Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca (UK)

Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca is Professor and Head of DAS Graduate School at the Academy of Theatre and Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca is Professor and Head of DAS Graduate School at the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts in the Netherlands. Her current research includes Performance Philosophy & Animals: Towards a Radical Equality – originally an AHRC Leadership Fellowship, now a long-term project. Her books include: The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy (Routledge, 2020) and Encounters in Performance Philosophy (Palgrave, 2014), both co-edited with Alice Lagaay; Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance (Palgrave, 2012); Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics (Intellect, 2013), co-edited with Will Daddario; and Deleuze and Performance (Edinburgh, 2009). She is a founding convener of Performance Philosophy, a founding editor of the Performance Philosophy book series (initially with Palgrave, now with Rowman & Littlefield) and a founding editor of the Performance Philosophy journal.
Will Daddario (USA)

Will is co-editor of the Performance Philosophy Book Series and Performance Philosophy Journal. He is author of Baroque, Venice, Theatre, Philosophy (Palgrave 2017), co-editor with Karoline Gritzner of Adorno and Performance (2014), co-editor with Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca of Manifesto Now! Instructions for Performance, Philosophy, Politics (2013), and author of numerous articles in theatre and performance studies. His current book projects focus on the poetry, theatre, and philosophy of Jay Wright. A theatre historiographer by training, Will is starting training to become a clinical mental health counselor in Fall 2020. This latest turn dovetails with his ongoing grief work at Inviting Abundance. Learn more at willdaddario.com.
Stuart Grant (Australia)

I am a Senior Lecturer in performance at Monash University. I write about performance phenomenology, site-specific performance, musical theatre, and a bunch of other more or less related topics. I play in the electronic punk band The Primitive Calculators and direct the ecological performance company, the Environmental Performance Authority. I am currently leading a project on experimental music in China, and facilitating collaborations between Australian and Chinese experimental musicians. As a convenor in PP I would like to seek out international networking opportunities, get involved in exploring possibilities with social media platforms, lend a hand with journal reviewing, and work to increase the presence of the organisation outside of the UK and US. One day we may be able to bring the biennial conference to Australia.
Wade Hollingshaus (USA)

Wade is the chair of Brigham Young University’s department of Theatre and Media Arts. He holds an M.A. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in Theatre Historiography and Performance Studies from the University of Minnesota. In his principal appointment, Wade teaches courses in performance studies, theatre historiography, literary and cultural theory, dramaturgy, and directing. He is an affiliate faculty member in the European Studies program, for which he teaches a course in Finnish Literature. He was also recently appointed as an Alcuin Fellow in the Honors Department, for which he co-teaches a course on literature and biology. In 2013, Wade published his first book: Philosophizing Rock Performance: Dylan, Hendrix, Bowie. Further work has been published in Theatre Topics, Scandinavian Studies, Review: The Journal of Dramaturgy, The Journal of Religion and Theatre, The Journal of Finnish Studies, TDR, Theatre Journal, and Ecumenica. Recently he co-edited a special section on “Performance Philosophy Pedagogy” for Theatre Topics. His new book project discusses musician Peter Gabriel and the theatricality of his work. He also publishes on Finnish theatre and performance. Wade currently serves in the American Society of Theatre Research as their liaison with the Theatre Library Association.
Einav Katan-Schmid (Germany)

Einav is a Postdoctoral Research Associate, at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Since I am coming from the practical dance world and have been leading my academic profession in philosophy, my main focus of research is philosophy of dance. My work is in the intersection of practice with theory and deals with questions that have both artistic and philosophical implications. I explore embodied practices as techniques of thinking and inquire their social, physical, and cognitive intervention. My book “Embodied Philosophy in Dance; Gaga and Ohad Naharin’s Movement Research” was published with the PP book series with Palgrave Macmillan (2016). Currently, I work with the Excellence Cluster; an Interdisciplinary Laboratory at Humboldt University of Berlin. I collaborate with the research group gamelab.berlin, where we design and stage research for movement possibilities and dancing in VR. Our project, “Playing with Virtual Realities,” questions how technology and embodied practices design and enact imagination and perceptual experience. I am passionate about interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary projects. Coming from in between disciplines and from diverse cultures of research and expression, I am always looking for the possibilities and the conditions that enable everybody to express the variety of their curiosities, knowledge, and expertise at their best.
Esa Kirkkopelto (Finland)

Esa is a philosopher, an artist-researcher and the convener of Other Spaces live art group. Since 2007, he has been working at the University of the Arts Helsinki as professor of artistic research. Currently he is in charge of developing the post-doc Centre for Artistic Research (C-FAR). His research focuses on the deconstruction of the performing body both in theory and in practice. He is the leader of a collective research project “Actor´s Art in Modern Times” on the psychophysical actor training (since 2008), and a member of the editorial board of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training and Performance Philosophy Journal and Performance Philosophy Journal. He is also the initiator of the International Platform for Performer Training. Having passed his PhD in philosophy at the University of Strasbourg, he is the author of Le théâtre de l´expérience. Contributions à la théorie de la scène (Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne 2008), as well as of many articles on philosophy of theatre, poetics, and politics.
Alice Lagaay (Germany)

Alice is Professor of Aesthetics and Cultural Philosophy in the Design Department at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg). She is a founding member of the Performance Philosophy network and co-editor of the Performance Philosophy book series at Rowman & Littlefield International. She has taught philosophy, media theory and cultural studies at universities in Berlin, Bremen, and Friedrichhafen. Her PhD (2007) was on the philosophy of voice and her post-doctoral research has been on figures of “negative performance”, with a special focus, in recent years, on the notion of “Creative Indifference” as formulated by the early 20th Century philosopher Salomo Friedlaender. During her years in the philosophy department of the University of Bremen, Alice worked closely with the Centre for Performance Studies and the theatre ensemble Theater der Versammlung directed by Jörg Holkenbrink. Together they have been actively involved in developing and applying modes of performative teaching, especially focusing on the teaching and generating of philosophical content. See here and here.
Theron Schmidt (Netherlands/Australia)

Theron works internationally as an artist, teacher, and writer. He has published widely on contemporary theatre and performance, participatory art practices, and politically engaged performance. He is Editor of the journal Performance Philosophy (performancephilosophy.org/journal), Associate Editor of Performance Research (www.performance-research.org) and Editor of Global Performance Studies (gps.psi-web.org). Previously he founded Contemporary Theatre Review’s online Interventions (contemporarytheatrereview.org). In addition to his academic research, he has written widely about contemporary performance and live art for a variety of publications, including magazines and artist books, and also as part of innovative critical writing projects that foster interaction between scholars, artists, and publics. He also makes performance as a solo and collaborative artist.
Anna Street (France)

Anna is currently a Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies in the English Department of Le Mans Université and holds a double-doctorate from the University of Paris IV – Sorbonne (English Studies – Theater) and from the University of Kent (Comparative Literature) and a Masters in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. She is the English-language translator for Les Petits Platons, a book collection designed to playfully present philosophy to children. Her activities within the Performance Philosophy network include co-founding the working group Genres of Dramatic Thought (2013), co-organizing international conferences (Paris 2014, Berlin 2014, Ljubljana 2016), and co-editing the volume Inter Views in Performance Philosophy (Palgrave 2017). Her research is devoted to the philosophical and political performative forces of comedy, from post-war theater to contemporary immigrant theater, and her current investigations also focus on water in its myriad forms, meanings, and mediums. Please check here for more details.
Naomi Woo (Canada/UK)

Originally from Canada, I am a pianist, conductor, and researcher, currently working as assistant conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. My PhD, from Cambridge University, used methodology from literary criticism, queer theory, performance studies, and auto-ethnography to explore the impossible in piano etudes by composers including John Cage, György Ligeti, and Nicole Lizée. I have shown interdisciplinary performance work at venues including Somerset House (London), Kettles Yard (Cambridge), and Kunsthalle Darmstadt, and performed as a pianist at Carnegie Hall. I collaborate frequently with artists, choreographers, and composers, including Sasha Amaya, Teppei Higuchi, and Sophie Seita. www.naomiwoo.com
Past conveners
Meghan Moe Beitiks (2015–2020)
Hilan Bensusan (2015–2019)
Luciana da Costa Dias (2015–2019)
Eve Katsouraki (2012–2021)
Alice Koubová (2015–2019)
Ramona Mosse (2015–2021)
Kélina Gotman (2012–2017)
Karoline Gritzner (2012–2020)
John Ó Maoilearca (2012–2020)
Freddie Rokem (2012–2017)
Dan Watt (2012–2019)
Mi You (2015–2019)