Miss Alison Matthews
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Current positions
Senior Lecturer in Performance
Biography
Originally from the USA, Ali is a UK-based teaching artist and researcher based in Manchester. She is the co-convenor of SAMCT's Practice-as-Research Centre of Excellence, which provides guidance for postgraduate researchers/supervisory teams and active researchers working in creative practice across the school.
She teaches on the BA in Theatre and Performance programme and formerly the MA in Contemporary Performance Programme. She is a regular supervisor of PhDs on topics ranging from movement & intermedial technologies; creative pilgrimage as an artistic practice; the 'song film' as a form, and postdramatic improvisation in creative facilitation.
She has created cabaret, one-to-one and end-on performances for venues as diverse as Toynbee Studios, Chelsea Theatre, York Mediale, Project Arts Centre Dublin, Glogauir Studios Berlin, Lancaster Arts, Contact Theatre and Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Her gig theatre piece The Witching Way (created with Leo Burtin) premiered at the Royal Exchange in 2019 and toured to venues including Lancaster Arts and Square Chapel, Halifax. In 2019, she was selected as a Manchester International Festival Creative Lab artist. In 2021, she was a Ferment artist in residence at Dartington Arts in Devon. She received a Lancashire Arts Exchange commission in 2021 to redevelop her play for video, BOBBY, LUNCH IS DARKNESS, written in collaboration with an AI text chain generator.
Areas of Research
Creative Engagement with Ecology (specifically mycology & forest ecology)
One-to-One/Immersive Theatre
Performance & New Technologies (specifically creative AI)
Performance in Context (L4)
Theatre Making (L5)
Performance Studies (L5)
Making Contemporary Performance (L6)
& a range of supervision across L6, L7 and PhD provisions.
Qualifications
-
PhD in Performance Studies
2010 - 2014 -
Masters in Practising Performance
2007 - 2009 -
BA in Drama (cum laude)
2003 - 2007