Professor David Williams

My research – both scholarly and practical – has focused on contemporary performance theory and practice, in particular in relation to processes of generation and composition in devised work. I have been particularly interested in intersections between contemporary performance, philosophy and critical practices, with ‘performance’ conceived in an expanded field of practice (theatre, dance, live art, installation, performance writing etc).

One core interest has been the working regimes of certain directors, usually in collaborative devising contexts within which the creativity of performers is privileged in the creation of what Anne Bogart has called ‘resonant shapes for our present ambiguities’: e.g. Peter Brook, Ariane Mnouchkine, Simon McBurney. More recently, I have also written about dramaturgy and the ‘production dramaturg’, animals in performance (in particular horses and dogs), artists and the weather, artists and waste, and a range of contemporary performance makers and artists (including e.g. Pina Bausch, Goat Island, Forced Entertainment, Lone Twin, Damir Bartol Indos (Croatia), Théâtre Zingaro/Bartabas, Basia Irland and Mierle Laderman Ukeles).

Alongside teaching, I have worked as a director, dramaturg, performer, writer, editor, journalist and translator. I am currently the dramaturg and associate director with Lone Twin Theatre, and co-editor (with Carl Lavery) of a book about Lone Twin’s work: Good Luck Everybody: Lone Twin - Journeys, Performances, Conversations (Aberystwyth: PR Books, 2011). I have also edited a book about Lone Twin's 'Artists Taking The Lead' project for the Cultural Olympiad 2012 - The Lone Twin Boat Project (Chiquita Books, 2012) - launched, with the boat itself, in May 2012.

Other performance collaborators, in dance and theatre, include Pete Brooks and Insomniac Theatre, choreographers Emilyn Claid, Jane Mason and Malgven Gerbes/David Brandstaetter (Berlin), and residencies as guest artist with the Goat Island Summer School in Chicago.

I have been a Contributing Editor with the journal Performance Research since its inception in the mid-1990s, and an Associate Editor with Writings on Dance (Australia). I am also a member of the Editorial Board of Theatre Dance and Performance Training, a new Routledge/Taylor & Francis journal (co-editors, Jonathan Pitches/Simon Murray).