Sarah Gorman

Co-convenor of MA London's Theatres: Viewing Making Writing.

BA (Hons) University of Kent at Canterbury (1991); MA Contemporary Theatre Practice, Lancaster University (1993); PhD, Lancaster University (2002); Senior Fellow of HEA

Gender & Sexuality in performance, Live Art and performance, Contemporary Experimental Theatre in the US and UK; Post-Humanism and Performing Failure, Live Art into Theatre; Stand-up comedy

I have written about the work of: Lisa Watts, Project O, Bobby Baker, Selina Thompson, Lauren Barri Holstein, Rachael Young, Nic Green, Jerome Bel, Candoco, Ursula Martinez, Annie Siddons, Bryony Kimmings, Forced Entertainment, Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players, Janet Cardiff, Wendy Houstoun, Anders Harm, Theater HORA, Hester Chillingworth, Young Jean Lee, GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN, Tracy Emin, Sarah Kane, Blast Theory, Ontroerend Goed, Uninvited Guests, Lucy McCormick, Bridget Christie, Lolly Adefope, Shazia Mirza, Hannah Gadsby, Lucy Hutson, Lois Weaver, Kate Bornstein, Young Jean Lee

My second mongraph with Routledge  Women in Performance: Repurposing Failure was published July 2020

I co-edited a special edition of Contemporary Theatre Review on Contemporary  Feminist Theatre and Performance with Gerry Harris and Jen Harvie. Volume 28, Issue 3

I am developing a series of interviews with female experimental theatre and performance practitioners entitled Performance Dialogues available at https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com

The Theatre of Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players was published by Routledge Research in May 2011

Other activities include:

• Keynote Presentation at Borderlines VII: Performing Through the Unknown Conference, De Montfort University, 20th June 2019 - 'You Can Say Much More Interesting Things about a Scar than you Can About a Wound: Selina Thompson's salt. as an act of Radical Softness'
• 'Stubborn Stains: Challenging Menstrual Taboo through Performance' - Lived Body in Performance Symposium, Leeds University, 3rd April 2019

• ‘Lisa Watts: An Artists’ Practice as Research’ invited talk on the work of Lisa Watts and documentation for Practice-led PhDs, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, November 22nd 2018
  

• 'Lisa Watts:Resisting Disciplinary Boundaries in Not a Decorator' chapter in Four Hundred and Twenty-Nine Significant Moments: Documenting and Artist’s Research and Processes

• 'Questions of Diversity in the work of Selina Thompson, Jamila Johnson-Small and Season Butler' - paper at IFTR Conference, July 2018 - Feminisms Working Group, Belgrade, Serbia
  

• ‘It is from failure that we learn to be truly amazing instinctual artists’ – Interview with Rachael Young, 2018, part of Performance Dialogues project. https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• ‘Femme in and of itself is a failure of femininity’ – Interview with Lois Weaver, 2018, part of Performance Dialogues project. https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• ‘Seriously Drunk: Anders Harm and Wendy Houstoun fall “under the influence”' Performance Research, Volume 23, No 4/5 - Centenary Edition
  

• 'History of Feminism at Battersea Arts Centre' - invited talk as part of BAC's Town Hall Talks, December 2017

• ‘Frames of Legibility: Ambiguous Irony' - paper presented to Performance, Identity, Community Working Group at Theatre & Performance Research Association (TAPRA) Conference, Salford, August-September 2017

• ‘Performance Dialogues: Interview with Lauren Barri Holstein’, November 2017,  https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• 'You can say much more interesting things about a scar than you can about a wound' Interview with Selina Thompson, August 2017, https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• ‘Blog: Excavating History: A Reflection on Works by Selina Thompson’ – guest blog for A Younger Theatre.com, https://www.ayoungertheatre.com/excavating-history-a-reflection-on-works-by-selina-thompson/ 25^th July 2017

• ‘Overflow: Challenging Menstrual Taboo Through Performance’ readingasawoman blog, posted July 28^th 2017 https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• ‘Interview with Karen Christopher’ readingasawoman blog, posted May 29^th 2017 https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com/

• “Performing Failure? Anomalous Amateurs in Jérôme Bel’s Disabled Theater and The Show Must Go On 2015” in Contemporary Theatre Review (2017) 27:1, pp. 92-103

• 'Montage and Quotation; Forced Entertainment's Early to Middle Years' in British Theatre Companies: From Fringe to Mainstream edited by Graham Saunders (2015)(ed.) London:  Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 189-212.

