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Scholarship

Academic Positions

University College Cork | Cork, Ireland | 2007 -- present

Permanent Lecturer, Department of Theatre 

Contributing Lecturer, MA in Women's Studies

Contributing Graduate Lecturer, College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences

Augsburg College | Minneapolis, USA | Spring 2007

Adjunct Professor

College of St. Benedict | Minnesota, USA | Spring 2007

Visiting Instructor

Education

Ph.D. in Theatre Arts

University of Minnesota | Twin Cities, USA | 2007, PhD

University of Nebraska | Omaha, USA | 2000, MA Directing

MA in Dramatic Arts (Directing)

National University of Ireland | Galway | 1995, MA English

MA, English & Publishing

National University of Ireland | Galway | 1994, BA

BA, English & French

University College Cork | Ireland | 2013, PG Cert Teaching

and Learning

Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning

University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, USA | 2001-2006

Graduate Instructor

Teaching Assistant

Stanford University | Palo Alto, CA, USA | 2001-2003

Stanford Summer Theatre Discovery Institute Instructor

Publications

Journals:

O’Gorman, R. (2024) ‘What takes your breath away? Notes towards somatic training in times of ecological crises’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 15(3), pp. 518–538. doi: 10.1080/19443927.2024.2372414.

 

“Sympathetic Vibrations: Sense-ability, Medical Performance, and Hearing Histories of Hurt.” With King, et al. Global Performance Studies (GPS), 4:2 2021. 

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Water marks and water moves: community arts and thinking with water, Community Development Journal, Volume 54, Issue 1, 1 January 2019, Pages 119–144, https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsy053

 

Editor, special edition of Performance Matters, the Journal, “Performance & Bodies-Politic” 2018. 

 

"Addressing the Bones", Performance Research, (2018) 23:4-5, 232-236, DOI: 10.1080/13528165.2018.1518584

 

“Can Your Jellyfish Sing?: “Tentacular” Moves from Individual Embodiment to the Planetary. Global Performance Studies, GPS 2:1 OverFlow.   https://gps.psi-web.org/article/view/26/25  June 2018. https://doi.org/10.33303/gpsv2n1a2 

 

Video essay: “Collaboration: Re-threading labyrinths of learning (together) through pedagogy and creative arts practices”. (with Leslie Burton) In The Cine-files, (Special issue on The video essay) Fall 2016. 

 

“12-A-Day: Lighthousekeeping on the Irish Sea”, Performance Research, (2016) 21:2, 25-31

 

On Failure (editor with Margaret Werry) for special issue of Performance Research 17.1 (February 2012). 

 

“Under the seat of knowledge: a photo essay on failure” with Margaret Werry. Transformations. Special issue 

“Teaching Performance”.  20:1 (Spring-Summer 2009) 47-77. 

 

“Shamefaced: Performing Pedagogy, Outing Affect” with Margaret Werry.  Text and Performance Quarterly.  27:3 (July 2007) 213-230.

 

 

Book Chapters: 

 

Book chapter: "Threads of Performance: What moves and what remains of a feminist cartography?"" In The Knitting Map: Art, Community and Controversy. Jools Gilson, ed., Bloomsbury, 2019. 95-107

 

"Storied bodies and bodied stories" In Dance Matters, Aoife McGrath and Emma Meehan, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. 55-78

 

'Embodied Adventures in and out of the Irish Countryside' (with Jools Gilson Bernadette Cronin In: Alexander, K, Garrett Brown, N. & Whatley, S (eds). Attending to movement: Somatic perspectives on living in this world. Axminster, UK: Triarchy Press. 2015.

 

"The Ontogenetic Body" in Body and Performance, Sandra Reeve ed., UK, Triarchy Press. 2013.  9-21

 

“Caught in the Liminal: Dorothy Cross’s Udder Series and Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats….”. In Liminal Borderlands  in Irish Literature and Culture. Irene Gilsenan-Nordin and Elin Holmsten, eds., Oxford, Peter Lang, 2008.  103-127.

 

Reviews:

 

Performance Review of Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr. Theatre Journal 59:1 (March 2007): 102-03.

 

Performance Review of The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill.  Irish Theatre Magazine Autumn 2008.

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Performative Arts and Pedagogy – Towards the Development of an International Glossary: A Group Discussion as part of the 4th SCENARIO SYMPOSIUM, University College Cork (November 11th, 2016). In: Scenario 2, 2016

 

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Research Events

Tending the Furies, Workshop with J'aime Morrison, California State University, Northridge, at UCC, August 2024

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*Co-Curator of Modes of Capture, University of Limerick Department of Dance and Dublin Dance Festival. 

 

 

Wellcome Trust Funded project, Living Well with the Dead in Contemporary Ireland (€32,802 Small Grant in Humanities and Social Science, June 2018-May 2019). (PI: Dr. Orla O’Donovan, School of Applied Social Studies; Research Team and collaborators: Dr. Joan McCarthy, School of Nursing and Midwifery and Dr. Róisín O’Gorman, Dept. of Theatre). Year-long series of transdisciplinary workshops culminating in Thinkery in May 2019. 

