Prof. Frank Camilleri, from the Department of Theatre Studies, has just published a full-length monograph with Bloomsbury (London and New York) entitled Performer Training Reconfigured: Post-psychophysical Perspectives for the Twenty-first Century (2019).
The book offers a radical re-evaluation of current approaches to performer training, equipping readers with a set of new ways of thinking about and ultimately ‘doing’ training. Stemming from his extensive practice and incorporating a review of prevailing methods and theories, Prof. Camilleri focuses on how material circumstances shape and affect processes of training, devising, rehearsing and performing.
The book puts forward the ‘post-psychophysical’ as a more extended form of psychophysical discussion and practice that emerged and dominated in the 20th century. The ‘post-psychophysical’ updates the concept of an integrated bodymind in various ways, such as the notion of a performer’s bodyworld that incorporates technology and the material world.
Offering invaluable introductions to a wide range of theories around which the book is structured – including postphenomenological, sociomaterial, affect and situated cognition – the volume provides readers with an enticing array of critical approaches to training and creative processes.
Prof. Camilleri is the Director of the School of Performing Arts, where he also leads the School’s interdisciplinary group for 21st Century Studies in Performance. His publications on performer training, theatre as a laboratory, and practice as research reflect the theatre work he has been developing since 1989. He also serves as Academic Staff Representative on Council.
Students interested in theatre, music, dance, and performing arts are invited to visit the School’s website for more information about the courses on offer at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.