- ‘Dance against the void’: Derek Jarman, dance, queer classical receptions Bell, Marcus. 2024. ‘Dance against the void’: Derek Jarman, dance, queer classical receptions. Classical Receptions Journal, 16(2), pp. 178-193. ISSN 1759-5134
- Bell, M. (2022) Review of Gianvittorio-Ungar, L. and K. Schlapbach (eds.) Choreonarratives: dancing stories in Greek and Roman antiquity and beyond Bell, Marcus. 2022. Bell, M. (2022) Review of Gianvittorio-Ungar, L. and K. Schlapbach (eds.) Choreonarratives: dancing stories in Greek and Roman antiquity and beyond. Bryn Mawr Classical Review, ISSN 1055-7660
- INFERNO: Catastrophically Queer Bell, Marcus. 2021. INFERNO: Catastrophically Queer. Agôn. Revue des arts de la scène, 9, ISSN 1961-8581
Marcus Bell
Staff details
Marcus is a queer dance scholar investigating tragedy, choreography and decolonial queer performance practices.
Marcus teaches tragedy, queer theory, queer performance, and theatre history. They are a dancer and queer theatre maker with a PhD on 'Choreographing Tragedy into the Twenty-First Century'.
Considering work by Akram Khan, Pina Bausch, Trajal Harrell, Dimitris Papaiouannou, and Gisèle Vienne they align queer theory and practice in theatre and performance studies with choreography and critical theory.
Marcus is a co-convener of the Queer Futures Network of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR), they also work within the collaborative network: Critical Ancient World Studies. Marcus co-convenes the international research network ("https://queerandtheclassical.org"), whose objective is to generate radical imaginaries, methodologies, and feelings after the Classical, broadly defined.
They are also a researcher with dyslexia always happy to talk about the challenges/strategies for neurodivergent and neuroqueer work.
Academic qualifications
- BA – King's College London 2017
- MA – King's College London 2018
- PhD – University of Oxford 2023
Teaching and supervision
I am interested in supervising projects on the following topics:
-queer performance
-experimental performance
-dance and/or choreography
-decoloniality
-ecologies
-tragedy
-classical reception
And I teach on the following courses:
Research interests
My research has two major threads. On the one hand, I examine queer performance practice, experimental form, and the intersection of queer performance and theory. This work gravitates toward choreography as a modality for critical re-imaginations of the political, ethical and social. Expanding the choreographic as I work towards a capacious account of the tension between queer practices of deconstruction, failure, decay and the resurgence of colonial and imperial structures of power. On the other hand, I work with and through tragedy and the tragic. I do so to develop my analysis of the decompositional to include forms of cultural production that reckon with the catastrophic, revolutionary and with moments of overwhelme and loss that give way to radical modes of transformation. My work sketches emergent understandings of tragedy to develop a critical and anti-hierarchical model of the tragic – suggesting redefinitions of and shifts in performance's relationship to dominant forms of cultural value.
I have published on queer dance as a kinetic and fleeting mode of reception in the work of Derek Jarman; experimental performances of tragedy, embodied through practices of failure, within the context of the queer rave; and I have argued for a reconfiguration of dominant narratives around liveness and presence in the reception of tragedy – through queer choreographic practice – by attending to absence, ghostliness, and the speculative.
Forthcoming publications consider dance, queerness, the tragic, and the ruin in the work of Gisèle Vienne; an interweaving of the work of José Esteban Muñoz and Lauren Berlant in a reading of Euripides' 'Bacchae'; tragedy and the dying act in Pina Bausch's 'Rite of Spring' ; and further writing on contemporary practice and queer theory for Contemporary Theatre Review.
I am currently working on a monograph project that emerged from my doctoral thesis and a second project on queerness, choreography, tragedy and extinction.
Featured publications
2024: “I’ve been looking for things that last”, Contemporary Theatre Review, Interventions
2021:
'INFERNO: Catastrophically Queer', Agôn, 9 | 2021 Agon: revue de les arts de la scene 2021-09 | journal- article
Queer lives are in constant conversation with failure. But what use is this to queer folk? This paper considers the queer performance rave INFERNO and its takeover of the Institute of Contemporary Art
2021:
'Daphnis and Chloe at a rave last summer', Harris, C. and L. Markaki (Eds.) Love Spells & Rituals for Another World'
An auto-theoretical and future justice focused act of Classical Reception. This queer performance studies driven chapter thinks back to Daphnis and Chloe's appearances the rave.
