Profile summary
Kasia Lech is a scholar, actor, storyteller, and a puppeteer, with conservatoire and university teaching experience in Poland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. She holds a PhD from University College Dublin; her research was supported by the Irish Research Council. She has published on verse and verse drama in contemporary performance, theatre translation, multilingual theatre, multilingual actor, European theatre, theatre and animal rights, and puppetry. Kasia trained as an actor at the Ludwik Solski State Drama School in Poland (now the Academy of Theatre Arts) and has performed in numerous productions in Poland, Ireland, and the UK, including starring as the Grey Cat, a puppet that co-hosted the awarded live TV show for children CyberMyszon Polish national television. She is a co-founding member of Polish Theatre Ireland – an intercultural theatre company based in Dublin. Polish Theatre Ireland and Kasia's work have been examined in several scholarly works on contemporary theatre, including such key books as Migration and Performance in Contemporary Ireland by Charlotte McIvor and The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre and Performance. Kasia also runs Bubble Revolutiona multimedia project that explores new ways of translating theatre (http://www.bubblerevolution.com/) and is an Executive Director at TheTheatreTimes.com.
Kasia is interested in supervising PhD projects that examine dramaturgy, multilingual theatre, acting, European theatre, theatre and animal rights, and puppetry.
Research and knowledge exchange
Research Projects
From 2018: Transnational Childhood in collaboration with Dr Ruth Sanz Sabido, Dr Vanessa Hawes, and Dr Agnieszka Gordon
From 2017: Multilingual Dramaturgies
From 2015: CUlturosity (Early Career Teaching Award)
From 2014: Performing Translation: Bubble Revolution http://www.bubblerevolution.com/
Knowledge Exchange Projects
2018: "Spotlight on Poland" for TheTheatreTimes.com: one of the largest English-language digital resources on contemporary Polish theatre. The project is under the patronage of Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and in collaboration with partners Biweekly.pl, East European Performing Arts Platform, Theatralia/Yorick, Cosmopolitan Review, Contexts.com.pl, BuenosAiresHerald.com, and Culture.pl.
From 2016: Regional Managing Editor for Poland at TheTheatreTimes.com
From 2014 Bubble Revolution www.bubblerevolution.com (Knowledge Exchange Award, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Canterbury Christ Church University)
Funding
Kasia has secured funding from the following organisations in Ireland, Poland, and the UK: Irish Research Council, Polish Aid Foundation Trust, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Edinburgh, Split Infinitive Trust, Ballymun Intercultural Club, and Mayor of Szczecin.
External activities
TALKS AND CONFERENCES (selection)
2017
- Migration/Representation/Stereotypes, University of Ottawa
Paper presented: ‘ ‘Polish and Spanish memories on the post-Brexit British stage’’.
2016
Translating Theatre: ‘Foreignisation’ on Stage, Europe House, London
Paper presented: ‘Translating Conflict into The Wedding: Radosław Rychcik’s Staging of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Wesele [The Wedding] as a Foreignized Translation’
International Federation for Theatre Research, Stockholm University
Paper presented: ‘Acting as the Act of Translation: Domesticating and Foreignizing Strategies as Part of the Actor’s Performance in the Irish-Polish Production of Bubble Revolution’
Talk: ‘Let’s Foreignize! English language, its culture, and Polish national drama’.
2015
- Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Je me souviens (I Remember), Montréal
Paper presented: ‘Rediscovering National Memory through Foreignization: Radosław Rychcik’s Staging of Polish Romantic Drama’.
- Performing Arts in Dialogue with Polish Theatre, Research Seminar in Celebration of the 250th Anniversary of Public Theatre in Poland, Canterbury Christ Church University
Talk: ‘Let’s Foreignize! English language, its culture, and Polish national drama’.
