Essays and Research
A collection of essays and research in the field of Theatre and Performance.
My research practice focuses on representational ethics, aesthetics of trauma, and postdigital performance process.
A Shimmering in the Centre
Materiality and Fiction in Theatrical Violence
Submitted as part of my MFA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, this thesis interrogates the unique aesthetics and phenomenologies arising from theatrical representations of trauma and cruelty.
Something for Nothing
Consent, Coercion and Volunteerism
in Artistic Labour
This essay discusses Marina Abramović's 2011 creative direction of the Museum of Contemporary Arts's annual fundraising event, in which a host of young performance artists were enlisted to recreate Abramović's previous works for startlingly little remuneration. I consider the ethics of volunteerism in artistic labour, arguing for an egalitarian economics that can accommodate 'amateurism' while avoiding exploitative systems of unpaid labour.
The Weight of History
Affective Labour in Andrew Bovell's The Secret River
This analysis considers Andrew Bovell's 2013 theatrical adaptation of Kate Grenville's The Secret River, commissioned by the Sydney Theatre Company. It attempts to provide a critical rejoinder to previous readings of the text as operating within a Brechtian mode intended to expose the systemic violences of the Australian colonial project, contending instead that Bovell's piece utilises targeted forms of embodied labour to 'mark' its performers bodies and psyches with the trauma of settler violence — thereby allowing this trauma to become more deeply present for an audience.