Rose Bruford College is proud to celebrate a significant achievement by our colleague, Professor Brian Lobel, who has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship of £82,960 for an innovative new project exploring the role of performance and ritual in experiences of serious illness.
Titled Re-figuring Illness: From Liminality to Transition in Performance, Ritual, and Health, the project sits at the intersection of performance studies, dramaturgy, and healthcare. It investigates how public ceremony and participatory performance can support individuals navigating cancer, offering new ways to acknowledge and accompany the complex realities of illness
At its core, the research challenges traditional narratives around recovery. Much existing discourse frames illness through the lens of “liminality”, a state of being suspended between health and illness. Professor Lobel’s work instead proposes a transitions-based framework, recognising that for many people, illness is not a temporary disruption but an ongoing process. This approach foregrounds the lived experiences of those who may not return to a so-called “normal,” including individuals living with chronic conditions, recurrence, or long-term survivorship.
The project will bring together ethnographic fieldwork, creative co-design with patient groups, and performance analysis. Through this interdisciplinary approach, it aims to develop new forms of ritual that more accurately reflect patients’ realities and provide meaningful ways to mark and navigate different stages of illness.
Responding to the growing number of people living with and beyond cancer, the research will produce a range of outputs, including conceptual models, academic publications, and an open-access toolkit. This toolkit will be designed for use across clinical, artistic, and community contexts, extending the impact of the work far beyond academia.
Professor Brian Lobel said:
“As the number of people living with and beyond serious illness continues to grow, there is an urgent need to rethink how we acknowledge and support these experiences. This research asks how we might move beyond our currently limited frameworks of illness and instead develop practices that reflect its complexity.
At Rose Bruford College, my colleagues, and students, and I are interested in how performance can move beyond the arts and into people’s lives. This Fellowship is a huge opportunity to expand this work in a national context, and with support from the RBC community. I am honoured.”
Brian Lobel will be a 2026-2027 British Academy Mid-Career Research Fellow, awarded for his 20+ years working in arts and health.
Brian has created work internationally in a range of contexts, from Harvard Medical School, to Sydney Opera House, to the National Theatre (London) and Lagos Theatre Festival, blending provocative humour with insightful reflection. For over 20 years, Brian has worked regularly with people living with and beyond cancer and other serious illnesses, including Fun with Cancer Patients, BALL & Other Funny Stories About Cancer (75+ cities internationally), A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer (with Bryony Kimmings), There is a Light: BRIGHTLIGHT (Project Director), Kicking Up Our Heels at GOSHArts, and Sex with Cancer (with Joon Lynn Goh). His book Theatre & Cancer was published in 2019, and his new book, Sex with Cancer, will be published by Jessica Kingsley Publishing (an imprint of Hachette) in 2027. His interactive and curatorial work includes Cruising for Art, HORA/Ruach, BINGE and Purge.
Brian is a Professor of Theatre and Performance at Rose Bruford College, an Emeritus Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Fellow and the co-founder of The Sick of the Fringe and Sex with Cancer. At Bruford, he was the founding Programme Director for BA Theatre and Social Change and currently works across BA, PhD and Research.
From developing accessible VR experiences to pioneering creative learning for children and young people, Rose Bruford College is committed to socially engaged research that harnesses the power of research and makes a tangible difference in our communities.