David Overend

United Kingdom (residence) °1981
en

David Overend is a Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on contemporary theatre and performance, often at the intersection with cultural geography. Publications include articles for Contemporary Theatre Review, New Theatre Quarterly, GeoHumanities, Humanities and Cultural Geographies, and an edited collection, Rob Drummond Plays with Participation (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama 2021). As a director, David has worked for the National Theatre of Great Britain and several other theatres, and has toured internationally with award-winning productions.

www.davidoverend.net

research

research expositions

  • A Work on Progress (2011) author(s): David Overend published in: Journal for Artistic Research
    The exposition functions as a critical reflection on A Work on Progress, a practice-as-research performance/installation. Aiming to provide an alternative to the commodification of theatre, the project explores the possibility of moving beyond postmodern strategies of cultural resistance, such as the self-reflexivity of ‘postdramatic’ theatre. Drawing on Nicholas Bourriaud’s models of ‘relational aesthetics’ and ‘postproduction’, A Work on Progress aims to develop a ‘relational theatre practice’, which operates through strategies of use and reconfiguration. The work consisted of a room filled with ‘tools’ of theatrical production, which were available for visitors to the space to use in a variety of ways. The exposition documents and analyses the unrehearsed performances that took place when the work was staged in Glasgow in 2010, suggesting that through the continual changes and reconfigurations that took place throughout the event, a progressive politics might be located, which aspires to an alternative form of theatre production.
     open exposition comments (3)