Theatre & Performance: MT '25 round-up
What has happened across theatre & performance during Michaelmas Term 2025?
Schwarzman Centre
We moved into the brand new Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, a purpose-built space housing the Humanities Division at Oxford. For the first time ever, multiple faculties are under one roof, creating a truly interdisciplinary space. The building houses a concert hall, theatre, black box space and recital hall, so we are hugely excited for the potential for performance in our new home.
To celebrate the move, the TORCH Performance Research Hub hosted a 'housewarming party' (pictured right) for anyone interested in performance, featuring flash pitches, wish cards and networking. Researchers, students and artists joined us for an event full of conversation and discovery.
Events
The Trans & Queer Voices in Performance Study Day series began, with the first event in November. Artists and researchers came together to explore queer methodologies and perspectives in research with speakers including Travis Alabanza. Former RSC IF Fellow Stephen Bailey joined us in partnership with the TORCH Neurodiversity Network for a discussion on whether 'authentic' autistic performance is possible.
The Performance Research Hub supported a number of events this term with small grants. Professor Philomen Probert (Linguistics) produced an event at Cheney School on intertextual markings, which included a new performance: Read Between The Lines. Professor Kathryn Eccles (OII) ran an event with Oxford-based artist Rawz to explore how the latest tools can interact with generative A.I. to create visual artworks connected to music. Nicholas McInerny (Conted) ran a workshop exploring whether sensitivity reading can work as a form of dramaturgy: read his blog on the subject to find out what he deduced. The Ancient Music group in Classics hosted a performance of The Call Of Kinnaru. Professor Sos Eltis (English) hosted the launch of two new books: Radical Realisms in Contemporary British Theatre by Hannah Greenstreet, and Modernism after the Ballets Russes by Gabriela Minden.
Award-winning director, actor and playwright Corinne Jaber took up residence at St Catz for a week to work with students on a piece inspired by Karthika Nair's 2019 Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata. Read an article written by one of the students who took part. Internationally celebrated choreographer and dancer Akram Khan visited for an in-conversation event hosted by the APGRD and DANSOX.
Choreographer Irina Demina visited from Humboldt University in Berlin to lead a 'performative encounter' about her project on folk dance & A.I (pictured right). Read a write-up of the event.
Spotlight: book launch
As part of TORCH's Book at Lunchtime series, we celebrated the launch of A Doll's House, Men of Honour, When We Dead Awaken: new translations of plays by Henrik Ibsen and Laura Kieler. These three plays tell a fascinating and heartbreaking story, introduce a new playwright (Laura Kieler) to the world, and provide a fuller understanding of a work we thought we knew: Ibsen's A Doll's House. This new edition is complete with an insightful introduction, up-to-date research, and in depth explanatory notes.
The book is translated by Gaye Kynoch and edited by Professor Kirsten Shepherd (English) and Tzen Sam. Kirsten and Tzen's research into the relationship between Ibsen and Kieler was the subject of a TORCH KE Fellowship 2021-23, and forms the basis of Breach Theatre's new show Burning Down The House, which will tour to the Schwarzman next year.
