I am a scholar of dialogue and performance theory committed to the exploration and investigation of performance making processes which challenge dominant discourses and emphasise participants as co-producers of knowledge. My model of Practice as Research Operations of Dialogue has either been the central method of exploration in these processes or has inspired the practice and research methods employed. (For a detailed explanation and analysis of this method see (Taylor, L. (2019) ‘Towards a concept of inefficiency in performance and dialogue practice’, Research in drama and education, 24(3). pp.333-351). Following Stuart Hall’s belief that ‘theory is not a will to truth, but a set of contested, localized, conjunctural knowledges, which have to be debated in a dialogic way’ my research aims to investigate ways in which dialogue practices and contemporary performance making can be brought together in the public sphere to democratise knowledge and research.
My current research involves producing theoretical reflections on theatre and performative responses to Grenfell Tower fire through extensive dialogues with local community activists and artists. In a monograph for Cambridge University Press entitled : Staging Community Representation after Grenfell: A Dialogic Investigation, these responses are drawn upon to build the theoretical framework of the book which resists subsuming Grenfell fire into institutional logics of entertainment as employed by both state-funded and independent theatre and TV companies.
In my forthcoming article for Research in Drama Education ‘The Grenfell Memorial Walk: Cultural Production and Aesthetic Regulation’ I consider the Grenfell memorial walk, alongside the (re)enactment of the Grenfell memorial walk which formed the final twenty minutes of the 2023 National Theatre production Grenfell: in the words of survivors I to understand why and how the former is singular as an applied critical practice
Emma Mary Currans Autism, acting techniques and dialogue: How might dialogue theory impact the rehearsal process and shape performances for actors on the autism spectrum? Start Date: 01/10/2022
Emma Mary Currans An analysis of the literature Meisner and Stanislavski's actor training techniques through the lens of autism studies. Start Date: 01/10/2022
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