Joanna Bucknall

Since completing my PhD at the University of Winchester in 2011 I have been concerned with exploring, making and understanding work that includes its audiences in fundamental ways. I have collaborated with The Barbican in Plymouth, Camden People’s Theatre, The Basement in Brighton, Performing Arts Centre Lincoln, the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, ArtReach UK, the British Red Cross, Coastguard Studio, Big Adventures and Battersea Arts Centre. I am concerned with exploring work that includes its audiences in fundamental ways.

My primary research interests are in the following areas: production and reception theory of experimental contemporary performance; specifically, immersive, one on one, micro performance & participative dramaturgies. I am interested in explicating the nature of risk and investment in such dramaturgies and the implications of that upon the nature of the audience’s role. Practice as research (PaR) in performance that interrogates the nature of the audience in liminal spaces through liminoid acts and invitations. PaR theory, specifically the documentation of PaR through performative and intermediality. I am also concerned with exploring performative ways to document and archive a variety of localised histories and heritage. I have been working as a practice-based scholar since 2006 and in that time, I have produced PaR projects with both of my companies.

At present, I am developing and securing funding for an international immersive performance network, (IPN) in collaboration with Battersea Arts Centre and Dr Adam Alston at the University of Surrey.