Research students

Supervisors

• Dr Göze Saner
• Gail Babb

Gabriel Díaz is a Chilean performing artist based in London.

He earned a degree in Theatre Making and Theatre Pedagogy in Chile and holds a Master's degree in Interdisciplinary Education of the Arts from the University of Barcelona, as well as an MA in Performance and Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance at the same university.

His research engages with postcolonial and postmigrant theatre, performances by Latin American artists, and the intersections of power dynamics, class, and gender in contemporary performances. In addition, he has trained as a voice and movement teacher under the tutelage of Kristin Linklater, Blandine Calais Germain, and Juan Carlos Corazza. With a history of performances and artistic residencies in Santiago de Chile, New York, Barcelona, and Buenos Aires, he is active in applied theatre, devising theatre, directing, and creative writing.

Supervisor

• Dr Philippa Burt

Supervisor

• Professor Irit Rogoff

Gunawan is the founder of the artistic collective Saksi Bisou. A migrant-led company that seeks to express the often inexpressible psychological landscapes of exile and migration. With Saksi Bisou, she recently presented a new headphone piece Promised Land (Bloomsbury Festival 2022), and is currently developing a new piece Prayers for a Hungry Ghost as part of Barbican Center’s Open Lab Programme.

As a writer, she is currently part of The Royal Court’s Introduction to Playwriting Program. In 2021, she was a recipient of Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice fund to begin her ‘Myths, Stories and Worlds’ research (née ‘Mythical Storytelling’), which continues to be the backbone of her practice today.

For the period of 2021-2022, she was a resident artist at the Grotowski Institute, and now at Goldsmiths, she continues this exploration.

Supervisors

• Dr Göze Saner
• Marie Gabrielle Rotie

Grace Joseph is a theatre director, access worker, and PhD researcher. Her PhD project, shaped by ongoing collaborations with disabled-led theatre companies, interrogates the aesthetics of access in both rehearsal and performance.

At Goldsmiths, she co-convenes the Performance Research Forum, the Department of Theatre & Performance’s long-running public research event series. As a theatre director, she has trained at the Young Vic, worked at Shakespeare’s Globe and Hampstead Theatre, and developed new writing with Camden People’s Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre.

She has also taught at Central School of Speech and Drama and Drama Studio London, and is on the editorial board of the postgraduate journal Platform.

She holds a BA in English from the University of Cambridge and a Level 3 in British Sign Language. More information about her research and performance projects can be found at gracejoseph.net.

Supervisors

• Dr Adam Alston
• Dr Philippa Burt

Eleanor Kilroy is a theatre facilitator, a CHASE (AHRC) funded doctoral student and associate lecturer. Her current PhD research examines what is unearthed when applied theatre workshops are used to explore pressures on young women to perform 'the perfect' on Instagram.

A sustained emphasis on using the arts to allow participants to re-negotiate everyday societal issues can be recognised through Eleanor's co-founding of Flow n Flux (2019 – present), a feminist initiative providing monthly creative workshops that centre around dominant issues in the lives of women and non-binary people.

Eleanor has a breadth of interdisciplinary teaching experience across theatre and performance and feminist media and cultural studies. Currently, she is based at Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts (LICA) and has recently convened a module on Environmental Performance.

Between 2019 - 2021, Eleanor taught on a wider variety of modules within the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies department at Goldsmiths. While undertaking her PhD, Eleanor has worked as a research assistant for a feminist symposium on Consent Media Cultures; as an events co-ordinator for the CHASE Feminist Network and as a member of the editorial team for the CHASE postgraduate journal.

Eleanor gained an MA in Performance in Culture at Goldsmiths and BA in Drama at Liverpool Hope University.

Supervisors

• Dr Cami Rowe
• Dr Sarah Cefai

Sanjeeb Kumar Dey is a theatre practitioner and teacher based in Bangladesh. He graduated in Theatre and Performance Studies from Dhaka University.

His research activities are mainly on theatre and performance in Bangla Community and Bangladesh. He has conducted several theatre workshops, environmental theatre projects and traditional games projects.

Sanjeeb is now doing his PhD at Goldsmiths on Access, Inclusion and Opportunity through theatre under the prestigious Commonwealth Commission Scholarship 2022.

Supervisor

• Professor Osita Okagbue

Hui is currently enrolled as a PhD researcher at Goldsmiths. Prior to his academic pursuits, he held full-time positions as a production manager and stage manager, while also engaging in playscript translation and writing, directing, and writing performance reviews.

His research focuses on the internal social dynamics of participatory theatre, examining their reciprocal relation to the staging of immediacy, intimacy, and reflexivity in live performances. Specifically, he explores participatory performances that involve social activities like collaboration, competition, community formation, inclusion, and exclusion.

