In this series, CENTRAL researchers will talk about their latest explorations of theatre and performance, sharing their new material and/or writing, and discussing questions of research methods, but also research problems and open questions.

These short ‘work in progress’ presentations will offer opportunities for response, discussion and a sharing of ideas about these ongoing research projects.

Dr Diana Damian Martin:  Balconies: Eastern Europe and the poetics of discontinuity

This presentation revolves around a series of images of balconies by artist Dan Perjovschi. I explore how these images present the balcony as collapsing categories of movement and stillness, East and West, occupation and resistance, and ask: how does the balcony intervene into cultural narratives of Eastern Europe and its political discontinuities?

Dr Gareth White:  In the midst of a re-staged revolution: compliance and contradiction in Counting Sheep

Mark and Marichka Marczycks’ Counting Sheep invites us to join the Maidan Square rebellion in Kiev, five years after the event, in a participatory performance of celebration and lament and a cry for recognition of an ongoing conflict. Getting swept up in simulated politics like this raises questions: how do we recognise ourselves in the actions we take in the performance? How do we recognise the conflict that we have helped to simulate?