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 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.

Katerina has received funding 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, Research Seminar Series, and BRIL Research Awards from Brunel University of London. For example, in 2022 - 2023, Katerina curated and organised the research seminar series 'Performance and Political Economy: Bodies, Politics, and Well-Being in the 21st Century', for which she received a Research Seminar Series Award from Brunel University, and, in 2023, she was shortlisted for a Research Impact Award. In 2021, she received the BRIL Research Award ('Brunel Research Interdisciplinary Lab') for an interdisciplinary collaborative project with Brunel colleagues, while in 2019 she was awarded the BRIEF Research Award (‘BRUNEL RESEARCH INITIATIVE AND ENTERPRISE FUND’) as PI of a research project on political economy and performance. Her 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) were published with Bloomsbury Academic and Palgrave Macmillan respectively. Her research has also been published with refereed academic journals including Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review, GPS: Global Performance Studies, Dance Research, and Filozofski Vestnik. She was an Associate Researcher with Performance Matters, a four-year 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). Katerina also worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University, and from 2015-2018 she was a Participating Artist of Sadler’s Wells Summer University, which was led by Jonathan Burrows and Eva Martinez.

Katerina has international leadership experience in research and education. 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 interdisciplinary Book Series Dance in Dialogue (Bloomsbury Academic, four books). She is an assessor on the techne Peer Review College (AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership) and is on the Editorial Board of Body, Space, & Technology journal. She has also 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's) Advisory Committee on Antiracism and Anticolonialism, which she co-founded. She is also an Onassis Scholars' Association Member and Mentor, has examined PhD projects in UK and Europe, and is a member of consultation, research award, programme design and (re)validation, promotion, and tenure committees internationally.

Katerina's international performance practice draws on theatre, the visuals arts, and dance and takes the form of 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 companies and artists in the UK and the US (e.g. Tino Sehgal, 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.

The above research and industry experiences inform Katerina's teaching of both theory and practice, as well as her module and programme design and delivery. She has fifteen years' experience 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 Brunel, where she has been designing, leading, and teaching modules since 2016, Katerina taught and supervised UGs, PGTs, and PGRs at, among others, Birkbeck, University of London, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), Coventry University, Trinity Laban Conservatoire, and University of Roehampton, London. She has been part of programme design and (re)validation committees internationally.

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 Choreography from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, 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 Choreography, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, UK

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

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

Responsibility

Research Lead for Theatre 

Lead of the CBASS Performance, Cultures and Politics Research Group

PGR Director for the CBASS Global Lives Research Centre

Lead of the Arts and Humanities Department Research Peer-Mentoring Scheme for Academic Staff

Research Committee Member, Arts and Humanities

EDI Working Group Member, Arts and Humanities

Member of the Human Geography: Space, Place and Society Research Group 

Member of the Arts, Health and Social Change Research Group