Institute of Dance, Drama and Performance Studies areas of expertise

Researchers in the institute have expertise in the following fields:

  • Live Art and contemporary performance
  • Performer training and performance process
  • Intermedial performance
  • Interdisciplinary performance
  • Immersive, interactive and participatory performance
  • Activist performance
  • Gender, sexuality and performance (in live performance and on screen)
  • Documentation and performance
  • Adaptation
  • Contemporary text-based drama
  • Space, place and performance on stage and screen
  • Site-specific performance
  • Directing / producing for radio or stage
  • Writing for performance
  • Popular performance, clowning and comedy
  • Applied drama and storytelling, community performance
  • Restoration theatre and Shakespeare in performance
  • Contemporary dance, performance and improvisational practices
  • Dance of the African diaspora
  • Performance philosophy
  • Early 20th century dance history
  • Contemporary performance pedagogy

cirid-logo

Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance 

The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance (CIRID) brings together a multidisciplinary team of researchers with an interest in dance to explore its many facets.

Research into dance at DMU characteristically offers a range of perspectives and approaches to the exploration of dance. It embraces diversity and connects research from different research centres, areas and disciplines. This is what makes dance research at DMU distinctive.

Colleagues contributing to this interdisciplinary centre include researchers in dance history, dance of the African diaspora, dance pedagogy, practice as research, professional practice, improvisation, collaborative practice, dance and music, dance and new media, archives, adaptations, modernism studies, performance research and performance philosophy.

drg-logoDrama Research Group

Dynamic researchers from across the Drama, Dance and Performing Arts teams are brought together within the Drama Research Group (DRG) by their scholarly, practice-based and impact-focused investigations across live art, contemporary performance and theatre, interdisciplinary performance, applied performance and theatre history. These investigations are further fuelled by international collaboration and interaction, social engagement, industry connections and development of our next generation of researchers. 

Its members regularly share their work at conferences and public events in the UK and overseas, and are involved with convening the 'Bodies and Performance' and 'Documenting Performance' working groups for the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA). The DRG has strong connections with contemporary practitioners and artist-scholars, leading to lively events, symposia and publications, addressing core debates and concerns within the field. Alongside production of monographs, edited collections, articles, chapters and book series, members have recently produced performances and events at and in partnership with the Royal Albert Hall, ICA, Picturehouse Central, BBC Radio, Nottingham Playhouse, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Camden People's Theatre. A number of these and other ventures have been underpinned by exciting cross-disciplinary collaborations with the Centre for Adaptations, the Cinema and Television History (CATHI) Research Institute and the Mary Seacole Research Centre - Mental Health, Culture and Diversity.  The DRG welcomes further collaboration and potential research students to join a vibrant PhD community.