Staff profile
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Job title: Senior Lecturer
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Dept: Music and Performing Arts
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Tel:
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Campus: Folkestone
BA (Hons), PGinSTIL, PhD
Programme Director for BA (Hons) Drama
Dr Kene Igweonu is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He joined Canterbury Christ Church University in September 2011 as Senior Lecturer and Programme Director for BA (Hons) Drama. Prior to his arrival at CCCU, Kene was Coordinator for the Centre for Innovative Performance Practice and Research at Swansea Metropolitan University where he also lectured on the performing arts programme. Kene has also lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London and University of Benin.
Kene trained for his undergraduate degree in performing arts at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. By the time he graduated he founded Katotheatre, a company which toured parts of the south-western Nigeria with some of the plays he had written as a student. In 2002 he was appointed Artistic Director of the NYSC theatre troupe in Edo State, Nigeria, before coming to the UK for his doctoral studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Kene’s interests cover actor training, physical theatre, African theatre and performance, cultural and performance theory, contemporary postcolonial theatre, as well as devising and theatre making. His current research and practice focus particularly on somatic practices in performance training, issues of identity in performance and cross-art practices. In 2010 he published the result of his Higher Education Academy (PALATINE) funded research project titled Feldenkrais Method in Performer Training: Encouraging Curiosity and Experimentation| (ISBN: 9780956618504).
His latest work is an edited book, Trends in Twenty-First Century African Theatre and Performance| (ISBN: 9789042033863) published by Rodopi. He is also writing several contributions on Nigerian theatre for the forthcoming Cambridge World Encyclopedia of Stage Actors and Acting.
Kene is a member of the editorial boards of African Performance Review and South African Theatre Journal. He was founding editor and editorial advisory board member for Platform, Royal Holloway, University of London’s postgraduate eJournal of theatre and performing arts. While at Swansea Metropolitan University he also founded and edited Perfformio, eJournal of performing arts
He is founding convener, and currently co-convener, of the African Theatre and Performance working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR). He is also an elected member of IFTR’s Executive Committee and Chair of its Prize Committee. Kene is an active member of the African Theatre Association and convened its 2011 international conference in Swansea. He is a student member of the Feldenkrais Guild UK, and currently in the third year of a four year training to qualify as a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. Kene has presented papers at various national and international conferences and continues to be research active. He has acted as a PhD external examiner for Aberystwyth University and is currently PhD external examiner for Stellenbosch University in South Africa