Creative Research Lab
As the Principal Investigator of the "The Creative Research Lab," my focus revolves around probing the potency of Performance-based and arts-based research as investigative tools. Performance-based research intricately employs live enactments, storytelling, and embodiment to answer phenomena, facilitating immersive encounters. Arts-based research envelops an array of creative mediums such as visual arts, literature, and music, nurturing distinctive viewpoints and intuitive insights. Both approaches transcend conventional confines, presenting pioneering avenues for researchers to interact with a medley of narratives, sentiments, and milieus. By leveraging the communicative prowess of artistic expression, these tools facilitate an all-encompassing exploration of enriching scholarly exploration and broadening the expanse of knowledge. Our fundamental inquiry revolves around the nature of our artistic practice as research and how we can foster more imaginative research methodologies.
Story Circles: Black Feminist Aesthetic
Investigating the creative methods employed by black women writers, directors theatremakers
Story Circles is an exploration into how performance elucidates the realities of black women as gendered and working subjects. In this research I employ performance as a medium, of inquiry, collecting and enacting narratives. This creative research process has unveiled the existence of performance communities cultivated by black women, serving as a reflexive evaluation of their life encounters, manifesting as "performances of possibilities". Story Circles scrutinizes the conception and execution of performances through the lens of a black feminist drama theatre director. It probes the question of whether a genuine black feminist theatre aesthetic can be achieved. I delve into my personal trajectory of embracing black feminism, theatre, and directing, scrutinizing intentional choices made to embody black feminist theory within the rehearsal space. Crucially, I analyze how the work shifts focus from the director's dominance to centering the stories' interiority.
GENDER IN THE CURRICULUM
A research project to unsettle the syllabus—centering gender and reclaiming knowledge. Gender equity begins in the curriculum.
My research sits at the intersection of performance, gender, race, and decolonial scholarship. I explore themes such as gender-based violence, aesthetics, memory, trauma, care, social justice, and critical feminist pedagogies.
This project investigates how gender, decolonisation, and curriculum transformation intersect in South African higher education. It examines how teacher training can either disrupt or reinforce gendered and colonial hierarchies.
Situated within broader policy conversations on women’s economic empowerment and the care economy, the study seeks to reimagine curricula that centre intersectional gender justice.
Embodied Reading for Emancipatory Critical Thought
"Embodied Reading for Critical Thought" reimagines learning paradigms by integrating fresh methodologies, and fostering critical and creative thinking. The Embodied Reading podcast serves as a communal space, challenging conventional notions of solitary reading. Through vocalization, reading transforms into a corporeal and performative experience that cultivates understanding.In an age of digital disconnection, the podcast facilitates collective engagement with diverse scholarly texts, amplifying the performative dimension of knowledge dissemination. Advocating critical praxis and reflexivity, Embodied Reading becomes a digital nexus, nurturing community and generating profound insights. This study delves into podcasting as an adaptable, self-organising medium, showcasing how the spoken word dynamically embodies knowledge, encouraging active participation and meaningful exchange in the realm of digital learning. Learn More