University of Sydney / Faculty of Arts / Department of Performance Studies / Postgraduate / Current Projects

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.

Robin Dixon "Spaces and Places of Plautine Theatre"

Using a range of secondary and primary source material, archeological evidence, translations of the Plautine corpus, and McAuley's taxonomy of theatrical space, I am examining Roman Comedy perforamne and text. Specifically, I am considering the complex fictional world of 21 plays of the Plautine corpus and how this world could have possibly been 'mapped' onto the stages of Roman theatre in performance. Along the way I'll challenge soem established wisdom and offer some case studies, based on 'theatrical commonsense'.

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

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

Nicholas Hope "Landscape and Performance"

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

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.

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

Justine Shih Pearson "Learning to walk, awkward movement, mass transit: intercultural performance and the experience dimension"

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

Camilla Ah Kin "Creating Theatre and Family: From the Holy to the Osbournes"

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

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Completed Research Degrees

PhDs awarded

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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)

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:

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

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

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