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Karl McIntyre

Drama and Theatre Studies, De Montfort University

Thesis title:

When I am Old, I shall Wear Purple Nail Varnish: Utilising performance art to construct queer spaces that celebrate and advocate for ageing bodies

My research explores the increasing commodification, sanitisation, and youth fixation of LGBTQ+ events. The PhD will model radically re-imagined safe queer spaces that advocate for frequently excluded or denigrated ageing bodies. This thesis will work in dialogue with Edelman’s No Future (2004), and Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure (2011), These texts offer potent subversive, agentive futures of queerness and ageing, which my practice research seeks to manifest through the disciplines of cabaret and performance art.

Research Area

  • Drama and Theatre Studies

Conferences

  • Borderlines IX: Seeking Solidarity and Wonder Through Performance (Panel 1: Agentive Relations with Self and Other), De Montfort University, 30th June 2022

 Submitted paper: 'Queer Communities forged through Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World Competition'

Public Engagement & Impact

  • As creative director and choreographer of the physical theatre in education company, Theatrication, I have worked with young performers to explore issues of identity and gender in relation to the experiences of young people.

Other Research Interests

  • Autobiographical performance
  • Multimedia Performance
  • Immersive Performance
  • Queer Theory 
  • Physical Theatre