About

I am the Executive Dean of the School of Performing and Digital Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London and Chair of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA).

Education

PhD in Drama (University of Exeter)

MA in Theatre Studies (University of Leeds)

BA (Hons) in French Drama by Independent Study (East London Polytechnic)

Certificate of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (University of Plymouth)

Other Publications

Books:

(as co-editor with Mary Paterson) Joshua Sofaer: Performance / Objects / Participation. Intellect Books & Live Art Development Agency, 2020.

(as editor) Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts by Deirdre Heddon, Carl Lavery & Phil Smith. Intellect, 2009.

(as co-editor with Colin Counsell) Performance, Embodiment & Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

Jewish Women on Stage, Film, and Television. Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

(as editor) Performing Processes: Creating Live Performance. Intellect, 2000.

Book Chapters:

(with Kayla Parker and Ruth Way) ‘Heaven is a Place: The politics and poetics of LGBT location in a community dance film,’ in Sarita Malik, Caroline Chapain and Roberta Comunian (eds), Community Filmmaking: Diversity, Practice and Places. Routledge, 2017.

‘When the Future Was Now: Archaos Within a Theatre Tradition’ in Peta Tait and Katie Lavers (eds), The Routledge Circus Studies Reader. Routledge, 2016.

‘Experiencing Michael Mayhew’s Away in a Manger: spectatorial immersion in durational performance’ in James Frieze (ed.), Reframing Immersive Theatre: The Politics and Pragmatics of Participatory Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

‘It Turns Out: Jess Dobkin’s Puppet Body’ in Tanya Mars and Johanna Householder (eds), Caught in the Act II: an anthology of performance art by Canadian women. YYZ Press, 2016.

‘Lynn Hershman and the Creation of Multiple Robertas’ in Susan Broadhurst & Jo Machon (eds), Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

(with Jennifer Parker-Starbuck) ‘Researching the Body in/as Performance’ in Helen Nicholson & Baz Kershaw (eds), Research Methods in Theatre Studies. Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

‘Visions of Xs: Experiencing La Fura dels Baus’s XXX and Ron Athey’s Solar Anus (May 2003)’ in Karoline Gritzner (ed.), Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance. University of Hertfordshire Press, 2010.

‘La Fura dels Baus’s XXX: Deviant Textualities & The Formless’ in Susan Broadhurst & Josephine Machon (eds), Sensualities/Textualities & Technologies: Writings of the Body in 21st Century Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Tohu-bohu: Rachel Rosenthal’s Performances of Diasporic Cultural Memory’ in Colin Counsell & Roberta Mock (eds), Performance, Embodiment and Cultural Memory. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

‘Memories, Hauntings & Exorcisms in Brad Fraser’s Snake in Fridge‘ in Marc Maufort & Caroline de Wagter (eds), Signatures of the Past: Cultural Memory in Contemporary Anglophone North American Drama. Peter Lang Publishing, 2008.

‘Vaginal Voyages: Performances of Sexuality and the Female Jewish Body’ in Nathan Abrams (ed.), Jews and Sex. Five Leaves Press, 2008.

‘Globalization’s Marginalia: Anglo-Canadian Identity and the Plays of Brad Fraser’ in Anne Nothof (ed.), Theatre in Alberta. Playwrights Canada Press, 2008.

‘HeteroQueer Ladies: Some Performative Transactions Between Gay Men & Heterosexual Women’ in Birgit Haas (ed.), Der postfeministische Diskurs. Königshausen & Neumann, 2006; Previously published in Feminist Review, 75, 21-37, 2003.

(with Christine Roberts) ‘Shading the Crime: Acting Hopelessness as an Act of Hope’ in Christine Roberts, Tormented Minds: Three Plays. Intellect, 2003; Previously published in Studies in Theatre Production; no 19, 22-35, June 1999.

Journal Articles:

‘“This ain’t no love-in, this ain’t no happenin”: Misfits, Detroit hardcore and the performance of zombie scenarios,’ Studies in Theatre & Performance, Vol 34, Issue 3, 2014.

‘Stand-up Comedy and the Legacy of the Mature Vagina,’ Women & Performance, Vol 22, No 1, 9-28; 2012.

‘Really Jewish? Joan Rivers Live at the Apollo,’ Comedy Studies, Vol 2, No. 2, 101-111; 2011.

(with Erica Stevens Abbitt, Johanna Frank & Geraldine (Gerry) Harris) ‘Aging Provocateurs and Spect(er)acular Pub(l)ic Performances,’ Performance Research, Vol 16, No. 2, 50-56; 2011.

‘Anywhere (No, Devon),’ Western European Stages, Vol 19, No. 1, 15-20; 2007.

(with Christine Roberts & Ruth Way) ‘The M(other) Project,’ Body Space & Technology, Vol 06; 2006.

‘Globalisation’s Marginalia: Anglo-Canadian Identity and the Plays of Brad Fraser,’ Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol 16, No. 01, 86-96; 2006.

(with Ruth Way) ‘Pedagogies of Theatre (Arts) & Performance (Studies),’ Studies in Theatre & Performance, 25.3, 201-213; 2005.

(with Franc Chamberlain, Simon Ellis, Nicholas Till & John C. Whelan) ‘Reflections on practice as research following the PARIP conference 2003,’ Studies in Theatre & Performance, 24:2, 57-70; 2004.

‘Without You I’m Nothing: Sandra Bernhard’s Self-Referential Postmodernism,’ Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 30, 543-562; 2001.

‘Female Jewish Comedians: Grotesque Mimesis and Transgressing Stereotypes,’ New Theatre Quarterly; vol XV (2); NTQ 58, 99-108; 1999.

