Dr Piotr Woycicki

PhD (Prifysgol Lancaster), MA (Prifysgol Lancaster), BA (Prifysgol Lancaster), PGCTHE, FHEA

Piotr was appointed Lecturer in Theatre and Performance in 2013. Before joining Aberystwyth University he has lectured at the University of Exeter and Lancaster University. Piotr has completed his Ph.D. in the Theatre Studies Department at Lancaster University (2010), where he also completed his MA (Res) and BA (Hons). His research investigated the politics of perception in post-cinematic theatre, a subgroup of intermedial theatre which critically responds to and deconstructs cinematic culture. His main areas of research concern the intersections between political and aesthetic theory, particularly the work of Lyotard, Deleuze, and Ranci?re and contemporary intermedial performance practice. His other interests extend into neuroaesthetic approaches to performance analysis and the historical relationship between paradigm shifts in scientific discourse and the deconstructions of the essentialist human subject in theatre practice. He is an active member of the Intermediality Working Group within the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). He has also collaborated as composer and deviser with the UK based intermedial company Imitating the Dog and director Pete Brooks on a number of international projects, such as Tales from the Bar of Lost Souls, Rey Lear and 6 Degrees Below the Horizon. More recently he has collaborated with Lucy Gough as a digital scenographer/designer and composer on a PaR project of an intermedial version of Our Lady of Shadows (written and dir. Gough) and in the same capacities on a production of David Ian Rabey's play Land of Our Fathers (written and dir. Rabey). Piotr has also composed chamber music and orchestral works. Some of his works were published and had performances at the Casa da Musica concert hall in Oporto, Portugal. 

He received an AHRC network grant award as Principal Investigator to investigate 'Theatre, A.I. and 'ludic technologies''. Please visit the project website for more detail.

Module Coordinator

• TP11020 - Theatre in Context 1
• TP11120 - Studio Theatre Project
• TP11320 - Theatre in Context 2
• TP39020 - Musical Theatre Dramaturgies
• FM38420 - Videogame Theories
• TP23820 - New Media Performance

Coordinator

• TP11320 - Theatre in Context 2
• TP39020 - Musical Theatre Dramaturgies
• TP11020 - Theatre in Context 1
• FM38420 - Videogame Theories
• TP23820 - New Media Performance
• TP11120 - Studio Theatre Project

Tutor

• TP21820 - Directors' Theatre
• TP11020 - Theatre in Context 1
• TP39020 - Musical Theatre Dramaturgies
• TP11120 - Studio Theatre Project
• TP11420 - Site-Specific Performance Project
• FM38420 - Videogame Theories
• TP11320 - Theatre in Context 2
• TP21220 - Acting: Process and Performance

Lecturer

• TFM6520 - Advanced Media Production Skills
• FM38420 - Videogame Theories
• TP21820 - Directors' Theatre
• TP11420 - Site-Specific Performance Project
• TP11020 - Theatre in Context 1
• TP39020 - Musical Theatre Dramaturgies
• TP11320 - Theatre in Context 2
• TP11120 - Studio Theatre Project
• TP23220 - Shakespeare in Performance

Course Viewer

• TFM0220 - Digital Culture
• TFM6420 - Introduction to Media Production Skills
• TFM0120 - Gender and Media Production

Moderator

• FM34120 - Media Semiotics

Practice-as-research

Our Lady of Shadows (ongoing)

A practice-as-research collaboration between Lucy Gough, Eddie Ladd and Piotr Woycicki which explores the aesthetics ofneo-medievalism through an intermedial dramaturgy. The project is an intermedial theatrical version of Lucy Gough's radio play Our Lady of Shadows. The work combines dramatic text, physical performance, digital scenography, painting, animation and music in an intermedial exploration of the tenuous relationship between reality and imagination. (role: Music composition and digital scenography design).

Our Lady of Shadows Augmented Reality Installation (2018)

TaPra Gallery 2018, Aberystwyth University.  

Land of My Fathers (2018)

Digital scenography design and music composition for a production of David Rabey's play Land of My Fathers. dir. David Rabey. May 2018 Castle Theatre, Aberystwyth in collaboration with Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

The Scheherazade Delusion (2017)

Concert rhapsody for violin and orchestra. Piano recital performed on November 2017, Casa da Musica, Oporto. (http://www.casadamusica.com/en/agenda/2017/11/28-novembro-2017-zofia-woycicka-e-olga-vasilieva/46401/#tab=0)

Thoughts that can be Danced (2014)

An intermedial tango performance devised by Karoline Gritzner, Biljana Lipic, Stephen Ellis and Piotr Woycicki. The Foundry Studio, Aberystwyth University.

Rey Lear (2011)

Rey Lear is a contemporary intermedial adaptation of Shakespeare's classic, weaving the narrative of the destruction of the family within a broader landscape of political & social unrest, closely referencing recent Chilean history. With two simultaneous stories intertwined, Pete Brook's Rey Lear stages Shakespeare's vision of a society undergoing a process of self-destruction. This version puts Lear in a nursing home, haunted by his memories, where fear & madness lurk behind the facade of everyday life. The play's intermedial aesthetic, addresses the classic with a mixture of languages, film & theatre, where the complex scenography gives unique insight into the nightmarish delirium of the protagonist. The piece premiered on March 2011, at the Teatro de la Universidad Catolica, Santiago, Chile.

Tales from the Bar of Lost Souls (2010)

At the end of his life a dying man turns to a young woman & tries to put right a wrong committed many years ago. As he recounts the story of his past he is taken back to The Bar of Lost Souls, a place where, it is said, your deepest desires become real.

The show takes as its starting point the melting pot of Mediterranean port communities, where notions of national borders & identity are challenged by the ever-changing mix of ethnicities & nationalities, the activity of commerce, the blurring of the lines between legal & criminal behaviour & by the suspension of the norms that attempt to govern sexual & political orthodoxy.

Part musical, part dream play, Tales from the Bar of Lost Souls is a magical realist story of forbidden love, criminality & the possibility of finding redemption in the unlikeliest of places.

Premiered at the National Theatre of Athens (2009), Greece. UK premier: Exeter (2010). Performed in: Leeds, Lancaster, Manchester & Ipswich. Funded by the Arts Council & The National Theatre of Greece. Performances are ongoing.