Dr Nicolas Whybrow
BA (Hons), MA, PhD (all University of Leeds)
Biography
Nicolas Whybrow is Associate Professor (Reader) in Theatre and Performance Studies, having joined the School early in 2004 from De Montfort University, Leicester. Prior to that he held full-time posts at the universities of Leeds and Lancaster.
At undergraduate level Nicolas studied modern languages and literature before doing an MA in the Workshop Theatre of the School of English at the University of Leeds. Having worked subsequently as a professional performer for a range of small-scale companies in the UK, he opted to undertake doctoral research into the relationship between political commitment and radical theatre-making. He completed his PhD in 1993, also at the University of Leeds.
At Warwick Nicolas’s main teaching centres on Performance and Text in the second year, which is a practical and theoretical module on experimental approaches to making work and, in the third year, on the Performance and the Contemporary City option. The latter investigates performance that intervenes or operates directly within city sites, or which draws inspiration specifically from urban contexts. He also teaches the 'Live Art and Performance' component of Aspects of Theatre and Performance in the second year. In addition he supervises practical and theoretical research options in the third year and contributes lectures to the first year Introduction to Performance module. Nicolas supervises several postgraduate research students, including practice-based ones, and welcomes applications to study for MA by research, MPhil and PhD on areas of interest relating to those outlined below. He is the department's Director of Graduate Studies.
In 2010 Nicolas was a recipient of the £5,000 Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence.
Research Interests (statement)
My research interests revolve around site-specific practices, in particular performance’s relationship with the city. This often takes me into the realm of live art and installation work, with specific regard to both its performative and relational aspects. I am also interested in theories and practices of the everyday, as well as in experimental writing that seeks to integrate creative and critical concerns. I am a regular contributor to journals such as New Theatre Quarterly and Performance Research (including in the form of artist's pages) and until recently I was a member of the editorial board of Research in Drama Education journal, for whom I co-edited and introduced a special issue on site and place (in 2007). Currently I am co-editing (with Carl Lavery) the 'On Foot' issue of Performance Research (forthcoming April 2012).
My book, Street Scenes: Brecht, Benjamin and
In January 2012 I was invited to give a keynote on public art in the city of Turku in Finland. The event marked the conclusion of Turku's shared role (with Tallinn, Estonia) of European Capital of Culture in 2011. In recent times I have been invited to give papers at several Performance Studies international (PSi) conferences (in Mainz, Singapore, New York City, Toronto and Utrecht), as well as in a variety of disciplinary contexts (including Media Studies, German Literature, Contemporary Dance, Geography, Sociology, Film Studies, Architecture and Visual Art). In May 2010 I gave an introductory public lecture at the screening of Jean Vigo's À Propos de Nice (1930) and Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927) as part of the British Film Institute's Essential Experiments season at the National Film Theatre.
In 2009 I was awarded an academic fellowship by Warwick University's Reinvention Centre to undertake a research project with students doing my 3rd year Performance and the Contemporary City module in the academic year 2009/10. Entitled Performing Venice: Questions of a Sinking City, the project involved embarking on a field trip to Venice and subsequently creating an 'embodied mapping' of the city. See Links below for Performing Venice Reinvention Centre Fellowship website.
Publications (2000 onwards)
Books (single-authored)
(2011) Art and the City, London and New York: I.B Tauris (200pp).
(2005) Street Scenes: Brecht, Benjamin, and Berlin, Bristol and Portland,
Book (edited)
(2010) Performance and the Contemporary City: an Interdisciplinary Reader, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (300pp).
Chapters (in books)
(forthcoming 2012) “City”, Performance Studies: Keywords, Concepts and Theories, ed. B. Reynolds, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
(forthcoming 2012) "Losing Venice: Conversations in a Sinking City", Performance and the Global City, ed. DJ Hopkins and K. Solga, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
(2006) “Encountering the City: on ‘not taking yourself with you’” in Urban Mindscapes of Europe (European Studies 23 - Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics), ed. F. Bianchini and G. Weiss-Sussex, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp.97-109.
(2005) “Wracked Reichstag: Performative Interventions in the Berlin Seat of Power” in Macht: Performativität, Performanz und Polittheater seit 1990, ed. B. Haas, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, pp.155-163.
(2012) (with C. Lavery) On Foot issue of Performance Research, 17 (2), (144pp).
(2007) (with S. Mackey) On Site and Place issue, Research in Drama Education, 12 (1), (144pp).
Refereed articles
(2012) with Carl Lavery, “Editorial Pas de Deux”, Performance Research, 17 (2), pp.1-10.
(2011) "Situation Venice: Towards a Performative Ex-planation of a City", Research in Drama Education, 16 (2), pp.279-98.
(2007) (with S. Mackey) "Taking Place: Some Reflections on Site, Place and Community”, Research in Drama Education, 12 (1), pp.1-14.
(2007) “One Thing and Another: Tomoko Takahashi’s Crash Course@The University of Warwick”, Body, Space and Technology, 6 (2), (http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/sa/artresearch/bstjournal).
(2003) “Street Scene:
(2001) “Leaving Berlin: on the Performance of Monumental Change”, Performance Research, 6 (1), pp.37-45.
(2000) “Animating Morecambe: Forkbeard Fantasy Goes to the Ball”, New Theatre Quarterly, 16 (1), pp.3-16.
Practice as research (artist's pages)
(2010) "Venice Topologies/Sent to Coventry", Liminalities: a Journal of Performance Studies, 6 (1), online: http://liminalities.net/6-1/venice.html
(2006) “Streetscenes: the Accident of Where We Walk”, Performance Research, 11 (3), pp.123-6 [Lexicon issue in conjunction with documenta 12 magazines].
Conference organisation/event curation
(2008) Openings...: inaugural event marking the move into new facilities at Millburn House by the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick, 23 May.
Programme: performances by Motionhouse Dance, Adrian Howells, Phillip Warnell and The Plasticine Men, curated installation by Sarah Shalgosky (Mead Gallery), exhibition of photographs of Franko B by James Tye, talks by/interviews with Kevin Finnan of Motionhouse, Adrian Howells and Phillip Warnell, workshops by The Plasticine Men, reception and invited addresses by Professor Joseph Roach (Yale University) and Vice-chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift.
(2005) Body States: the pilot project (one-day performance symposium exploring the common concerns of live art and the history of medicine), University of Warwick Centre for the History of Medicine and School of Theatre and Performance Studies, Ellen Terry Building, Coventry University, 11th June (co-organiser and chair of final plenary).
Commissioned contributing artists: Phillip Warnell, Ansuman Biswas, Louise K. Wilson, Anna Dumitriu, Jude Gosling.
Links
024 765 24925 (direct)
024 765 23020 (office)
024 765 23297 (fax)
024 765 23020 (office)
024 765 23297 (fax)
G26, Millburn House
Office Hours (autumn term):
Mon 1.30-2.30pm, Thu 1-2pm
Modules taught 2011-12:
Study leave Spring 2012
Introduction to Performance
Live Art and Performance
Performance and Text
Performance and the Contemporary City
3rd Year Practical Option convenorship/supervision
