Members of the Research Group Theatre, Consciousness & Asian Performance, Lincoln School of Performing Arts:
Martin Curtis is a lecturer in drama in the Lincoln School of Performing Arts. Click here for further information.
Dr Arya Madhavan specialises in researching and writing on the traditional Indian Theatre, with particular reference to Kudiyattam, the oldest existing theatre form in the world today as well as Natyasastra, the Sanskrit treatise on theatre. She is a Kudiyattam performer with over 18 years of performance expereince from both India and UK. Her research and writing focuses on the aesthetics and praxis of Kudiyattam with an intention to develop new theoretical concepts derived from its practice. Arya completed her PhD from the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University in 2008, which focused on the acting and actor-training of Kudiyattam from the perspective of consciousness studies. Her first monograph was published in 2010 entitled “Kudiyattam theatre and the Actor’s Consciousness”. According to Boris Daussa-Pastor “Arya Madhavan’s book is a rare effort of theorization in kudiyattam that draws from Indian and Western scholarship. Rather than providing a descriptive account of kudiyattam practice she attempts to analyze elements of its acting technique under a number of theoretical frameworks” (Asian Theatre Journal, Fall 2010). Click here for further information.
Professor Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe studied English and Philosophy at the Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1994 he obtained his Ph.D. at the Department of Drama, Theatre and Media Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London. From 1994 to 2007, he was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Wales Aberystwyth. Since October 2007 he has been Professor of Drama at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts, University of Lincoln. He has numerous publications on the topic of Theatre and Consciousness to his credit, including Theatre, Opera and Consciousness: History and Current Debates (Rodopi, 2013) and is founding editor of the peer-reviewed web-journal Consciousness, Literature and the Arts and the book series of the same title with Rodopi. Click here for further information.
Susie Hennessy is currently undertaking postgraduate research at Loughborough University, focussing on French existential philosophy, and applying the theories established in the writings of Sartre, Camus, and De Beauvoir, to the drama, prose and poetry of Samuel Beckett. Exploring the concept of “being”, as opposed to the void, or “nothingness”, Susie’s current work is very much a continuation upon a consciousness studies-based theme, which she began to develop whilst completing her MA in Theatre and Consciousness at the University of Lincoln, where she is also in her third year of lecturing. Publications to date include, “Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata: An Intercultural Consciousness”, in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts (vol. 11, no. 2, August 2010), and “Etienne Decroux: A Corporeal Consciousness”, in Performing Consciousness (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 2010).
Dr Sreenath Nair studied Theatre and Performance studies at several Indian and British Universities: University of Calicut in 1992; Rabindra Bharathi University in 1995; Mahatma Gandhi University in 1997 and University of East Anglia, Norwich in 2002. He completed his PhD in 2005 at the University of Aberystwyth and in the same year he joined in the Department of Drama at the University of Lincoln as a Lecturer. His doctoral thesis on Restoration of Breath is a pioneering work in the field of intercultural performance theory and practice published by Rodopi in 2007. His research continues to develop on embodied methodology, the Natyasastra, rasa theory, neural mechanism of perception and intercultural performance theory on which he has been publishing scholarly articles and book chapters. He has been invited to several international conferences for Keynote lectures including Finland, Norway, Spain and India. He was awarded the Leverhulme International Fellowship in 2011. He accepted the Scholar-in Residence appointment at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2012. During his visit in the United States of America, he has lectured and conducted workshops for actors, dancers and singers at Columbia University and New York University on Restoration of Breath, a pioneering research combining ethnography, performance theory and intercultural theatre practice. He holds the honorary position of the Research Advisor of Doctoral Studies at the Dance Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand since 2013. He has organised the first International Natyasastra Conference in India in 2011 in collaboration with Banaras Hindu University at Varanasi, which was attended by eminent international scholars in the field such as Prof. Richard Schechner of New York University; Prof. Kristopher Byrski, Oriental Institute, Warsaw University; Dr. Lyne Bansat Boudon, University of Paris, France and Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan of India. He is Guest-editing two journal special issues on The Body for Intellect journal of Studies in South Asian Film and Media. His publications include: Restoration of Breath: Consciousness & Performance (Rodopi, 2007); Natyasastra & Indian Performance Studies (McFarland, 2013); Manikin Plays (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013. Click here for further information.