Dr Xristina Penna
Lecturer in Theatre

Profile

Biography

I am a Lecturer in Theatre (maternity cover) and lead and teach performance design at TFTI. I am also a Lecturer in Performance at the University of Derby, teaching performance design and devising through design to UG students at Derby Theatre.
I am a practicing designer-artist with over fifteen years of experience in a variety of national and international theatre and performance design and practice (UK, USA, Europe, Mexico).
In my creative practice I work with mixed-media, handmade bizarre objects, inefficient aesthetics and material stemming from the audience to create hybrid collaborative performance installations and actions. My installation work has appeared at Currents, USA; The Bluecoat, Liverpool; The Benaki Museum, Athens; Shunt Vaults, London; The Roundhouse, London; The Museum of Making, Derby etc.
I have contributed to multiple international academic conferences and symposia in the fields of performance, humanities and cognition (Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities, IFTR, TaPRA, PSi, Worlding the Brain) and have been a Visiting Short-Term Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
I am currently co-convener of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) Scenography Working Group.

Research

Overview

My research tests how performance design and practice can be informed by neuroscience theories of human consciousness and cognition to facilitate collaborative thinking through audiences, space and materials. I have developed my practical, conceptual, and analytical framework of the ‘scenographic contraption’ (Penna, 2013) as a method of generating participatory actions between materials, space, and audiences, and as a way of conceptualising contemporary scenography and participatory performance practice.

• Theatre Design / Scenography / Installation Art
• Spatial, material and social interactions in scenographic practice
• Cognitive neuroscience and consciousness (co-origination between brain, body, social, material and cultural world)
• Scenographic Contraptions, error and inefficient aesthetics as methods of creating and analysing scenography

Publications

Selected publications

Penna, X. 2023. Scenographic Contraptions: The Importance of error, exposure of process and inefficient aesthetics for orchestrating conversation. In Sandys, Kathrine and Thornett, Lucy (eds) Hello Stranger: The festival. Performance Research Books, 2023: Aberystwyth.22-25.

Penna, X. (2014). Uncovered – Performing everyday clothes, Scene. 2 (1&2), pp. 9–14

Thesis:
Penna, C. (2017). Towards a CogScenography: Cognitive science, scenographic reception and processes. PhD thesis. University of Leeds