Publications and research outputs
Article
- Review: Ocean Hester Stefan Chillingworth, Blood Show, Battersea Arts Centre, 12-23 November 2024: Transition, violence, and the choreographic Bell, Marcus. 2025. Review: Ocean Hester Stefan Chillingworth, Blood Show, Battersea Arts Centre, 12-23 November 2024: Transition, violence, and the choreographic. Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies, 7(2), pp. 137-142. ISSN 2515-0073
- "I’ve been looking for things that last” Bell, Marcus. 2024. "I’ve been looking for things that last”. Contemporary Theatre Review, ISSN 1048-6801
- “May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth”: An Aesthetics of Fracture Bell, Marcus. 2024. “May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth”: An Aesthetics of Fracture. Contemporary Theatre Review, 35(2), ISSN 1048-6801
Book Section
- Cruel Futurity in Euripides’ "Bacchae" Bell, Marcus. 2025. Cruel Futurity in Euripides’ "Bacchae". In: Connie A Bloomfield-Gadelha and Edith Hall, eds. Time, Tense and Genre in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Queer Ruins at the End of the World: Gisèle Vienne’s "Crowd" Bell, Marcus. 2025. Queer Ruins at the End of the World: Gisèle Vienne’s "Crowd". In: Ezra Baudou and Anne-Violaine Houcke, eds. Ruin and Ruination: Staging Antiquities in Contemporary Cinema and Theatre. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Dance, Tragedy and the Dying Act: Pina Bausch’s "Rite of Spring" Bell, Marcus. 2025. Dance, Tragedy and the Dying Act: Pina Bausch’s "Rite of Spring". In: Cécile Dudouyt; Sofia Frade and Justine McConnell, eds. Reshaping Reception: Archiving and Performing Antiquity.
Professional projects
I co-convene a set of research networks which aim to further interdisciplinary study on Dance, and Theatre and Performance including the Queer Futures Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. I am an archival-researcher at the Archive for Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD). I am also working with the Critical Ancient World Studies collective on a collective book project (forthcoming).
Research projects
Conferences and talks
2025:
Thick and Tight, in conversation
Thick & Tight is a queer dance theatre company co-directed by Daniel Hay-Gordon and El Perry. For this Dansox event, Daniel and El will be presenting an open rehearsal of a new solo called The Leopard
2025:
Lil Buck and and Benoit-Swan Pouffer, in conversation
DANSOX and the University of Oxford Cultural Programme are delighted to invite you to a special evening with pioneering dance artist and choreographer Lil Buck. The event will include an exclusive co
2025:
Choreotragedy: Dance and the Queer Tragic Turn
Chorus International Performance Research Network, April 2025
2024: ‘“What kind of world is this in which” - Queer Tragedy Now, an Aesthetics of Collapse’, International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR), Our State
2024: Disassembling the world – Trajal Harrell’s “Deathbed”; Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney’s “Figures in Extinction [1.0]”’. Performance Studies Internati
2024: 'Dance Against the Void', Performance Research Forum, Goldsmiths, 6 February 2024
2023: ‘Encountering Absence: queer traces and performance otherwise in Trajal Harrell’s Antigone Jr ++’, Tragedy Queered, 6—7 July 2023, International Con
2024: Dimitris Papaioannou in Conversation, 4 March 2024
2024: ‘Eat the Rich’ Tragedy and the Aesthetics of Violence, Chorus, International Performance Research Network, April 2024
2021:
‘Staging Wild: Non-Human Subjectivity in Performance’
Co-delivered with Jordan Tannahill, Re-Imagining Performance Network, University of Oxford 6 December 2021
2021:
Dimitris Papaioannou: Notation, Gesture, Reenactment , Response
DANSOX Summer School 2021: Unfolding Gesture: Movement, Inscription, Music.
2020: Pina Bausch and Tragedy
2020:
On tragic pleasure in Harry Clayton Wrights Deep Clean
Delivered talk at Oxford’s Queer Studies Network
2019:
Mis-step in Time: Dancing Elsewhere and Elsewhen in Euripides’ Bacchae
Part of the Time, Tense, and Genre conference, King’s College London
2019:
Queer Contexts and Communal Hauntings: Re-enacting Neil Greenberg’s Not-About- AIDS-Dance’ through Euripides’ Bacchae
19th Annual Joint Postgraduate Symposium on Ancient Drama, APGRD
Journalism and blog posts
I have also written critical reviews and reflections also accessible below:
A review of Simon Stone's 'Phaedra', here ("https://theconversation.com/national-theatres-phaedra-review-suicide-tragedy-leaves-a-bad-taste-201018")
'Queer Theory and Classics’, Classical Reception Studies Network Blog, Realigning Receptions Takeover ("https://classicalreception.org/queer-theory-and-classics/")
‘Beyond the Text: Memories and Thoughts from our Danced Chorus Workshops’, 2020 co-authored with E. Baudou & A. Middleton for the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama Blog ("http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/digital-resources/blog/2020-04-06")