2014
- Irish Theatre and Central Europe, 11th Annual Irish Theatrical Diaspora Conference,Department of Anglophone Literatures & Cultures, Charles University, Prague
Paper presented: ‘Bubble Revolution and Museum in Theatre: Staging Polish “Coming of Age” on the Irish Stage’.
- International Federation for Theatre Research, University of Warwick
Paper presented: ‘”Our Breasts Are Also Dripping”: Rhymes, Pigs, Motherhood, and Humanity in A. Augustynowicz’s Production of Migrena by A. Grzegorzewska’.
2012
- Irish Society for Theatre Research, Galway
Paper presented: ‘Escaping into a rhyme: Stefanie Preissner and the rhythmical level of her performances’.
2011
- New Voices in Irish Criticism, Dublin
Paper presented: ‘The Character of the Guard in The Burial at Thebes – Obeying Conventions While Breaking Them’.
- Invisible Presences, Belfast
Paper presented: ‘Translation as Meta-Allegory’.
2010
- Golden Age Research Symposium, Cork
Paper presented: ‘In Defence of Estrella’.
Poster presentation: ‘The Problem of Verse Speaking Training’.
2009
- 15th Performance Studies International Conference, Zagreb
Paper presented: ‘Grotowski on Trampoline’.
STORYTELLING (SELECTION)
2016
Festival at the Edge, Much Wenlock, England.
2015
Arts Ekta, Intercultural Storytelling Festival, Northern Ireland.
2010
The Heart of the Glens Festival, Northern Ireland
2009
Many Voices/ Guthanna Éagsula, Storytellers of Ireland Conference in Dublin
2008
Multicultural Summer withDublin City Libraries, Bilingual Storytelling
Publications and research outputs
Essays
“Claiming Their Voice: Foreign Memories on the Post-Brexit British Stage.” MIGRATION/REPRESENTATION/ STEREOTYPES. Ed. Yana Meerzon et al. London: Palgrave, 2020.
‘Verse in Contemporary Irish Theatre’. The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Irish Theatre, ed. by Eamonn Jordan and Eric Weitz. London: Palgrave, 2018.
‘Students as Producers and Active Partners in Enhancing Equality and Diversity: Culturosity at Canterbury Christ Church University’. Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change (Principal Investigator), 2017.
‘Difficult Encounter: Polish Theatre on the Irish Stage between 2004 and 2015’. Litteraria Pragensia, 2015, 25 (50).
‘Pain, Rain, and Rhyme: the Role of Rhythm in Stefanie Preissner’s Work’. Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland, ed. by Miriam Haughton and Mária Kurdi. Dublin: Carysfort Press, 2015.
Puppets, Dogs, and Vegetarian Angels: Ecocriticism in Jakub Krofta’s Polish productions’.**Theatralia/Yorick** (Czech Puppet Theatre in Global Context), 2015 (18).
‘Metatheatre and the Importance of Estrella in Calderón’s La vida es sueño and its Contemporary Productions’. Bulletin of the Comediantes, 2014 (66).
‘Memory, Communism, and Foreign Words in Foreign Bodies: Balancing Foreignization and Domesticating Strategies in Polish Theatre Ireland’s production of Julia Holewińska’s play’. Translation Ireland (Polish / Irish Issues in Translation and Interpreting), 2014 (19).
Book Review
2018 Lease, Bryce. After '89: Polish theatre and the political. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016. Theatre Research International.
2018 Keane, Barry. Irish Drama in Poland: Staging and Reception 1900-2000. Bristol: Intellect, 2016; distributed by the University of Chicago Press. The Polish Review
Translation
O’Shea, K. (2014). ‘Parable of a Polish Émigré’. Translated to Polish by Kasia Lech. Translation Ireland (Polish / Irish Issues in Translation and Interpreting), 2014 (19).
O’Shea, K. (2014). ‘Siberia’. Translated to Polish by Kasia Lech. Translation Ireland (Polish / Irish Issues in Translation and Interpreting), 2014 (19).