Drama Department students win top two prizes in TaPRA postgraduate research competition

June 2010

Two students of the School of Drama, Film and Music have won the top two prizes in the Theatre and Performance Research Association's (TaPRA) international postgraduate essay competition. Marcus Cheng Chye Tan and Aoife McGrath, both doctoral students supervised by Professor Brian Singleton, have won the first prize and the runner up prize respectively.

TaPRA is a research association based in the UK that was founded in order to foster and sustain research in all theatre, performance and related areas in British and Irish Universities and allied institutions. The jurors for this year's postgraduate awards were Marvin Carlson (CUNY, USA), Joanne Tompkins (University of Queensland, Australia), Paul Allain (University of Kent, UK) and David Bradby (Royal Holloway, UK).

Marcus is researching the performativity of sound in intercultural performance and his winning essay, Every Situation Has Its Rhythm: Acoustic Mimesis and Sonic Exoticism in "Tambours Sur La Digue", explores the ways in which the production Tambours Sur La Digue mimics musical traditions and forms and exoticises sonic signatures, consequently reifying the Orientalist spectacle in the performance. Aoife is conducting a socio-political analysis of Irish dance theatre and her runner up essay, Choreographing the Unanticipated: Death, Hope and Verticality in Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre’s "Giselle" and "The Rite of Spring", questions seemingly hermetic narratives of oppression through an examination of the potential political efficacy of unanticipated endings.

Marcus and Aoife will be awarded their prizes in a presentation to be held at the University of Glamorgan during the TaPRA International Conference 2010.