Professor Experience Bryon

My work operates at the intersection of the arts and sciences, developing transdisciplinary frameworks that translate embodied creative practice into scientific, technological, and philosophical contexts. Grounded in performance, acting, choreography, and directing, I position these practices as methodologies for cross-disciplinary collaboration, enabling exchange across differing languages, skill-sets, and epistemologies.

I have a particular interest in embodied cognition and in how practice-based processes generate plural epistemologies. My work extends these approaches into applied research environments, developing methods that support communication, awareness, and decision-making within complex systems.

I am the pioneer of Integrative Performance Practice, an approach taught internationally that bridges artistic practice and scientific inquiry. It functions as a translational framework for interdisciplinary collaboration, advancing new modes of artistic and epistemic production across fields including cognitive science, philosophy, and media theory.

My publications include Transdisciplinarity in Practice: Capturing and Experiencing Knowledge across Disciplinary Boundaries (Jenny Stanford Publishing, 2026); Performing Interdisciplinarity: Working Across Disciplinary Boundaries Through an Active Aesthetic (Routledge, 2019); Embodied Cognition: Acting and Performance (Routledge, 2018, co-edited); and Integrative Performance: Practice and Theory for the Interdisciplinary Performer (Routledge, 2014).

I have supervised multiple PhD candidates to completion in areas including performance and acting practice, embodied cognition, epistemology, queer and trans theory, intermediality, and transdisciplinary research methodologies.

Selected Publications

• 2026, Transdisciplinarity in Practice: Capturing and Experiencing Knowledge across Disciplinary Boundaries. Jenny Stanford Publishing
• 2019, Performing Interdisciplinarity: Working Across Disciplinary Boundaries through an Active Aesthetic. Routledge
• 2018, Embodied Cognition: Acting and Performance. Co-edited with Mark Bishop, Deirdre McLaughlin, and Jess Kaufman. Routledge
• 2018, ‘Awareness Performing: Practice to Protocol’, in Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science
• 2017, ‘Transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary exchanges between embodied cognition and performance practice’, Connection Science, 29(1)
• 2014, Integrative Performance: Practice and Theory for the Interdisciplinary Performer. Routledge
• 2012, ‘From Walking and Talking to Cartwheels and High Cs’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training

Selected research leadership and academic roles

• 2026–Present, Senior Research Fellow, Norwich University of the Arts
• 2023–Present, Professor of Interdisciplinary Performance, Norwich University of the Arts
• 2020–2026, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Acting, Norwich University of the Arts
• 2008–2019, Course Leader, MA/MFA Performance Practice and Research, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Selected practice-based research, performance, and public engagement

I previously worked internationally as a performer, director, and choreographer, and was Artistic Director of Experience Vocal Dance Company (New York/London). This period of practice-based research established my investigation into how integrative performance practices—specifically the intersection of voice, movement, and cognition—function as sites of knowledge production. Through laboratory-based and performance-led inquiry, the work generated plural epistemologies, combining embodied, affective, and analytical modes of knowing while engaging inter- and transdisciplinary methodologies across performance, pedagogy, and cognitive inquiry. This research continues to underpin and shape my ongoing work.

Selected projects

• 2006–2009, Experience Vocal Dance Company, New York
  • Development of integrative voice–movement methodologies through studio practice and performance, establishing a framework for embodied and interdisciplinary knowledge-making
• 2008, Remote Creation, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
  • Exploration of technologically mediated performance and distributed presence, interrogating how digital environments reshape liveness, embodiment, and collaborative cognition
• 2009, Performing Presence: From the Live to the Simulated, University of Exeter
  • Investigation into the shifting boundaries between live and simulated performance, examining how presence is constructed across physical and virtual contexts
• Ongoing
  • Integrative Performance Practice Workshops & Transdisciplinarity in Practice Workshops/Seminars (International)
  • Delivery of training across higher education and professional contexts, translating practice-based research into pedagogical models that bridge disciplines and learning environments

Selected research esteem, keynotes, and external roles

• External Examiner for PhD’s including University of East Anglia & Leeds Beckett University
• External Examiner, MA Theatre and Performance, Northumbria University
• External Examiner, BA (Hons) Vocal and Choral Studies, University of Winchester
• Editorial Board Member, Journal for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies (2015–2021)
• Peer Reviewer for Routledge, Bloomsbury, and journals including South African Theatre Journal and RIDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance
• External Advisor to performance programmes including St Mary’s University and Plymouth University
• Organiser, Embodied Cognition, Acting and Performance Symposium, AISB, University of Kent (2015)
• Keynote Speaker, Goldsmiths, University of London (2014)
• Keynote Speaker, Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, University of Portsmouth (2014)
• Keynote Speaker, Moscow Art Theatre International Movement Conference (2007)

Media and public engagement

My work has been disseminated through interviews and public-facing platforms, extending its reach beyond academia and contributing to broader discourse on performance training and interdisciplinary practice:

• 2019, Interview: What Actors Get Wrong About Being a Triple Threat, Backstage
• 2015, Featured Author Interview, Routledge
• 2008, Experience Bryon’s Integrative Performance Practice, Backstage
• 2008, Genevieve Simms Discovers Vocal Dancing, Sky Arts

Selected PhD supervision areas

• Performance and acting practice
• Embodied cognition and performance
• Queer and trans theory in performance
• Intermediality and media theory
• Practice as Research (PaR) and transdisciplinary methodologies