Hui is also interested in contemporary ""gamified"" performances as platforms for discussing the mutual influence between theatre making and game design.

Hui holds an MA in Performance and Culture from Goldsmiths and a BA in Dramatic Arts from the National Taiwan University of Arts.

Supervisors

• Dr Adam Alston
• Dr Mischa Twitchin

Nina Kunzendorf is a theatre artist and PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations and the Department of Theatre and Performance. Her thesis explores how the theme of ‘female vengeance’ has played out in twenty-first-century theatre productions of Euripides’s canonical play Medea.

Nina’s research interests broadly concern feminist and queer theories on performativity, representation, and the body-space relationship. Her diverse artistic practice began as a set designer for theatre. She has since worked in various combinations as a designer, writer, director, performer, and filmmaker across theatres in London, Edinburgh, Munich, and Oslo.

Nina holds a BA in Performance: Design and Practice from Central Saint Martins, UAL and an MA in Art & Politics from Goldsmiths.

Supervisors

• Dr Bernadette Buckley
• Dr Adam Alston

Christopher was a teacher in London secondary schools for over forty years, with a continual interest in performing and writing for theatre.

Interest was shown by the National Theatre Script department and the Royal Court, representatives of which came to see early work at the South London Theatre. An excerpt from a full-length verse drama was directed by Tom Burke at RADA. His play 'The Strokes' was published in Platform magazine and directed by Guy Retallack at the Bridge House Theatre.

He gained an MA in Religious Education from Surrey University and an MA in Theatre (Playwriting strand) from Royal Holloway,University of London. Christopher is completing a practice-as-research PhD which involved the writing of two new plays: 'The Ruth Ellis Show' and 'Servants'.

Supervisor

• Dr Ben Levitas

Richard Shannon is Head of Radio and Module Leader for the Producer pathway in the MA in Musical Theatre at Goldsmiths, University of London.

He has recently written a chapter in the OUP Handbook of the Global Musical on the work of Cameron Mackintosh. He set up the Myanmar Group in 2013 and works with the National University of Arts and Culture, Yangon. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Richard is a published playwright, theatre director and radio drama producer. His play The Lady of Burma premiered at the Old Vic theatre in London in 2006. In 2012, the Dukes theatre, Lancaster produced his play, Sabbat – the story of the Pendle witches. He was a founding director of Independent Radio Drama Productions and has produced major series for LBC radio in London and National Public Radio in the USA.

He is the producer of the award winning podcast, Rainbow Dads and a judge for the British Podcasting Awards and the Audible Audio Production Awards. His theatre work includes productions at the Young Vic Studio, the Bristol Old Vic studio and the Redgrave theatre. Richard has also worked as a producer on major public events, including the Royal Opening of St. Pancras International.

Supervisor

• Professor Robert Gordon

Qi Wang is a theatre researcher. Her research interests are in post-modern theatre and European theatre. She holds an MA degree in theatre arts from Jilin University of Arts, China. She was also training at the theatre department of the Chinese Cultural University in Taiwan.

She has worked as an editor at the Chinese Theatre Press and Cultural and Arts Publishing House for three years in China.

In 2022, she gave a presentation at the Studies on Cross-Cultural Drama Conference held by the Communication University of China and Shanghai Theatre Academy. In 2023, she is invited to attend the IFTR conference in Ghana.

Supervisor

• Professor Clare Finburgh Delijani

A decade ago, upon venturing into the field of literature, I found myself more drawn to literary theory than literature itself. It was through the side door of French theory that I entered the world of cinema, a realm of impenetrable images. Now, after five years, I am still fascinated by the degraded reality that the Quay brothers showed me through a glass darkly.

Supervisor

• Dr Mischa Twitchin

Supervisors

• Pamela Karantonis
• Fiona Graham

Yue's research is motivated by the profound sense of void and darkness that is universally experienced by individuals. Her methodology involves a meticulous process of introspection, which includes psychological deconstruction, with a specific focus on autobiography, auto-fiction, memories, and psycho-geography.

Through this process, she examines themes of displacement, the fluidity and instability of identity, emotional states, and non-verbal communication (the body as language).

This rigorous exploration unfolds with a sense of intuition and liberation. The potency of her work lies in its vulnerability, Yue's creativity and practical work are always propelled by an unwavering commitment to foster collective healing. She invites the audience to delve into their own psychological and inner landscapes in search of the unknown.

Born in China and residing in the UK since 2005, Yue's academic background includes a Bachelor's degree in Textiles from the London College of Fashion (UAL) in 2013 and a Master's degree in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art in 2021. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses various mediums, such as moving image, performance art, installation, and mixed media. Before her MA studies, she worked as an executive producer and filmmaker in Shanghai, China.

Supervisors

• Dr Göze Saner
• Dr Molly McPhee