 

Somatic Pedagogies Symposium, 13th July, 2019. UCC. Keynote invited: Dr. Martha Eddy. Supported by School of Film, Music and Theatre and with support from UCC Teaching and Learning Research Award

 

Somatic Salon: A Soaking in Possibilities, 3rd-4th May, 2018, UCC, Organizer of a Symposium on Somatics in Education, see: https://roisinog.wixsite.com/somaticsalon

 

BodyStories: from individual agency to the body politic.  19 June 2016. University College Cork.  (Strategic Research Fund, €5,000). Co-organized with Women's Studies and Postgraduate Perforum conference Drama & Theatre Studies. See: https://bodystories2016.wordpress.com/

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Performance & Politics & Protest 4th Sept. 2015, University College Cork. An international, interdisciplinary symposium. (Supported by funding from The School of Music and Theatre, Women's Studies, Applied Social Studies and Graduate Studies, €2750).  See: http://performancepoliticsprotest2015.wordpress.com

 

Performing Thought, Thinking Performance 14th June 2013, School of Music & Theatre, University College Cork. (Supported by funding 'Cross-School Initiative Award' €2000). This symposium is the culmination of a year's work in the Performance Working Group (co-convened with Dr. Chris Morris, Music). This interdisciplinary research group meets monthly in the academic year to share on-going research.  See: https://performingthoughtthinkingperformance.wordpress.com/

 

School Collaborative Performance Initiative (Feb-Sep 2013), a new scheme designed to initiate and fund cross-school collaboration between Music and Theatre Studies undergraduate students in the School of Music and Theatre. Funded by an award of €2,000 from the Cross-School Initiative Fund, School of Music and Theatre. (Co-convened with Dr Chris Morris, Music). 

 

Somatics & Performance Workshop at University College Cork, 27-29th Aug. 2012. I organized a three-day professional peer-to-peer workshop at DTS, UCC, in August 2012.  As part of the Corporeal Knowing Network, of which I am a founding member, this workshop offered a focal point for our work.  The network focuses on an exchange between Irish and UK based theatre and dance practitioners currently exploring somatic practices applied to performance (dance & theatre). 

Invited Talks & Workshops

Invited speaker  “Sympathetic Vibrations: Sense-ability, Medical Performance, and Hearing Histories of Hurt” with Orla O'Donovan,

Nordic Network Gender, Body, Health

Vulnerability and the Gift of Death? Stockholm University, April 16-17, 2024

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“Bodies out of bounds: Subjects of containment, contamination and display.”  Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study Accelerator Workshop, Harvard University, Boston, USA. 2019

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“Embodied Movement Awareness: Articulating structure & Flow across and through disciplines”. Leibnizhaus, Liebniz Universität Hannover,  2018. 

 

Body Doubles, In detail series, Glucksman Gallery, UCC, invited public talk, 2018

 

“Global Water Dances: Following flows inside and alongside our bodies of water” for UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre, 2018, UCC. Invited talk as part of World Water Day, Water Talks. 

 

“Just Passing Through: (Un)Becoming Breath between the Body and the Planetary”, FUAIM, UCC Seminar series, Invited talk. 2018

 

“Moving the maternal: Explorations of placental breathing and ‘tentacular’ kinships” at Dance and the Maternal,  Queens University, Belfast, NI, 2017. Keynote.

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Presentation on Somatics and Global Water Dances:  “Thinking with Water” at “Thinkery on Water, Austerity and The Commons”,  2017 UCC.

 

“Does your jellyfish sing? Embodied exploration of the moving tentacles of breath, body and voice.”  Invited Keynote: Embodied Monologues, NUIM, 2017. 

 

"Structures of feeling and feelings of structure: dancing with Neoliberal structures of affect, connection and collapse”.  School of Applied Social Studies and CACSSS Graduate School,  ‘Neoliberal Cultures – the Space for Critique and Resistance’  UCC,  2016. 

Conferences

 

TaPRA Theatre and Performance Research Association,
(2023) "Residues of Science: accumulations and dispersals of meaning making through digital and embodied practices".  TaPRA Theatre and Performance Research Association, University of Leeds, UK , 30-AUG-23 - 01-SEP-23. [Details]

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Performance Studies International (PSi) (2023) "Terminal Velocity: Can we remember that we are falling?". [ Presentation], Performance Studies International (PSi), South Africa (online) , 30-JUN-23. [Details]

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Dance and Somatics Conference, 2023
"From silenced tongues to falling gardens."  Presentation,, Dance and Somatics Conference, Coventry UK  online , 14-JUL-23 - 16-JUL-23. [Details]

Death, Dying & Disposal Conference, University of Bath, UK, September, 2019. 

 

“Theoretical and practical explorations of the voice of the tentacular”, Workshop & presentation, Dance & Somatics Practices Conference University of Coventry 7-9th, July 2017.

 

Scenario Conference Roundtable contributor, 25-28th May, 2017, UCC, Also part of organizing committee for conference.

 

“From bubbles to Global Water Dances:  Embodiments of water in practice based research.” Performance Studies International, (PSi23), 8-11 June, 2017 Hamburg, Germany. 

