Dr Katerina Paramana
Senior Lecturer in Theatre

Summary

Dr. Katerina Paramana (Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor) is an artist-scholar, Research Lead for Theatre, PGR Director for the CBASS Global Lives Research Centre, Lead of the CBASS Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group, and Lead of the Arts and Humanities' Research Peer-Mentoring Scheme for Academic Staff.

In broad terms, Katerina's interdisciplinary research is concerned with the socio-political and ethical dimensions of contemporary performance. It brings into conversation performance (both theory and her artistic practice), political economy, critical theory, philosophy, and cultural and social theory. Her current research focuses on the relationship between performance and political economy. She is interested in how bodies affect and are affected by political economies at micro and macro levels and in the ethico-political challenges that contemporary performance practices propose to the political economies in which they are created and presented. Her Routledge monograph Contemporary Performance and Political Economy: Oikonomia as a New Ethico-Political Paradigm is in press and available to pre-order, and has been lauded by international leaders in the field. Her previous books Performance, Dance and Political Economy: Bodies at the End of the World (2021, Paramana and Gonzalez) and Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object (2020, Whatley, Sarah, Racz, Imogen, Paramana, Katerina, and Crawley, Marie-Louise), published with Bloomsbury Academic and Palgrave Macmillan respectively, also received high praise from reviewers. Her research has been additionally published with refereed academic journals including Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review, GPS: Global Performance Studies, Dance Research, and Filozofski Vestnik. Her practice-based research, further discussed below, has been presented in theatres and galleries in the UK, US, and Europe, and she has performed for renowned artists in high profile venues internationally. 

Katerina has received funding and awards for her theoretical and practice-based research from AHRC (the Arts and Humanities Research Council), the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, The British Society of Aesthetics, Santander Universities, Gasworks Gallery/Pedro Lagoa, and the Hellenic Centre of the International Institute of Theatre, as well BRIEF, BRIL, and Research Seminar Series Awards from Brunel University of London. She was an Associate Researcher with Performance Matters, an AHRC-funded creative research project and collaboration between University of Roehampton, London, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Live Art Development Agency, investigating the cultural value of performance (directed by Adrian Heathfield, Gavin Butt, and Lois Keidan). In 2023, Katerina was shortlisted at Brunel for a Research Impact Award.

Katerina has international leadership experience in research and education, and consults on related matters. She is founding editor of the journal section 'Political Economy and the Arts' at Lateral, the refereed journal of the Cultural Studies Association, USA (2022 - present); the issue Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics and Well-Being is in press for Lateral journal's Fall 2024 13(2) issue. She is also founding book series co-editor of the Bloomsbury press interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue (four books), an assessor on the AHRC Peer Review College for techne (AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership), and on the Editorial Board of Body, Space, & Technology journal. She has served on the Board of Directors of Performance Studies International (PSi) and on the Executive Committee of the Society for Dance Research. She serves on Performance Studies International (PSi) Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism, which she co-founded. She is also an Onassis Scholars' Association Member and Mentor, and has examined PhD projects in UK and Europe. She is a member of consultation, education policy, programme design and (re)validation, and tenure and promotion committees internationally. 

Katerina's internationally presented performance practice and practice-based research draws on theatre, the visuals arts, and dance and takes the form of experimental theatre, performance, installation-, and lecture-performance. Through its consideration of the relationship between image, body, time, context, and the encounter with the spectator, her work explores the political, philosophical, social, and ethical dimensions and potentials of performance. It has been presented in theatres, studios, and galleries in the UK, US, and Europe, in venues such as Gasworks Gallery, The White Building, ]performance s p a c e [, Laban Theatre, The Place, and Toynbee Studios in London; the Institute of Design at Stanford University; the Kultuhuset in Stockholm; Galeria Boavista in Lisbon; and the Michael Cacoyannis Theatre in Athens. Katerina has also collaborated as a performer with various theatre, performance, and dance companies and artists in the UK and the US (e.g. Tino Sehgal, Washington Improv Theatre (WIT), Blair Thomas, Ilona Sagar, Ivana Müller, The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, Bojana Cvejic and Christine De Smedt, Janez Janša, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Nejla Yatkin, Deviated Theatre, Lea Anderson, Simon Vincenzi, and Risa Jaroslow). She has performed at venues including the Barbican Theatre, National Theatre Studio, Tate Modern, Southbank Centre, Laban Theatre, and Siobhan Davies Studios in London; the Michael Cacoyannis Theatre and Duncan Dance Research Centre in Athens; the Kennedy Centre, Kogod Theatre, Greenberg Theatre, Kay Theatre, GALA Theatre at Tivoli Square, Dance Place, and the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C.; the Chicago Cultural Centre and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Centre in Chicago; and the Lincoln Centre in NYC. From 2015-2018, Katerina was a Participating Artist of Sadler’s Wells Summer University, which was led by Jonathan Burrows and Eva Martinez.

The above research and twenty years' professional industry experience inform Katerina's programme and module design and delivery, and her teaching of theory and practice. She has fifteen years' HE experience designing courses and teaching practical workshops, seminars, and lectures across theatre, performance, live art, dance, critical theory, and philosophy on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (see 'Teaching Activities'). She has also supervised to completion BA, MA, and PhD dissertations, examined PhD projects in the UK and Europe, and delivered seminars and workshops for the techne AHRC Doctoral Training Programme. Prior to her appointment at Brunel in 2016, Katerina taught and supervised UGs, PGTs, and PGRs at Birkbeck, University of London, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Coventry University (where she was also postdoctoral researcher), Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and University of Roehampton, London. She has been part of programme design and (re)validation committees internationally. Many of Katerina's students are now successful artists and academics.

Katerina is Fellow of the Higher Education Adacemy (FHEA) and holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance from University of Roehampton, London, an MA in Contemporary Performance and Choreography from Trinity Laban Conservatoire, a BA in Theatre, and a BA in Dance from University of Maryland, College Park (US). Her PhD studies were funded by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.

Qualifications

FHEA, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

PhD in Theatre and Performance, University of Roehampton, London, UK. Funded by the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation

MA in Contemporary Performance and Choreography, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, London, UK

BA in Theatre, University of Maryland, College Park, US

BA in Dance, University of Maryland, College Park, US

Responsibility

Current Roles at Brunel:

• Research Lead for Theatre (2022 - present)
• Lead of the CBASS Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group (2022 - present)
• PGR Director for the CBASS Global Lives Research Centre (2022 - present); Member since 2020.
• Lead of the Arts and Humanities Department Research Peer-Mentoring Scheme for Academic Staff (2022 - present)
• Research Committee Member, Arts and Humanities (2022 - present)
• EDI Working Group Member, Arts and Humanities (2022 - present)
• Human Geography: Space, Place and Society Research Group Member (2022 - present)
• Arts, Health and Social Change Research Group Member (2023 - present)