• 'Feminist Disavowal or Return to Immanence? The Problem of the Naked Female Form in Nic Green's Trilogy and Ursula Martinez My Stories Your Emails' Feminist Review 105 (Autumn 2013)

• 'The Mythology of Sarah Kane: How to Avoid Reading 4:48 Psychosis as a Suicide Note' ANGLOFiles have kindly given me permission to reprint this article (written in 2002) on my website here: https://readingasawoman.wordpress.com

TAPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association), PSi (Performance Studies International); IFTR (International Federation of Theatre Research)

External Examining:

• Royal Holloway University of London: Drama and Theatre BA (Hons) Programme, September 2014 - 2018
• Queen Mary University of London: Drama BA(Hons) Programme, January 2010 - June 2013.
• Kingston University: Drama BA(Hons) Programme, September 2009 - July 2011.
• University of Glamorgan: Drama Theatre & Media BA(Hons) Programme, September 2004 - 2008.
• Brunel University: London MA in Contemporary Performance Making, November 2004 - 2008.

External Validation:

• MA Live Art, Queen Mary University of London, January 2018
• MA Drama, University of Glamorgan, Cardiff, March 2010.
• BA Performing Arts Pathway, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, November 2005 and February 2006.
• Foundation Degree in Small Scale Theatre, University of Surrey, July 2004.
• MA Advanced Theatre Practice, Central School of Speech and Drama, London, February 2002.

PhD Supervision/Assessment:

• Currently supervising: Rebecca Tadman (TECHNE)
• External Examiner for 5 PhD students: Lisa Watts, Edinburgh College of Art, July 2010, 'Art that Presents the Living Body' (PAR); Jessica Hartley, Central School of Speech and Drama, April 2012, 'Guided Practices in Facing Danger: Experiences in Teaching Risk'; Sylwia Dubkowska, Royal Holloway University of London, January 2014 'Ontology of Absence'; Lauren Barri Holstein, QMUL, The Agency of the Displayed Female Body' January 2015 (PAR); Sarah Crews, University of South Wales, 'Wrestling with Barker' (PAR), June 2016   
• External Examiner for MRes: Annouchka Bayly, University of Warwick, December 2010, 'Performing Medea'
• External Supervisor for Hannah Gravestock, 'Drawing the Performing Body' (PAR), University of the Arts, London. Degree awarded June 2011.
• Internal Examiner for 6 PhD students - Rachel Zerihan, 'Catharsis in Works of Contemporary Female Performance', Rachel Lehrman 'Communicative Dynamics of Artistic Collaboration' (both Autumn 2008); Charlie Fox, 'In the Event of Laughter' (June 2010); Chris Davey, 'Boylesque Performance' (Sept 2015), Niki Orfanou, 'The New Dramatic Play' (March 2017); Rachael Nicholas, 'Absent Encounters: Audiences of Theatre Broadcasts and the Changing Cultural Value of Watching Shakespeare on "Stage" in the Twenty-First Century' (November 2019)
• Supervised to completion: Raymond Justin Hunt (2013); Eeva-Mari Haikala (2016); Claire Read (2018); Renata Gaspar (2019)

Other External Roles:

• Member of Board of Directors for London based performance company Lightwork, 2005 -ongoing Contributing to policy governing development and funding of Here's What I Did With my Body One Day (2005), Sarajevo Story (2007), The Good Actor (2011).
• Member of Advisory Board for GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN 2015-2017

I teach on a range of postgraduate and undergraduate modules -  Research Methods in Theatre and Performance (MA);  Theatre Workshop 1 (practice-led introduction to the canon),  Production Project 2 (production module;  Performing Failure (Year 3 research-led class), Critical Frameworks (Year 2 class) and contribute to our Research Student Development Programme.

View my website

https://www.roehampton.ac.uk/research-centres/drama-theatre-and-performance-research/

http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/Research-Centres/Research-Group-in-Sex-Gender-and-Sexuality/