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Kerrie Schaefer

Academic Researcher

Europe, United Kingdom

Kerrie Schaefer is a senior lecturer in Drama at the University of Exeter. With Fiona MacBeth she coordinates an MA in Applied, Community and Socially-Engaged Performance. Kerrie has a long standing interest in forms of participatory performance, having completed a PhD on contemporary Australian performance ensemble, The Sydney Front (University of Sydney, Australia). Prior to UK relocation in 2007, she was a lecturer in Drama at the University of Newcastle, Australia. As a member of a research group on Performance, Community Development and Social Change, she undertook practice-based research in community performance with local government, arts, voluntary/charity, and state government department (housing, health) monies. Kerrie has since published a Palgrave Macmillan monograph exploring meanings of community in community-based performance practice.

Kerrie has been involved in several RCUK Connected Communities projects including Harnessing Creative Clusters to the Digital Economy (PI), Participatory Arts and Health (co-I) and Remaking Society (co-I). In 2012/2013 she was in receipt of an AHRC Fellowship entitled ‘Enacting Community: Critical Histories and Theories of Community-based Theatre and Performance Practice’. She has also been invited to share this research with diverse audiences. For instance, as a panelist at the Community Oriented Arts for Social Transformation (COAST) Festival at acta Community Theatre, Bristol, 2012, and via the opening address for the COAST meeting at Expedition Metropolis in Kreuzberg, Berlin. She was also invited to lead the research seminar programme for the International Community Arts Festival (ICAF) in Rotterdam, 2014.

More information

http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/drama/staff/schaefer/