Jonathan Pitches

Jonathan was appointed to the Chair of Theatre & Performance in the School in 2006, and has recently finished a three and a half year period as Director of Research for PCI, leading the School’s submission for REF 2014. He also leads the Practitioner Processes Research group and is Blended Learning Champion for the PVAC faculty. Before moving to the North he worked in the Dept of Contemporary Arts in MMU and before that he enjoyed ten years at what is now Northampton University, defining an approach to research-led teaching which he has continued ever since. Throughout his time as an academic he has been interested in performer training, beginning with Russian approaches to actor training and expanding out more recently to the UK, US and China. Although not strictly a practice-led researcher, (his thesis was a 100,000 words long!) he has always based his research and writing on a deep curiosity and engagement with laboratory training practices and this interest has taken him to Japan, China, Malta and Australia to explore these practices with students and professional actors.
More info: http://www.pci.leeds.ac.uk/people/professor-jonathan-pitches/