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.

May-Brit Akerholt "The Dramaturgy of Performance"

• Supervisors: and Ian Maxwell (while both on leave in first semester 2008 Paul Dwyer)

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

• Supervisors: Ian Maxwell

Robin Dixon "Implied Theories of Acting in the Late Roman Republic"

• Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

Ariana Grabrovaz "Speaking Silences: Postcolonial Practices in Contemporary Australian Theatre"

• Supervisors: Laura Ginters and Paul Dwyer

Miranda Heckenberg "Design for the Stage–The practice and discourse of Australian Theatre Designers."

• Supervisors: Paul Dwyer and Gay McAuley

Nicholas Hope "Landscape and Performance"

• Supervisors: Ian Maxwell and Paul Dwyer

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

• Supervisors: Lowell Lewis and Paul Dwyer

Kathryn Leader Currently under examination
"Trials and performance"

• Supervisor: Laura Ginters and Paul Dwyer

Jenny Leong "Creating a Past for the Future: Making and Using Performance Documentation"

• Supervisors: Laura Ginters and Gay McAuley

"Addressing Social Inequality through Community Cultural Development"

• Supervisors: Paul Dwyer and Lowell Lewis

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

• Supervisors: Lowell Lewis and Amanda Card

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

• Supervisor: Amanda Card and Ian Maxwell

Jeff Stewart "Tragedy and Messianic Time"

• Supervisor: Ian Maxwell and Amanda Card

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

• Supervisor: and Ian Maxwell

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

• Supervisors: Laura Ginters and Ian Maxwell

Completed Research Degrees

Daniel Johnston, 2008
"Active Metaphysics: Phenomenological Readings of Acting"
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

Yana Taylor, 2007
"Doctors of Presence: Tadashi Suzuki's Training Methods in Sydney Contemporary Performance"
Supervisor: Ian Maxwell

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

Stuart Grant 2007
"Gathering to Witness"
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:

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

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

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