 

“Bodies of Water: Exploring movement through embodiments of water from the somatic to the socio-political”

“The Politics of Performance and Play: Feminist Matters”, July 7-8 2016, University of Leiden, Netherlands. 

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Invited also to contribute to Pre-conference workshop: “Bodies of Water: A somatic soaking in moving possibilities”(invited at LAK) University of Leiden, Netherlands 6 July 2016.

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"Re-threading the labyrinth: Collaborative journeys in the classroom and in research creation" (with Leslie Burton) Irish Society for Theatre Research, Waterford IT, 22 April 2016. 

 

"And yet, it moves: a Happy-go-lucky reflection on movement strategies for performative teaching and learning. 2nd Scenario Forum on Performative Teaching and Learning, University College Cork 25th September, 2015. Invited speaker.

 

"Threads of Performance: What moves and what remains of a feminist cartography?" The Knitting Map symposium. Glucksman Gallery, UCC. Invited speaker. 14 May 2015. 

  

"Between movement and stillness: a theatre and performance based reflection on the possibilities of performative pedagogies."  1st Performative Teaching and Learning Symposium, University College Cork, 12-13th Sept. 2013. 

 

"Somatics and Liveness" Roundtable on current research. Rethinking Liveness, University College Cork, 6-7th Sept. 2013. 

 

Panel organizer and presenter: "Somaticats: On the prowl for somatic performatives." Dance & Somatic Practices Conference, Coventry University, July 2013.  

 

“Abdicating presence: Considering the next stage of performance in work of Dorothy Cross.” International Federation for Theatre Research, Barcelona, July 2013. 

 

'A'ya an animal a'ya?': Marina Carr's On Raftery's Hill. 'Four-Footed Actors: Live Animals on the Stage.' University of Valencia, 12-14 Dec. 2012.

 

"Interdisciplinary Ontogenesis". Invited speaker. Dance Matters Symposium, Dance House and Trinity College Dublin, 7th Nov. 2012.     

 

"Saturation & Sponging: an Ontogenetic exploration". Somatics & Performance Workshop at University College Cork, 27-29th Aug. 2012 

 

"Shadow play: body doubling in the work of William Kentridge and Ana Mendieta". Theatre and Performance Research Association, Body in Performance Working Group, Cardiff, 9-11 Sept. 2010.

 

“The structure of affect and the affect of structure in Lucy Guerin Inc.’s Structure and Sadness” Irish Society for Theatre Research, Performance Studies Working Group. Trinity College Dublin 22-24 April 2010. 

 

“Casting Shadows in mud, myth and memory” For Eye and Mind Interdisciplinary Forum, Glucksman Gallery, UCC, Cork. 17 September, 2009.  

 

“Celtic Tiger as Irish Bull: Digging the Dance Macabre of Irish Mythologizing”. At the Irish Society for Theatre Research, Sligo, 8-9 May 2009.

 

“A home like no-place: mid-land movements, migrations and murder in James Son of James.” At American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR). Panel: “No-place Choreography and Corporeal Topographies”. Boston, MA, November 2008. 

 

“Exploding Eyeballs: The Myths and Materiality of Vision in the work of Dorothy Cross.” Paper presented at “Seeing Things: Irish Studies and Visual Culture”, University of Limerick, June 2007. 

 

“Where is the Human? Borders, Frontiers and Limits of Humanness”.  Panel leader/session organizer at American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), “The Human and its Others”, Princeton, NJ, 2006.

 

“Motioning Bodies, Moving Space and the Interrogation of Perception”, presented at American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA), “The Human and its Others”, Princeton, NJ, March 2006.

 

“Querying Land/scape Through the Body”. Presented at Mid-American Theatre Conference, (MATC) Chicago, March 2006.

 

“Opening the Body’s Space: A Gesture Toward Pelvic Perceptions”.  Selected as part of Fresh Print: Emerging Scholar panel, Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), San Francisco, July, 2005.

 

“Wounding Taste Through Wounded Bodies”.  Presented at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR).  Panel: “Considering Bodies in Evaluating Taste”, Las Vegas, November, 2004.  

 

“Ruptures in the Script: Laughter in Contemporary Irish Theatre”. Paper presented at International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL), Galway, Ireland, July, 2004.

 

“Always shiftin’ and changin’ and coddin’ the eye”:  The Necessity of the Liminal in Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats… .   Paper presented at  “Liminal Borderlands: Ireland Past, Present, Future”. An Interdisciplinary Conference in Irish Studies at the 4th Biannual Conference of Nordic Irish Studies Network (NISN).  Dalarna University College, Sweden, April, 2004.

 

“Seeing in the Dark: Sarah Kane’s Acts of Violence”.  Presented at “The Ends of Violence: Detonations of Vision” Visual Studies Graduate Conference, University of California, Irvine, 12-13 March, 2004. 

 

“Grave Laughter: Theatrical Manifestations of Death”.  Presented at the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR).  Panel: “Matters of the Spirit”, Philadelphia, November 2002.    

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