Dr Kasia Lech

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 Revolution, a multimedia project that explores new ways of translating theatre and is an Executive Director at TheTheatreTimes.com.

Supervision

Kasia is interested in supervising PhD projects that examine dramaturgy, multilingual theatre, acting, European theatre, theatre and animal rights, and puppetry.

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.

Selected talks and conferences

2017

• Translation into Theatre and the Social Sciences, University of Oxford
• Talk: ‘They came here and stole our jobs, and then they took our language: Polish-Irish-English hybrid and its potential in theatre translation’
• 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 250^th 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, 11^th 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’.
• Choice for Voice, London
• Poster presentation: ‘The Problem of Verse Speaking Training’.

2009

• 15^th Performance Studies International Conference, Zagreb
• Paper presented: ‘Grotowski on Trampoline’.

Selected Storytelling

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 with Dublin City Libraries, Bilingual Storytelling