Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson
Programme Director for Queer Performance MA
Summary
Dr Phoebe Patey-Ferguson specialises in the social contexts of contemporary performance, focusing on queer and trans practices in festivals and nightlife. Their work considers how subcultural and countercultural practices by marginalised artists generate community, resist assimilationist narratives and embrace radical creative methodologies. As a lecturer, they are dedicated to developing queer pedagogical approaches to studying and creating performance. Phoebe’s Doctoral thesis examined the history and practice of international theatre festivals in Britain, focusing on the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) and its social, political and economic context. All of their work uses interdisciplinary perspectives to consider how the dominance of neoliberal capitalism in contemporary society restricts and diminishes the social possibilities of theatre and culture combined with an effort to discover, invent or propose alternative modes of production and sites of resistance.
Phoebe is the co-research lead for The Night Club: an international queer performance research network, co-convenor of the Queer Futures Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) and co-chair of the board for Duckie. They frequently work as a dramaturg and mentor for contemporary performance makers. They have an extensive background as a producer and cultural administrator, including with LIFT, In Between Time (IBT) and the iconic east London queer venue Vogue Fabrics Dalston(VFD), delivering international festivals of theatre, Live Art and experimental practice and are the co-founder of Live Art Club London. Phoebe frequently collaborates with festivals and organisations such as Buzzcut Festival, WOW Festival, the Live Art Development Agency (LADA), Duckie, and & Friends, delivering public programmes that bridge academic theory and contemporary performance.
Teaching
Research
Teaching Area
Theatre and Social Change BA, Queer Performance MA
Qualifications
PhD: The London International Festival of Theatre in Context (1947-2016) – Goldsmiths, University of London (2019)
MA in Performance and Culture: Interdisciplinary Perspectives – Goldsmiths, University of London (with distinction) (2013)
BA in Drama and Theatre Studies – Prifysgol Aberystwyth University (First Class Hons) (2012)
Memberships
Working Group Co-Convenor: Queer Futures, International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) (2022 – present)
Network co-lead, The Night Club: A Queer Performance Research Network (2021 – present)
Drama HE Executive (2020 – 2023)
Performance Studies International (PSi)
Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA)
The Sociology of Theatre and Performance Research Group (STPRG)
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Selected Publications
Co-editor (with Stephen Greer) Live Art Special Issue: Radicalism and Complicity in a Scene of Constraint, Contemporary Theatre Review vol. 34 no. 3 (2024)
Article: ‘Cronies, Cliques and Lovers: Queer Friendship as Anti-Institutional Practice in UK Live Art Festivals,’ co-authored with Simon Holton, in Live Art Special Issue, CTR (2024)
Book Chapter: ‘From the Finishing School of Marisa Carnesky,’ in Obsessions of a Show woman, ed. Eirini Kartsaki (2024)
Article: ‘LIFT and the London 2012 Olympics: Spectacular Experience,’ New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 39, Issue 1 (2023) pp. 18-33
Review: ‘Live: Live! by Lucy McCormick,’ Volupté, Vol.4, Issue 2 (2021) pp. 208-15
Review: ‘Anne Bean: Self Etc. Edited by Rob La Frenais. Bristol and London: Intellect and Live Art Development Agency, 2019. Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s. By Dominic Johnson. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019.’ Theatre Research International, Vol.46, Issue 1 (2021) pp. 99-101.
Writer commission: co-authored with Andre Neely, ‘Now it is Now,’ in Live Art Sector Research: A Report Mapping the UK Live Art Sector, eds. Cecilia Wee et al. Arts Council England (2021), pp. 191-195.
Article: ‘LIFT and the Greater London Council versus Thatcher: London’s Cultural Battleground, 1981,’ New Theatre Quarterly, Vol.36, Issue 1 (2020) pp. 4-16.
Selected Conferences and Events
Curator and host: ‘Maximum Everything: Excess and (Un)Respectability in Club Performance,’ Tate Modern, London (2025)
Paper: ‘Collective Effervescence Comedowns: The Tragedy of the Heterotopic Commons,’ IFTR, The University of the Philippines, Manila (2024)
Paper: ‘Assembling Queer Friendships at UK Live Art Festivals,’ Performance Studies International (PSi), Central School of Speech and Drama, London (2024)
Paper: ‘Gossiping for Survival,’ IFTR, University of Ghana in Accra (2023)
Paper: ‘Lifting Belly: Working Out with the Fat Queer Hunk,’ TaPRA, University of Leeds (2023)
Panel chair: ‘Good Fatty/Bad Fatty,’ WOW Festival, Southbank Centre (2023)
Paper: ‘”And She Went All the Way Up to the Elbow!”: Fisting as a Decadent Performance Practice,’ Decadent Bodies Conference, British Association of Decadence Studies, Goldsmiths College (2022)
Paper: ‘Queer Collective Effervescence Under a Shining Star,’ IFTR World Congress, The University of Iceland, Reykjavik (2022)
Paper: ‘Too Close for Comfort: Sex, Gossip and Power-Knowledge in Live Art Research,’ Live Art: Histories of the Present, University of Glasgow, Scotland, (2022)
Paper: ‘Pissing on/off the Rich: the Transgender Terrorist Performances of Rose Wood,’ TaPRA, Exeter University, UK (2021)
Paper: ‘”I am the real Mimosa”: an exercise in queer world making in the performance choreographies of Trajal Harrel,’ Congruence and Contestation: Contemporary Feminism and Performance Conference, University of Roehampton, UK (2015)
Research Interests
International festivals of contemporary performance and live art.
Festival histories and practices in the UK.
Contemporary performance and social justice.
Queer and trans performance.
Live art in nightlife spaces.