Theatre and Performance Studies News
TOP STORY: TaPRA 2025 Conference to be hosted at Warwick
We're delighted to announce that the annual Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) conference will be hosted by Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick between 27 and 29 August 2025. The conference will mark both the 20th birthday of TaPRA and the 50th anniversary of Theatre and Performance Studies at Warwick. Our conference keynotes, plenary panels, artistic activity, conference dinner and programmed events will speak to the themes of milestones and markers, focussing on celebrations, festivities, spectacle and joy. We'll look forward to welcoming you to Warwick next year!
To keep up to date with the conference plans, please visit our dedicated TaPRA pages here.
Welcome Rakel Marín Ezpeleta, Visiting Research student (Erasmus+)!
We are delighted to welcome Rakel Marín Ezpeleta to the department as part of the Erasmus+ Visiting Research Student Scheme. Rakel is a PhD candidate at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The title of her thesis is ‘The Configurations of Identity in the Contemporary Experimental Basque Theatre Scene.’
Bio:
Rakel Marín Ezpeleta has a BA (Hons) in Art History from UPV/EHU, a postgraduate course in History of Contemporary Art and MPhil in Performance Studies from UAB and IT. She is currently a PhD candidate at UAB with the trans-disciplinary project The Configuration of Identity in the Contemporary Experimental Basque Theatre Scene, and she is now a visitor researcher (Erasmus+) at the Theatre Department of UW. She combines professional work as a performer (as actress and singer), with teaching (specially in areas related to voice technique, Spanish diction and oral expression) and with theoretical research: in 2007-09 she was awarded grants from KREA to conduct a study on contemporary Basque theatre historiography; during 2012-13 she was a Research Assistant to Project Barca, lead by Dr. Henry Daniel (SFU-Vancouver). She is member of IFTR since 2013 –usually participating in the PaR WG and in NSF-. Her thesis project conflates historical, anthropological and sociological approaches to the concept of identity, a case study of some current Basque mise-en-scènes, and her own artistic practice.
The thesis project: Which are the aspects of cultural identity that most influence theatre performers today, in the Basque Country? How are these aspects configured in a mise-en-scène? How can artistic practice inform academic research on identity? Such questions underpin my thesis project, ‘The Configurations of Identity in the Contemporary Experimental Basque Theatre Scene’, a multilayered framework involving historical, psychological, sociological, and anthropological approaches along with a comparative analysis of case studies and, among them, my own research/creation: ‘Erbeste (crazy to please)’, a one-woman show cabaret that reflects on ideas about the nexuses between cultural identity and self-identity.