Wrights & Sites: people

Stephen is Head of Drama at the University of Exeter, where his research and teaching both focus on interdisciplinary spatial practices and live art. He is the Associate Curator (Live Art) at Exeter Phoenix, and his avatar, Drifter Rhode, curates 2ND LIVE, a programme that aims to explore space, event and the anachronistic practice of walking within virtual environments. He is a core member of the New Theatre Architects, a contemporary performance 'think-tank', initiated by Arts Council England's Theatre Strategy Officer in 2003 - it seeks to challenge artists and organisations to think about new models for making and supporting theatre in England.

Practice outside of Wrights & Sites includes Headland (1991, In The Big Room), for piano solo (1994, National Review of Live Art, Glasgow), 2⁶ (1997, Spacex Gallery, Exeter) and SLaaristokaupunki (2009, ANTI Festival, Kuopio, Finland).

Selected relevant recent publications:
Hodge, S. and Turner, C. (due 2012) 'Site: Between Ground and Groundlessness', in Heddon D. and Klein J. (eds), Histories and Practices of Live Art. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 90-120.
Hodge, S. (2012) The Master Plan. London: Book Works/Situations.
Hodge, S. (2012) '"Before I compose a piece, I walk round it several times, accompanied by myself"', Performance Research: On Foot, 17 (2): pp. 62-66.
Hodge, S. (2010) '2ND LIVE: Shaping Space and Event in a Virtual World', Contemporary Theatre Review: New Dramaturgies, 20 (2): pp. 223-232.
Hodge, S. and Rogers, D. B. (2007), 'What is a theatre? Where is it and how do you get there?', Performance Research: On The Road, 12 (2): pp. 41, 55, 56 & 148.

Simon is Award Leader for Theatre at Falmouth University and is a core member of the Articulating Space research group which aims to 'bring together researchers working across performance, art, design and media by exploring new approaches to understanding, interpreting, representing and renewing place, environment, and landscapes through diverse forms of located arts practices'. This also reflects his contextual approach to teaching and making devised theatre and site-based performance. Simon previously taught at the famous Dartington College of Arts (1997-2008).

Recent Practice outside of Wrights & Sites includes collaborations with Tony Whitehead on a series of commissioned walking performances: Walk on the Wildside and Plymouth Soundings (2009). Walk the Walls (2010), a night expedition made in support of The Pigs of Today are the Hams of Tomorrow curated by Marina Abramovic and organised by Plymouth Arts Centre. This series was also represented at Ambulation for Plymouth Arts Centre (curated by Mark A. James, 2010). A sound walk called Tracks was also presented at the Second International Research Forum on Guided Tours at the University of Plymouth, 7-9 April 2011. In October 2011 Simon was invited to contribute to an international arts and ecology workshop: Creation, Nature, Body, Writing hosted by L'animal a l'esquena, Celra, Spain. July 2012, Persighetti co-organised a sandpit on Building landscape stewardship through performance and locative media with a keynote from Blast Theory. He also completed multi-media landscape performance projects Spaces & Waves at b-side Festival, Weymouth (Cultural Olympiad 2012) with Phil Smith and Katie Etheridge. Commissioned by Green Close and Live@LICA, the same collaborators devised and produced a walking and multi-sited project, Signs & Wonders, Lancaster and Pendle commemorating the 1612 Lancashire Witch Trials.

Simon Persighetti has a background in visual arts and studied at Southend School of Art & Design followed by 3 years graphic and film work at Clarks Shoes, Somerset, UK. He later became involved in arts actions and touring theatre with Street Theatre Workshop and Gog Theatre on their epic tour of Cameroon, West Africa. For 4 years, he taught visual arts and drama in Zambia and had a BBC Radio Play, Maps (1985) reflecting this experience. His research focuses on performance in and of place, cityscape and landscape, and he completed a PhD (Practice) entitled, Mis-Guided exploration of Cities: an ambulant investigation of participative politics of place (2008).

Phil comes from a background in performance and music theatre, working as a writer and dramaturg with many companies including TNT (Munich) of which he is a founder member and with whom he continues to work as company dramaturg, with over a hundred of his plays and libretti performed professionally.

From site-specific performance-making with Wrights & Sites in 1998 Phil began to explore the possibilities of walking as a performance and writing practice. Among the companion pieces to his walking he has written and performed The Crab Walks (2004) and Crab Steps Aside (2005), in South Devon beach huts, lidos, tea shops and other unconventional settings, a mis-guided tour for the Beaminster Festival (2006), and with Simon Persighetti A Michael Chekhov Mis-Guide at Dartington Hall (2006), Rescued From The History Hut (2007, with Katie Etheridge and Anoushka Athique), The Fabulous Walks at Teign Village (2008, with Nicola Singh, Katie Etheridge and Fumiaki Tanaka), Exe-Pedition (2009), three walks at A la Ronde (2007-9), A Yarn Around the West End (2011, Plymouth), Spaces (2012, Weymouth, b-side Festival), and a Signs & Wonders walk (2012, at Newchurch-in-Pendle with Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti). The texts of the 'crab' shows are published by Intellect in Walking, Writing and Performance: Autobiographical Texts by Deirdre Heddon, Carl Lavery and Phil Smith, edited by Roberta Mock.

Phil is the author of Counter-Tourism: The Handbook (Triarchy Press, 2012), Counter-Tourism: A Pocketbook (Triarchy Press, 2012), A Sardine Street Box of Tricks [a handbook for making mis-guided tours] with Simon Persighetti (Triarchy Press, 2012) and Mythogeography (Triarchy Press, 2010).

Phil is a visiting lecturer at the University of Plymouth and the University of Exeter. He has published papers in Studies In Theatre and Performance Research, Cultural Geographies, Performance Research, Research in Drama Education and New Theatre Quarterly.

Cathy is currently Senior Lecturer and Director of Research in Drama at the University of Exeter. She has published widely on Dramaturgy and Site, including Dramaturgy and Performance (2008, co-author Synne Behrndt), with translations into Polish, Slovenian and Arabic. Her articles have appeared in Performance Research, Contemporary Theatre Review, New Theatre Quarterly, Studies in Theatre and Performance and other peer-reviewed journals. She is now under contract with Palgrave Macmillan to write a book on Dramaturgy and Architecture, is principal investigator on an AHRC network grant researching the politics of interactive and site-based dramaturgies, and is on the steering group of a further AHRC network into walking art. For updates on research, see my blog site. Cathy’s early experience was as a playwright with commissions from The Common Players, Orchard Theatre, the Northcott Theatre and Paines Plough, but her practice has shifted through her work with Wrights & Sites and her investigation of performance writing and dramaturgy (the focus of a practice-based AHRC research project in 2008).

Selected relevant recent publications:
Hodge, S. and Turner, C. (due 2012) 'Site: Between Ground and Groundlessness', in Heddon D. and Klein J. (eds), Histories and Practices of Live Art. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 90-120.
Turner, C. and Heddon, D. (2012) 'Walking Women: Shifting the Tales and Scales of Mobility'. Contemporary Theatre Review, 22.2.224-236.
Turner, C. and Heddon, D. (2010) 'Walking Women: Interviews with Artists on the Move'. Performance Research, ‘Fieldworks’, 15.4, 14-22.
Turner, C. (2010), 'Mis-Guidance and Spatial Planning: Dramaturgies of Public Space'. Contemporary Theatre Review, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.150-162.
Turner, C. and Behrndt, S. (2008) Dramaturgy and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Turner, C. (2004) 'Palimpsest or Potential Space? Finding a Vocabulary for Site-Specific Performance'. New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. XX, Part 4, No. 80, pp.373-390.