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

Dance studies, Dance policy, Dance, Dancers

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

Media archaeology, Perception studies

- 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

Historical and contemporary analyses of cinema and film culture in the Low Countries and Europe.

Technique

Textual and contextual film analysis

Users

People and organisations with an interest in film.

Keywords

Media, Film, Nation building

In my research I focus on the way technology is used in contemporary performing arts and how artists reflect on the impact of technology on society and humanity. This field, in which the human being disappears from the centre, is called 'post-humanism'. An important aspect of this is the study of the agency of non-human entities, such as machines, animals, plants. In addition to post-humanism, my most recent work explores the consequences of the anthropocene and the climate catastrophe for the arts. Extinction, ends of worlds, are not easily captured in a work of art. I look at those performances and installations that have found strategies for this and analyse how they work (their dramaturgy) and how they contemplate on our current state of being.

Technique

Philosophy, performance philosophy, dramaturgy, text analysis, performance analysis, participatory observation, dramaturgy, art criticism.

Users

Art magazines, newspapers, artists, art students, theatres, museums, performance scholars, art critics, dramaturgs.

Keywords

Posthumanisme, Performance, Dramaturgy