Speakers and Artists

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Bree Hadley is Associated Director of the QUT Creative Lab, and also acts as Head of Postgraduate Coursework Studies in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT, where she coordinates a range of postgraduate courses in design, digital media, arts management, marketing and advertising, entrepreneurship and innovation.

Hadley’s research investigates the construction of identity in contemporary, pop cultural and public space performance – live and online public space performance – concentrating on the way artists with disability mobilise images and media from the public sphere to subvert stereotypes. She has a particular interest in performances which position spectators as co-performers or co-creators.

Hadley’s research has appeared in her co-edited collection the Routledge Handbook of Disability Arts, Culture, and Media (forthcoming 2019), her books on Theatre, Social Media and Meaning Making (Palgrave 2017) and Disability, Public Space Performance & Spectatorship: Unconscious Performers (Palgrave 2014), as well as in many scholarly journals, including Performance Research, About Performance, Liminalities, Australasian Drama Studies, Brolga: An Australian Journal About Dance, M/C Media and Culture Journal, Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies, Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management, Journal of Further and Higher Education, and others.

Hadley has also written extensively for newspapers and online platforms such as The Australian, ArtsHub and Australia Stage Online.

Hadley is immediate past President and now Treasurer of the Australasian Association for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies (ADSA), a Director of Performance Studies international (PSi), and a nationally recognised commentator on all forms of drama, theatre and performance as a result of her role as a critic for The Australian, judge for the Matilda Awards, and committee member and consultant to many arts agencies, organisations and festivals.

Hadley’s current research, including her current ARC LIEF funded research with the AusStage consortium, focuses on the mapping historical and contemporary trends in disability theatre in Australia, including the impact of the incoming NDIS on disability arts in Australia.

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