"Utopia has nothing to do with the future. Utopia is now. The act of making theatre is already utopian because art is an act of resistance against circumstances. If you are making theatre now, you have already successfully achieved utopia."
Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares
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Vertebra Theatre's artistic practice is strongly embedded and derived from current research in the fields of Trauma Inform Practice in
Performing Arts.
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The Lead Artist of the company, Mayra Stergiou has undertaken an MPhil research project at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in partnership with CNWL NHS Trust that explored the social impact of expanded scenography and the integration of dramatherapy processes with avant-garde theatre practices (ex. Embodied Dramaturgy of Thomas Prattki and the Method of Theodoros Terzopoulos) that are rarely employed in a therapeutic context and vice versa. The project resulted into a series of performances in 2022-2023. This has inlcuded the experimental digital performance 'An Ice Thing to Say' and Electra: Untitled.
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Aspects of this research will be under publication. Information upon request.
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RESEARCH SUPERVISORY TEAM
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Professor Dominik Havsteen-Franklin
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Dominik Havsteen-Franklin is a Professor of Practice (Arts Therapies) at Brunel University, with a Ph.D. in Art Psychotherapy and Metaphor. He is also head of the International Centre for Arts Psychotherapies Training (ICAPT) for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Vice President for the European Federation of Art Therapy and a member of the Council for the British Association of Art Therapists. His research focuses on applying empirical methods to investigating and evaluating the use of arts to facilitate changes in health conditions. His recent research has centred on co-designing and investigating Arts-based Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (ADIT) for depression, Creative and Resilience Engagement (CaRE) for frontline healthcare workers, developing arts-based psychosocial practice in South Africa, and is a co-applicant for an NIHR funded large scale RCT (ERA) investigating the effectiveness of arts therapies for heterogenous groups in mental health services. Dominik supervises PhD students from a range of arts disciplines. He also continues to work as a consultant, an art psychotherapist and a clinical supervisor for the National Health Service.
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Dr. Alex Mermikides (Year 1 and 2)
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Alex is the D'Oyly Carte Senior Lecturer in Arts and Health, based in the GKT School of Medical Education. The D'Oyly Carte position aims to enhance encounters between patients and healthcare professionals through embedding arts and humanities in medical education. Alex contributes to teaching and curriculum development in the Values-Based Clinical Practice theme of the medical degree programme. Alex's research interest is in contemporary performance and how it relates to medicine. Her recent publications include Performance and the Medical Body (co-edited with Gianna Bouchard) and Performance, Medicine and the Human and she is currently working on the Routledge Companion for Performance and Medicine. Her research also involves devising performances about medical experience with her theatre company, Chimera, as well as developing performance-based approaches to communication skills education. Her work has featured in The Guardian, Times Higher Educational Supplement, Nature Immunology and on This Week (BBC Radio 4).
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Dr Simon Donger (Year 3 and 4)
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I am a scenographer and researcher who trained in sculpture and scenography in Canada and the UK. My practical research explores provocative yet mindful intersections of materials, media and bodies. I have published texts and books concerned with Posthuman critiques of Humanism. I joined Central in 2005. In 2010, I co-created the MA/MFA Scenography at Central School of Speech and Drama with Joanna Parker and became its Course Leader in 2012. My practice is deeply influenced by my experience of working with the Italian company Societas Raffaello Sanzio in 2004 for the entire process of creation of their performance Tragedia Endogonidia. In 2016, I was awarded a Golden Mask Best Light for Musical Theatre for the lighting and projection design of the Bolshoi Ballet’s Hero of Our Time.
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Polly Teale
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Polly Teale was Artistic Director of theatre company Shared Experience, with productions she wrote and directed regularly transferring to the West End and touring internationally. These included the award winning trilogy: Bronte; Jane Eyre and After Mrs Rochester (winner Best Director Evening Standard Awards, and Time Out Best West End Production). She also wrote and directed Mine, Speechless and Mermaid as well as directing productions in the West End, at the Royal Court, National Theatre, Traverse and Young Vic. Her plays continue to be performed nationally and internationally and are available from Nick Hern books. Her work is on the school syllabus. Polly has an MA in Arts Psychotherapy from the Institute for the Arts in Therapy and Education (Distinction). She works in drama schools and believes that psychological understanding can deeply enrich the student's practice, as well as supporting creative freedom, personal growth, and resilience. Her work encourages students to value difference by becoming curious about how we are shaped by our own history, culture and by bigger systems. This empathic understanding is brought to the rehearsal process encouraging psychologically informed, deeply embodied character exploration.
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