Expertise

- Research on the relationship between dance history and contemporary dance, with a specific focus on practices of re-enactment - The reiterative nature of live performance in relation to (embodied) documentation, archivization, and historiography - The transcultural circulation of dance across different continents, with special interest in the migration of choreography through different spaces and times - New methodologies for dance historiography, including collaborative forms of making history and using these as input for contemporary dance practices and dance research

Technique

Oral history; literature study; case analysis; historical research on primary materials

Users

Choreographers and dancers; curators and artistic directors of cultural institutions (theatres, museums, etc.); art schools and conservatoires; performing arts critics; newspapers, radio, and television

Keywords

Dancers, Dance studies, Dance policy, Dance

Kyoko Iwaki is a Tenured Associate Professor at Faculty of Arts, University of Antwerp. She is the Spokesperson for the Research Centre for Visual Poetics. She obtained a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance from Goldsmiths, University of London in November 2017. Her Ph.D. thesis titled Nuclear Catastrophes and the Theatre in Tokyo, 1945 – 2016 was supported for three years by the Goldsmiths” Bursary Scheme. After completing her Ph.D., she became a Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY). Until 2019, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University. Her postdoctoral fellowship was fully funded for three years by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Kyoko is recognized as a specialist in Japanese contemporary theatre and performance who conducts interdisciplinary research especially after catastrophes in the vein of post-visual theatre. This includes postcolonialism and intercultural theatre, ghosts and spirituality, affect theory, queer politics, haptic dramaturgy, and more-than-human philosophies with a strong investment in Buddhism. Kyoko’s recent publications include: “The Politics of the Senses: Takayama Akira’s Atomized Theatre after Fukushima” in Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster (Routledge, 2016); “Diffracting the Politicized Spectacle: Queering Censorship in the Aichi Triennale”, Performance Research (2021); “On (Not) Being Useful: The Art of Drifting in Asian Contemporary Theatre”, Studies in Theatre and Performance (2021); and “The Delegated Performance of the Dead: Performing in Post-Fukushima Phantom Reality,” The Paper Bridge: Contemporary Intersections of Japanese-Western Theatre (Poznan University Press, 2022). She is also the Associate Editor of Performance Research journal. Before entering academia, Kyoko worked for ten years as a theatre critic contributing to media outlets such as Asahi Newspaper. As a bilingual journalist who grew up in New York, she has interviewed over a thousand artists on various theatre and performance productions in twenty-nine countries. As a Japanese theatre specialist, she has been invited to give lectures and talks at various venues also outside academia including, Japan Foundation London, Weiwuying Arts Festival Taiwan, and LIFT Festival London. Within the academic framework, she has given lectures at Goldsmiths, University of London, Waseda University, Chuō University, Rikkyō University, Meiji University, Tokyo University and at The Graduate Centre, City University of New York. Kyoko also works occasionally as a dramaturg and programmer. She was appointed the first non-European co-programmer for Theater der Welt festival in 2023 (Frankfurt-Offenbach). In 2022, the edited joint issue for JDTC (Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism) and GPS (Global Performance Studies) has been recognized with an Honourable Mention for the 2022 Editing Award by the Association of Theatre in Higher Education. Kyoko was also awarded the 2026 Carol Fischer Sorgenfrei Award for Japanese Theatre Scholarship from The Association for Asian Performance, for her journal article “Akira Takayama’s McDonald’s Radio University: Brechtian Listening in McDonald’s and Postvisual Dramaturgy,” TDR: The Drama Review 69:4.

Technique

Lectures and talks; fieldwork trips and research visits; collaborative workshops and collective writings; dramaturgical practice such as festival curation; academic writing of scholarly books and articles.

Users

Those parties with interest in Japanese or Asian theatre; Japanese contemporary culture after the Fukushima pandemic; Those interested in contemporary theatre festivals and its dramaturgy; Parties interested in philosophy via theatre and performance; Post-colonial and decolonial perspectives from Asia; More-than-human performance and ecocritical philosophy of non-western vein.

