Miss Alison Matthews

School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies

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Contact Details

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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.

She is currently touring her ACE-funded show Mushroom Language: A Fungal Gothic which premiered to a sold out run at The Lowry in 2023. She is also currently touring in Marina Abramovic's BALKAN EROTIC EPIC for Factory International/Aviva Studios, to venues including Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona.

Areas of Research

Creative Engagement with Ecology (specifically mycology & forest ecology)
One-to-One/Immersive Theatre
Performance & New Technologies (specifically creative AI)

Teaching Qualifications and Recognitions Publications

Teaching

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 and Recognitions

Qualifications

  • Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice

    2015 - 2016

  • PhD in Performance Studies

    2010 - 2014

  • Masters in Practising Performance (Distinction)

    2007 - 2009

  • BA in Drama (cum laude)

    2003 - 2007

Recognitions

  • Invited Keynote: “If Matter is Matter, Then What Does it Matter?: Mycology as Metaphor, Mycology as Existentialist Gateway Drug” - artist keynote for More-than-Human Worlds through Artistic Research: Environmental Humanities Symposium hosted by University of Bristol / University of Stavanger (Norway) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2025)

  • SAMCT Nominee: UoS Celebration of Research and Knowledge Exchange Award in the category Excellence in Research and Knowledge Exchange for “Mushroom Language: Tour, Workshops & Post-Show Discussions”

  • Research Impact Fund - Mushroom Language Tour, Workshops & Post-Show Discussions (Lead Researcher)

  • Artist & Performer, Marina Abramović's "Balkan Erotic Epic" @ Factory International/Aviva Studios

  • BOBBY, LUNCH IS DARKNESS - Making Friends With The Ghost in the Machine at Storytellers and Machines - a conference on AI & Creative AI Cultures at School of Digital Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University

Publications

Publications

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