About

Varvara Sklez is a PhD candidate in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. Her doctoral project ‘Aesthetics of Effort: Performing Difficult Past in Contemporary Russian Theatre’ focuses on performances of memory and resistance in contemporary Russian theatre. Her research interests include Soviet and Russian theatre; performances of resistance and protest; memory studies and public history; discourses on migration and exile.

Prior to joining Warwick, Varvara was a research fellow and a lecturer at the School for Advanced Studies of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow, Russia. She has also taught at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. Her areas of teaching included memory and commemorative practices, theatre and performance studies, postcolonial studies, and translation methods. She holds an MA degree with distinction in Public History from the University of Manchester and the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences.

During her time in Moscow, Varvara worked extensively with theatres and museums such as Teatr.doc, Sakharov Centre, Gulag History Museum, Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center as a curator and a public lecturer. She is also one of the founding members of the Public History Lab, an informal community of scholars and practitioners interested in history-related activities beyond academia.

Publications

Edited collections and special issues

Politics of Affect: Museum as a Public History Site. (with Andrei Zavadsky and Katerina Suverina – eds., intro). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2019.

Shagi/Steps journal – a special issue on theatre laboratories (with Yulia Liderman and Valeriy Zolotukhin – eds.), n. 4, 2019.

Articles and chapters

‘Migrant artists and precarious labour in contemporary Russian theatre’ (with Mark Simon). Handbook on Theatre and Migration. Ed. by Meerzon, Yana and S. E. Wilmer. Palgrave, 2023, pp. 339-51.

‘Theatre.’ Vse v proshlom: teoriya i praktika publichnoi istorii. Ed. by Zavadsky, Andrey and Vera Dubina. Novoe izdatelstvo, 2021. Pp. 249-65.

‘Flash Mob Izozolyatsiya as a Resistance Practice in the Era of COVID-19.’ Siniy divan, n. 24, 2020, pp. 256-76.

‘Radical Exploration of Time.’ Teatr, n. 41, 2020, pp. 82-88.

‘Incomplete Archive and Documenting Experience: Strategies for Describing Jerzy Grotowski’s Works.’ Novoe literature obozrenie, n. 3 (145), 2017, pp. 48-60.

Conference Papers

‘Women's Histories: Performing Difficult Past in Russian Theatre of the 2010s.’

Symposium ‘Rewired and revamped? Media and trans/national feminisms in Europe and beyond,’ FEMCORUS project, Tampere University, Finland, 11-12 May 2023.

‘Distancing from the Past in Theatrical Reenactment: Embodied Protest in Vas sudyat ne za eto.’ Seminar ‘Performing Protest – Contesting Russia’s Nationalism,’ Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, Chicago, USA, 16-19 March 2023.

Roundtable participant ‘Russian Political Theatre in the Times of War and Exile: an Attempt at Commemoration.’ Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Online, 13-14 October 2023.

‘Adventures of a Late-Soviet Subject in Dmitry Volkostrelov’s 1968. Noviy mir.’ Annual Conference of the International Federation of Theatre Research. Reykjavík, Iceland, 20-24 June 2022.

‘Performing Effort in Andrey Stadnikov’s Rodina.’ Performance Artistic Research Lab, Art and Design Department, National Research University Higher School of Economics, online, 17 March 2021.

‘Towards a Theory of Effort: Performing Past in Contemporary Russian Theatre.’ Postgraduate Symposium, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick, UK, 24 September 2020.

‘Performing Difficult Past: Histories and Temporalities of Contemporary Russian Theatre.’ Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. San Francisco, USA, 23-26 November 2019.

‘Radical Exploration of the Present: Performing Past in Contemporary Russian Theatre.’

II Conference of the European Association for the Study of Theatre and Performance, Lisbon, Portugal, 23-25 September 2019.

‘'When I Listen to International I Feel Good': Exploring Collective Body in Contemporary Russian Theatre.’ Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Boston, USA, 6-9 December 2018.

‘Past is Another Country? Performing Documents in Contemporary Russian Theatre.’ Annual Conference of the International Federation of Theatre Research. Belgrade, Serbia, 9-13 July 2018.

‘Performing History? World War II in Russian Documentary Theatre.’ International Conference ‘Theatre and Memory Wars.’ Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania, 26-28 April 2018.

Invited lecture ‘Documentary Theatre in Contemporary Russia: Revisiting Soviet History.’

Spring School ‘The Soviet: Between Memory and Historical Reconstruction,’ Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Russia, 8-9 April 2017.

Conference organization

International Conference ‘Locations of (Dis)embodied Labour in Theatre and Performance.’ Theatre and Performance Studies and Humanities Research Center, University of Warwick, 30 November 2023. (With Prodosh Bhattacharya and Yangzi Zhou)

Postgraduate Symposium, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick, 5 October 2022. (With Prodosh Bhattacharya and Yangzi Zhou)

Research Seminar ‘Performing Memory: Between Theatre and Historiography.’ Moscow School of Social and Economic Science, online, Spring - Autumn 2020. (with Dr. Ivan Peshkov)

International Сonference ‘Public History in Russia: Performing Past in Theatre and beyond.’ Public History Lab, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Committee of Civil Initiatives. Smena Center for Contemporary Culture, Kazan’, Russia, 2-4 November 2018.

International Сonference ‘Artistic Lab in Performing Arts: Between Metaphor and Practice.’ Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, 1-3 October 2018.

International Сonference ‘Public History in Russia: Museums for the Past or the Past for Museums?’ Public History Lab, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Committee of Civil Initiatives. Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, 15-17 June 2017.

International Сonference ‘Past is a Foreign Country? Public History in Russia.’ Public History Lab, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Committee of Civil Initiatives. National Research University - Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia, 3-4 June 2016.

Awards

2019 – 2023

Chancellor’s International Scholarship, University of Warwick

2023

Humanities Research Centre, University of Warwick. Funding for a one-day Interdisciplinary Conference ‘Locations of (Dis)embodied Labour in Theatre and Performance’

Humanities Research Centre, University of Warwick. Visiting Speaker’s Fund for a keynote speaker to attend the Interdisciplinary Conference ‘Locations of (Dis)embodied Labour in Theatre and Performance’ and Theatre and Performance Studies PGR Research Seminar

Humanities Research Fund, University of Warwick. Travel Grant to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (Chicago, USA)

2022

Humanities Research Fund, University of Warwick

Travel Grant to attend the summer school ‘Performance and Politics on the New Silk Roads’ organized by University of Warwick (Venice, Italy)

2018

Presidential Grants Foundation

Collective practice-based research project: ‘Memories of the Soviet Peasant Rebellions of 1920-1921: Digital and Performative Perspectives.’

Service

Peer Reviewer, Theatre Research International, Shagi/Steps

Theatre and Performance Studies PGR Representative for Student-Staff Liaison Committee (2022-2023)