Research at Central

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Person emerging from polar bear costume in arctic landscape
It’s The Skin You’re Living In, film still © Fevered Sleep

Research at Central

Research @ Central explores contemporary practices of theatre-making and performance as well as their cultural histories and lineages. It interrogates theatre and performance both in themselves and in interplay with other disciplines, including their wider socio-cultural, institutional, political, and material-economic contexts and conditions.

Our values - of sharing, listening and enquiring - shape what we do and how we do it, working as creative citizens embedded in intersecting local, national, international and disciplinary communities. We place the communities and audiences that performance serves at the forefront of our research, advocating for theatre’s [or the artform’s] impact and ongoing cultural, political and social significance. Our research culture embraces a wide range of perspectives, methods and techniques. We work across and between art forms – from theatre and dance to film, live art, and performance – to develop new thinking with the latest technologies and techniques, realised in dialogue with artists, academics, participants and audiences. Our research attends to performance’s manifold genealogies. Produced by a diverse team of researchers working across 14 languages, it celebrates theatre and performance’s transnational and transhistorical contexts.

We understand integrity as core to the ways in which we conduct our research and are committed to fair and equal treatment as a guiding principle in all we do. We believe that recognising, understanding, respecting and valuing our differences leads us closer to excellence in everything we do.

Content listing

Engage with our research culture, find out what's happening in Research, explore our archive of events and find an overview of our public-facing research activities.

Student performing in black box theatre to audience

Learn more about our research culture, ethics, and values.

Actor performing on stage

Find out about the many ways our research is disseminated.

Man and children dancing on newspapers

Get to know our researchers, find out about the eminent scholars and researchers we welcome as Professorial and Visiting Fellows, and more information on our Associate Artists, Fevered Sleep.

Fevered Sleep performing inside art gallery

As a doctoral student at Central, you will be fully immersed in our research culture, which is one of enquiry, innovation and experimentation. You will be engaged in exploring new and pioneering ideas and practices under the supervision of research active staff, many of whom are the leading scholars and practitioners in their fields.

Collisions Festival 2016: "There's Got To Be Something Better Than This" presentation by Sherrill Gow

Find out how you can engage with Research at Central online, including our social media on Twitter and YouTube, our Theatre Matters blog, and Research office contact details.

Student performance at Collisions Festival