The Performance Research Group has faculty wide membership drawing on researchers from across MMP, the School of English and Sociology. The research focus of the group is predominantly driven by interest and activities in contemporary performance practice and some of its members are working with a number of the UK’s most progressive companies. The focus of the group is driven by its membership whose research interests centre largely on multimedia and new media performance modes including digital performance, site specific, networked performance and dance and screen as well as pedagogic research interests in the teaching of performance practice in the 21st century. Linked to the Performance Research Group is the New Performance Paradigms network set up by Mary Oliver in 2007. This international group has brought together a world renowned group of theorists and practitioners from the field of contemporary performance practice with a focus on the research and exploration into new modes of performance in the 21st Century. A first international symposium in November 2007 was held at Salford’s state of the art Think Lab and explored the subject of new languages in performance. Chaired by Visiting Professor Philip Auslander who revisited concepts of Liveness, the speakers were Professor Amelia Jones, Paul Sermon, Matthew Causey, Toni Sant, Ming Yuen Ma, Misri Dey, Niki Woods, Julia Wilson, Jem Kelly, Michelle Riel, and Weng Choy Lee who presented online from Singapore. More symposia are planned for this new network in 2009.
Our research focus summary includes
- New Performance Paradigms
- Contemporary Devised Performance
- Site
- Digital Performance
- Pedagogic Research
Mary Oliver
Performance Research Group Director
m.oliver@salford.ac.uk