Analysis of Croatian Folk Dance in Australia"
Supervisor: Lowell Lewis

Russell Fewster, 2001
"A Rehearsal Analysis of the Production of The Blind Giant is Dancing by Neil Armfield and the Company B Ensemble"
Supervisor: Gay McAuley

Janice Hinckfuss, 1996
"Mute Perfection? Classical Ballet Training: A Theoretical Perspective"
Supervisor: Lowell Lewis

Marion Potts, 1995
"What Empty Space?: Text and Space in the Australian Mainstream Rehearsal Process"
Supervisor: Gay McAuley

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MAs (Research) awarded

Camilla Ah Kin 2011
"A Chance Gathering of Strays: the Australian theatre family"
Supervisors: Laura Ginters and Ian Maxwell

Joanne Harris, 2007
"Historical Impressions: Ballet in a Nutshell–the Athletes and Dancers Company–the Dance Company (NSW) 1965-1976]"
Supervisor: Amanda Card

Jeffrey Stewart, 2007
"Significantly Sentimental and the Possibility of Love"
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell