Research projects

Ecologies

Ongoing (Post)doctoral research:

• The Rhythm of Revolting Aesthetics in Brussels (Joachim Ben Yakoub, 2021-2023)
• 'Intermedia Performance Ecology: The Mixed Body Principle'. (Nina Vurdelja, 2017-2023)
• Dancing on Common Ground. Labor and Aesthetics in Contemporary European Dance from Center to Periphery and back again. (Annelies Van Assche BOF, 2019-2022)

• 'A Place Like Another': Research into the Representation of Migratory Movement in Contemporary Theatre. (Sophie van den Bergh, 2017-...)
• Towards a relational understanding of trauma narration in coping with collective violence and exile: The interdisciplinary development of community-based mental health interventions for refugee posttrauma care (Sofie de Smet, FWO, 2020-2023)
• Awareness of place. An anthropological research of memory and identity of Izmir City and the International Izmir Festival. (Hasan Isikli, 2010-)
• Learning to be funny. Training and social relationships in Rakugo. (Sarah Stark, 2017-)
• Audience Discomfort: A Study on the relation between audience and actor in Participatory Theatre, read with Martin Buber’s philosophy of Encounter (Eun Kyoung Shin, 2016-2019)

Completed Research Projects:

• Masks, Puppets and Performative Objects as tools of critique, resistance and agency in South Africa Developing a situational, embodied approach for dealing with the cultural trauma of apartheid.  (Marieke Breyne, NRF-FWO 2015-2017)
• Marqué par une image. Research into the status of the (film)image concerning the paradigms of memory in postdramtic aesthetics. (Sofie Verdoodt, FWO, 2008-2011)

Completed (Post)doctoral Research:

• Expanding the notion of trauma narration. An interdisciplinary research into post-narrative modes of trauma recovery in transcultural psychology and theatre studies. (Sofie de Smet, BOF, 2015-201
• Choreographies of Precariousness. A Transdisciplinary Study of the Working and Living Conditions in the Contemporary Dance Scenes of Brussels and Berlin. (FWO, 2014-2018)
• Scenology of Culture. Towards a philosophy of aesthetic resistance. (2016-2020)
• Staging self in the plays of cosmopolitanism. Language, authorship, migration. (Yana Meerzon, 2016-2020)
• The artist as diplomat in public space. Towards an ethico-ecological aesthetics in the work of the city residents of Vooruit. (2014-2018)
• Choreographing agonism. Chantal Mouffe's political philosophy and contemporary performing arts. (Goran Petrovic, 2013-2016)
• Denkmal oder Mahnmal? How should one come to terms with traumatic pasts and what is human in that context? (Jelena Juresa, Basileus, 2014-2018)
• Portraying the 'other'. Terrorism and contemporary art after 11/9. (Irfan Hosic, Baselieus, 2013-2014)
• Postdramatic theatre and performances as technologies of remembrance in a postmodern culture of memory. (Frederik Le Roy, BOF & FWO, 2007-2011)
• Suicide cultures. Theories and practices of radical withdrawal. A transnational cultural and media paradigm. (Marko Stamenkovic, Basileus, 2001-2011)
• Zäsur, difference, ursprung, irony. Hölderin and the gods of our times. (Stefan Hertmans, 2006-2010)

Histories 

Ongoing Research Projects:

• What Does Style Do? The Performativity of Style in the Neo-classical Period. ( UGent – Leiden University. Prof. dr. Bram Van Oostveldt PI, in collaboration with Prof. dr. Stijn Bussels, Leiden University, 2019 -...)
• Performing Magnificence in Early Modern Princely Culture (Prof. dr. Bram Van Oostveldt in collaboration with Prof. dr. Stijn Bussels PI, Leiden University and Dr. Gijs Versteegen, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Madrid, 2019-)

Ongoing (Post)doctoral research:

• Dadaist gender play an the metaphor of the machine in wartime Europe and America (1916-1922). (Sophie Doutreligne, FWO 2019-2023)
• Performing Dante: a comparative analysis over two-century fortune on European stages (XX-XXI centuries) (Sara Fontana, Verona 2019-2021)

   

Completed Research Projects:

• 1989 and GDR theatre. The transformation of aesthetics and institution after the system of change at Deutsches Theater in Berlin and the Theaterhaus Jena. (Hannah Speicher, 2015-2019)
  
• The other Antigone(s). Spotting the difference in contemporary tragedy. (Charlotte Grüber BOF, 2012-2016)
• The project Elfriede Jelinek: Werk und Wirkung. Annotierte Bibliografie (PI Pia Janke).
• Feestlokaal Vooruit: 100/30 jaar (im)materieel erfgoed. (PI Bruno De Wever, 2008-2013)
• The spectacle of socialism. A transnational and interdisciplinary study of protest repertoires, architecture and theatre for the people in four European cities (1900-1920). (PI Gita Deneckere, FWO, 2011-2016)
• Text theatricality. An integrated approach through narratology and performance studies. (PI Gunter Martens, FWO, 2013-2017)

Completed (Post)doctoral Research:

• Conversaciones ritmicas en el teatro del siglo XX. (Antonio Ramon Gazquez Martinez, 2016-2019)

• The economical exhuberance of operatic illusionism. Towards a new understanding of the stock set. (Bruno Forment FWO, 2012-2015)
• Grand Théâtre, café-concert and variety theatre in Ghent (1880-1914), Genealogy of practices of attention and distraction in relation to the economical-cultural context and the psycho-social experiences of the modern spectator. (Evelien Jonckheere, 2007-2014)

Ongoing Research Consortia:

• On Spectacle. (WOG - FWO)

Affiliated Research:

• Historical Theatre Research: Text, Performance and Production of Knowledge (Convener: Dr. Elke Huwiler, Universiteit van Amsterdam)

Technologies

Ongoing Research Projects:

• Artificial bodies. Living Machines in a laboratory of performative arts. (PI Malgorzata Sugiera, Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland, NCN, 2016-2019)

Ongoing (Post)doctoral Research:

• Digitising the indigenous and indigenising the digital: Using new technologies to create ethically-minded paths for circulation of traditional dances. (Jorge Poveda Yánez, FWO, 2021-2025)
• Between accessibility and aesthetics: the translator agency at work in multilingual, postdramatic theatre in Brussels. (Eline Denolf, FWO, 2020-2025)
• The essay following the new documentary turn in performing arts: Tracing the essay in contemporary theatre and performance practices. (Jasper Delbecke FWO, 2018-2022)
• The Sound of a Shared intimacy. A phenomenological-philosphical research into the heautonomous function of sound in performing arts (Leonie Persyn, 2017-2023)
• Staging the Self. The Contemporary Performance Practice of Musical Personae on and beyond the Actual and Virtual Stage. (Tessa Vannieuwenhuyze, 2018-)
• Images in Time and Space. The lives of images in contemporary theatre. (Jeroen Coppens, 2016-2019)

Completed Research Projects:

• Capturing Dance Movements, Intensities and Embodied Experiences(Laura Karreman FWO, 2012-2016) 

Completed (Post)doctoral Research:

• Towards a critical posthuman aesthetic. A performance-philosophical research into the configuration of posthuman figures on the contemporary stage of Kris Verdonck. (Kristof Van Baarle FWO, 2013-2017)
• Visually speaking. A research into visual strategies of illusion in postdramtic theatre. (Jeroen Coppens, 2009-2015)
• The Body and its Double. (Aneta Stojnic, Basileus, 2013-2014)
• Sound as inner movement in the transmission and experience of film. A phenomenological approach. (Martine Huvenne, 2003-2012)

Practices

Ongoing (Post)doctoral Research:

• Practicing Odin Teatret's archive: training transmission, interaction and creativity. (Adriana, La Selva, 2021-2025)
• Practicing Odin Teatret's archive: training transmission, interaction and creativity. (Ioulia Marouda, FWO, 2021-2025)
• Towards Documentary Choreography - Intermedial Approaches in Working with Extra-Aesthetic Materials. (Arkadi Zaides, 2021-2025)
• Music is a language without grammar. (Lisa Van der Aa, 2021-2027)
• Simple as ABC. Paradocumenting the management of unease. (Thomas Bellinck, KASK - School of Arts, 2016-2021)
• Dialogen met machines. (Joost Rekveld, KASK - School of Arts, 2016-2021)
• Create 'multi-reality'. Performance-based art intervention in the 21st century. (Sun Wei Wei, CSC - China Scholarship Council, 2015-2019)
• Episode 2. On art, social commitment and duplicity (Renzo Martens, KASK - School of Arts, 2009-)

Completed (Post)doctoral Research:

• Being in playing. (Jan Steen, KASK - School of Arts, 2008-2014)
• A la recherche du moment. Framing the moment. (Johan Opstaele, KASK - School of Arts, 2008-2014)
• The critical potential of stereotypes as theatre signs. The 'human zoo' as research tool. (Chokri Ben Chikha, KASK - School of Arts, 2007-2013)
• Her voice. An artistic research into the potential of the sensorial film image in alternative narrative structures. (Silvia Defrane, KASK - School of Arts, 2006-2012)
• Rewriting distance. Dance dramaturgy as a somatic and creative practice. The body talking and writing. (Guy Cools, 2008-2014)