Keywords

Nonhuman dramaturgy, Japanese theatre, Performance philosophy

Specialisations and interests: - film history, with specific research interests for the interconnections between film and the visual arts and the cinematic representations of landscapes, cities, and architecture - art history of the 20th and 21st centuries, with specific research interests for photography and late-modernist painting (including the work of Raoul De Keyser)

Technique

- Theoretical study - Archival research

Users

- art and culture

Keywords

Arts, Film

Studies in Theater, Performance, Popular Entertainment and Media Archaeology: with a focus on fin-de-siècle Belgium where technology, commerce, identity and perception are interconnected practices in popular performative spaces like circus, variety, fairground, magic, cinema, museum, world exhibition and café culture. By unveiling their dominant regimes and counter-regimes, new perspectives emerge on modernity, modernism and urban history studies

Technique

Archival and literature research, based on both written sources (newspapers, magazines, books, biographical documents) and unwritten sources (pictures, diapositives, film, visual arts, interviews), resulting in qualitative research

Users

Experts in the field of modernity, performance, visual culture, media and urban studies as well as the general public

Keywords

Perception studies, Media archaeology

Rosa Lambert (she/her) holds a PhD in Theater Studies and Intermediality from the University of Antwerp, where she graduated in December 2023 with her thesis titled “Moving With(in) Language: Kinetic Textuality in Contemporary Performing Arts.” This study centers around the interaction between (spoken) text and (choreographed) movement in contemporary theatre and dance performances. She is currently working as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Performance Studies department to conduct postdoctoral research on Judson Poets’ Theater. Her scholarly interests include text-based theater and dance, the contemporary and historical intersections between literature and choreography, and (post)phenomenological approaches towards language. Her work has been published in Documenta, Critical Stages/Scènes Critiques, and European journal of theatre and performance.

Technique

Performance analysis, Literary analysis, Performance Philosophy, Interview-based research, Archival research.

Users

Performing arts field (theater and dance), literary field, art criticism

Keywords

Dance history, Theatre history, Dance studies, Theatre studies

Jonas Schnor (they/he) is a postdoctoral researcher in Theatre and Performance Studies at The Research Centre for Visual Poetics and part of the international research project Performing Ends: a theoretical-methodological inquiry on posthumous dramaturgy. Their research focuses on temporalities of performance, post-anthropocentric ends, collective modes of creation in dance and performance, relational and embodied dramaturgy, performance philosophy, critical theory and accompanying research.

Technique

Theoretical study, dramaturgical analysis, performance analysis, accompanying research, companionship-research, case study analysis, ethnographic philosophy and concept development

Users

Scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences, particularly in philosophy and theatre and performance studies; Artists, curators, programmers, dramaturgs, editors, producers, artistic directors, organisations and institutions in the field of performing arts; Environmental and socially-oriented activists

Keywords

Ends, Posthuman theory, Theoretical study, Eventlessness

- Research of the representation of the body and of the developments in contemporary performance arts.Most important field of interest is the so-called post dramatic theatre, i.e. forms of theatre that are no longer based on dramatic text. Most important case study is the theatre work of Jan Fabre. Next to analysis of the theatre performance also the creative process is central to my expertise: what is the status of the notebook? What kind of rehearsal process is being used? How do actors prepare themselves? What kind of acting method is being used?

Technique

Method of analysis in human sciences. Collaboration with sport sciences and kinesitherapy for analyses of performances of actors and dancers.

Users

- Performance art sector - Federal and sub-federal authorities - Education

Keywords

Media studies, Gender studies, Dramaturgy, Theatre science

His research interests are aimed at a critical analysis of film, television, radio, literature and other forms of media and culture. He has particular research expertise in Belgian and Dutch film history, film adaptations, film policy, and the relation between media and nation-building. He is the author of a monograph on the history of film policy in Flanders (Subsidie, camera, actie! Filmbeleid in Vlaanderen (1964-2002), 2017, Academia Press) and editor of European Film Remakes (with Eduard Cuelenaere and Stijn Joye, 2021, Edinburgh University Press) and an anthology on media and nation-building in Flanders (De verbeelding van de leeuw: Een geschiedenis van media en natievorming in Vlaanderen (with Bruno De Wever, 2020, Peristyle). He published various articles in journals such as the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Journal of Belgian History, Communications, Journal of Popular Film and Television and Literature/Film Quarterly.

Technique

Analysis of film and media

Users

People and organisations with an interest in film en media.

Keywords

Nation building, Film, Film history, Media policy, Media