Queering and disrupting as acts of intervention: Proposals for engendering an attitude of practising in the performance workshop space

Abstract

This article proposes that collectively engaging in modes of practising that intentionally disrupt or queer habitual dynamics facilitates the emergence of transformed pedagogical approaches. It considers how power dynamics inform and emerge from pedagogical encounters between students and lecturer, and how engaging in practising that queers or disrupts these encounters reveals possibilities for teaching performance practice. It focuses on how encounters are spatially influenced and explores practices that disrupt normative ideas about how we position ourselves in space to enact social relations. These ideas are explored through reflecting on working with the MA Drama cohort at the University of South Wales. We explored normative ideas about what constitutes ‘good’ participation and group working practices in relation to the inhabitation of indoor and outdoor spaces and the performance of power. These experiences are considered in relation to failure, the queering of space and neuroqueering.