‘Ionesco in Transylvania,’ Studies in Theatre Production; no 8, 76-79; Dec 1993.

Essays:

‘Walking, Writing & Performance: Phil Smith’s Parallel Cities’ in Changing Metropolis IIIKobenhavns Internationale Teater, 2016. pp. 96-101.

‘Live Lab Symposium (January 2010)’ in Lois Keidan and Aaron Wright (eds), The Live Art Almanac: Volume 3. Oberon Books, 2013.

‘Imagining the Hams of Tomorrow’ in Paula Orrell (ed.), Marina Abramovic and the Future of Performance Art. Prestel, 2010.

‘Oreet Ashery’s Site-Specific Corporeal Turns’ in Oreet Ashery, Dancing with Men. Live Art Development Agency, 2009.

5 articles on Hanoverian actors: ‘Dennis Delane’; ‘John Evans’; ‘Elizabeth Furnival’; ‘John Moody’; ‘John Lennergan Owens’. New Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Practice as Research:

A Trip Around the World is Not a Cruise (stand up comedy ‘reenactment’). Performer & creator. Duke of Cornwall Hotel, Plymouth, January 2016.

Heaven is a Place (digital video). Producer and screenplay of short dance film for Sundog Media with Kayla Parker (dir.) and Ruth Way (choreographer), 2014. Screenings: Plymouth and Warwick Arts Centres, on the Big Screen during Plymouth Pride 2014, as an Official Selection of the Cornwall Film Festival 2014, and within the International Competition of Kino der Kunst 2015 (Munich and Nürnberg, Germany) and the Dances with Camera competition at the Short Waves Festival 2016 (Poznań, Poland). http://film.britishcouncil.org/heaven-is-a-place

Down/town (interactive solo performance). Performer & creator. Plymouth University, January 2011.

Tree (digital video)Performer & co-creator. Dir. Siobhan McKeown. Text by Dee Heddon. First screened: TaPRA conference (Body & Performance Working Group), University of Birmingham, September 2007.

M(other)3 (digital video). Performer and co-creator with Ruth Way and Christine Roberts. Film dir. Russell Frampton. Screening: INPORT – International Video-Performance Art Festival, Tallinn, Estonia, 2005. Also included in the following book (with DVD): L. Allegue Fuschini, S. Jones, B. Kershaw, and A. Piccini (eds.) Practice-as-Research: in Performance and Screen.Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.

M(other)2: Research as Practice. A performative presentation with Christine Roberts and Ruth Way. PARIP conference, Bretton Hall, June 2005. A previous version was presented to the Performance as Research Working Party, FIRT conference, St. Petersburg, May 2004.

M(other)1
. Director and performer for Lusty Juventus theatre company; performed in Athens at the Argo Theatre as part of Transformation of Movements Programme (co-organized with Alter-Art, Greece; 2.tants.promotions, Estonia; Giardini Pensili, Italy), October 2002.

Us by Karen Malpede. Director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; European premiere, Exeter Phoenix, October 1999.

The Duchess. Writer/director of production for radio; broadcast on Resonance FM, 4 July 1998 as part of South Bank Festival; Commissioned by London Musicians Collective.

Shading the Crime. Co-director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; 16 performances in 4 Devon & London venues, January 1998.

Ceremonial Kisses. Co-director of production for Lusty Juventus theatre company; 2 tours between September 1996 – September 1997; approximately 30 performances at 6 venues throughout UK.

Blog Posts

    Projects

    Principal Investigator, ‘Transitioning to Sustainable Production across the UK Theatre Sector’, 2022. Funded by the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre and Arts Council England.

    Co-Investigator, ‘Sustainable Materials in the Creative Industries’, 2021. Funded by the AHRC.

    Co-organiser, Heaven on Earth? programme. Main organizer: Odysseia theatre company (Greece); with LaMov theatre company (Spain) & Symia dance company (Turkey). Administered by World-Cef Ltd. (Greece), 2013-2014. Funded by EU Culture Fund 2007-13

    Principal Investigator/Director of Studies, Collaborative doctoral award with Plymouth Pride Forum (PPF) and Plymouth & West Devon Record Office (PWDRO), ‘Performing LGBT Pride in Plymouth, 1950-2000’, 2011-2014. Funded by the AHRC.

    Principal Investigator/Director of Studies, Collaborative doctoral award with ArtsMatrix Ltd., ‘The Continuing Professional Development Needs, and Pathways to Learning, of Mid-Career Artists and/or Creative Practitioners in the South West of England’, 2006-2010. Funded by the AHRC.

    Principal Investigator, ‘Exposing the Modern Jewish Female Performance Tradition’, 2004-2005. Funded by the AHRB.

    Co-organiser, Transformation of Movements programme. Main organizer: Alter-Art Research & Cultural Centre (Greece); with Giardini Pensili (Italy) & 2.tans.promotions (Estonia). Administered by World-Cef Ltd. (Greece), 2002.  Funded by the European Commission Culture 2000 Programme.

    Co-Artistic Director, Lusty Juventus physical theatre company, 1996-2006. 5 productions which toured across UK, and to Brazil, Russia and Greece.

    Upcoming Talks and Conferences

    Conference convenor: Data Ache, the Digital Research in the Humanities & Arts annual conference (DRHA2017) , 10-13 September 2017 at the University of Plymouth.


    Keynote speaker: Queering Ritual conference, 3-4 November 2017 at York St John University.

    Keynote speaker: Women in the Work of Woody Allen, 13 January 2018 at York St John University.

    Memberships

    Chair, Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)

    Fellow, Higher Education Academy

    Roberta Mock

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    @robertamock

    Active 1 year, 6 months ago