Collisions 2026: Two Days of Practice Research, Disruption and Conversation

Last week I had the pleasure of taking part in Collisions, the practice research festival at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama held on 23rd and 24th September 2026.

Across two days, the festival brought together postgraduate researchers working across performance, technology, accessibility, applied theatre, ecology, pedagogy and beyond.

This year’s theme was “Disruptions”, asking what happens when we interrupt the expectations that shape our practices, and whether disruption can open possibilities for change.

Day 1

I presented as part of the opening panel with Vera Marcu Ion, Rae Birchley and Setareh Fatehi.

My presentation, “Hi, Can You Hear Me? // Notes on Asymmetrical Infrastructure,” explored how we might think more critically about the unequal infrastructures that support performance made over and with distance. I’m interested in distance not simply as geographical separation, but as a relational condition shaped by technology, access, time, bodies and systems.

The discussion that followed focused particularly on the different kinds of distance that can exist within performance, and what happens when the infrastructures supporting it fail or become visible. A dropped connection, delay, frozen image or mismatch between sound and video can reveal systems that we normally take for granted. These moments of failure can become part of the dramaturgy rather than simply being technical problems.

Vera Marcu Ion explored who is “in the room” and the labour that sits behind creative practice and higher education, particularly so-called “low-skilled” labour through an Eastern European lens.

Rae Birchley presented research into accessibility in VRChat, exploring how virtual environments, venues and performances can better support access needs, including the integration of sign language interpretation.

Setareh Fatehi presented Parallaxing-(i), exploring how remoteness can be held in a body separated across two localities, drawing on their experience of moving between Europe and Iran. I was particularly struck by the idea of the “border artist”, and how movement between borders can itself become part of an artistic practice.

The second half of the day continued with practices approaching disruption, space, embodiment and research from very different directions.

Callum Anderson presented two screendance films alongside their research into screendance as both a form and a methodology. Recorded in public spaces, the films explored how dancing can disrupt our experience and understanding of space and place.

Nic Farr shared Desire Lines, a practice research piece exploring the in-between and liminal spaces of reading, doing, refusing and repeating. Repetition and refusal became embodied practices and ways of thinking through research.

Azure D. Osborne-Lee shared their ongoing doctoral research into dance archiving and accessibility, developed in collaboration with Kinetic Light. They explored quilting and collective quilting as material practices for making visible what might otherwise remain illegible, while opening up different ways of thinking about accessibility and archiving.

The day ended with a roundtable convened by Setareh Fatehi and Dr Diana Damian Martin, bringing together artist-scholars with very different positionalities in relation to borders. Artists joined remotely from different parts of the world, sharing practices, research questions, personal and familial experiences, and different understandings of practice research.

The conversation moved across borders and how they permeate artistic practice, as well as the boundaries between artists, institutions and nation states. What I found particularly exciting was the diversity of perspectives we were able to hold together in one space, both physically and remotely, without needing to flatten the differences between their individual contexts.

Day 2

The second day of Collisions continued with a series of presentations that offered provocations on how we disrupt the ways we listen, learn, make and share knowledge.

We began with a powerful sound piece by fellow PTEQ PhD researcher Melanie Wilson, Listening with Spiders. Melanie invited us to decentre our emotional and cognitive frameworks and listen more closely to the non-human beings around us, building on their research into eco-feminist listening practices.

Lennie Varvarides & DYSPLA presented Knowledge is Performative, Memory is Privilege, questioning conventional knowledge systems through the experiences of dyslexic people and those with differentiated learning needs. Lennie considered how reading, writing, remembering and rewriting might themselves become radical acts of performance.

Lavine Levy Luo shared their ongoing applied theatre research with Chinese youth, exploring how devised and applied theatre might challenge meritocratic mindsets. I was particularly interested in their reflection on disruption as a methodological input, rather than simply something that interrupts an otherwise planned process.

Fellow PTEQ PhD researcher Amy Nicholson then shared The Butterfly House, an outdoor performance project combining oral storytelling, puppetry and touch-sensitive sonic technology. The work explores how “hidden” technologies can augment storytelling and create moments of magic and wonder for young audiences, while also confronting the practical challenges of making and touring technologically mediated work outdoors.

We ended with Setareh Fatehi and Dr Diana Damian Martin reconvening the panel from Day 1. The discussion moved towards the role, possibilities and future of Collisions as a space for conversation between practice research scholars, both within Central and beyond.

Looking back across the two days, what stayed with me was the sheer variety of ways disruption can operate in practice research: as a glitch, a different way of listening, a challenge to established knowledge systems, a methodological intervention, an accessibility practice, or simply the act of bringing different practices and perspectives into conversation.

A huge thank you to Vera Marcu Ion, Lennie Varvarides, Hikaru Morimoto and Josie for all the care and work that went into making the festival happen, and to David Shearing for his guidance and support throughout.

I’m also particularly grateful to my supervisors Liam Jarvis and Kate Elswit, whose encouragement to think more critically about infrastructure in distance-based performance continues to shape this research.

Two days, a lot of questions, and plenty to take back into the work!