Ms Sarah Berridge

Qualifications:

PGCert: Psychology of Education - University of Bristol (2016), MA: European Dance Theatre Practice - Laban (2007), PGCE: Drama (1998) BA: Performing Arts, DeMontfort University, (1996)

Position:

Senior Lecturer in Performance

Department:

College of Arts, Technology and Environment

Telephone:

+441173281127

Email:

Sarah.Berridge@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

Sarah Berridge is a theatre maker, experimental filmmaker and Senior Lecturer in Drama, Acting and Performance at UWE Bristol. Her teaching, research and creative practice centre on devised theatre, embodied practice and interdisciplinary creative enquiry, with a developing focus on Creative Futures pedagogy and approaches to imagining and rehearsing possible futures.

With more than two decades of professional and academic experience, Sarah works across theatre, performance and screen, using physical storytelling, gesture, participation and moving-image practices to explore lived experience, social and ecological change, and the ways creative practice can generate new forms of knowledge. Her current work is particularly concerned with how embodied, participatory and practice-based methods can enable students and communities to imagine, test and rehearse alternative possibilities in conditions of uncertainty.

Her artistic practice spans devised and applied theatre, experimental film, interdisciplinary collaboration and site-responsive performance, developed through long-standing partnerships with arts and community organisations across the UK. Her films and performance projections have been screened and exhibited internationally, including at the BBC Short Film Festival, Inbetween Time Festival, Arnolfini, The Place and Yorkshire Dance Festival. Her moving-image work can be viewed on Vimeo.

As an educator, Sarah develops innovative approaches to devised theatre, creative research and practice-based learning. Since joining UWE in 2015, she has led curriculum innovation across Drama, Acting and Performance, creating opportunities for students to connect creative experimentation with professional practice, interdisciplinary enquiry and contemporary social and environmental questions. Her initiatives have included Drama Futures, a festival connecting students with Industry; Drama's contribution to UWE's Wellbeing in the Curriculum innovation and strategy; and UWE's contribution to the global Climate Change Theatre Action network.

Sarah is currently developing a strand of scholarship around Creative Futures pedagogy, investigating how creative disciplines can use imagination, embodiment, speculation, world-building, storytelling and interdisciplinary practice as methods of enquiry. This work explores the potential of creative practice not simply to represent possible futures, but to enable people to encounter, question and rehearse them.

Her research also investigates how theatre and performance can generate new understandings of ecological precarity, water security and community resilience. She is Co-Investigator on Climate Collaboratorium, a UKRI-ESRC-funded international research project using applied theatre and participatory creative methods to explore community responses to climate change, in collaboration with UWE's Centre for Water, Communities and Resilience and acta Community Theatre. This work forms part of the Severn StoryLab.

Across her teaching, research and creative practice, Sarah's work asks a central question: how can creative practice help us imagine, embody and rehearse possible futures?

Area of expertise

Alongside her academic role, Sarah actively develops partnerships across the creative, educational and cultural sectors. She is a Trustee of Ad Infinitum Theatre Company, contributing to the organisation's strategic development and governance, and an Executive Committee Member of DramaHE, supporting the development of drama, theatre and performance education across the UK Higher Education sector. She is also Guest Curator for Exeter Dance International Film Festival (since 2021) and was Academic Link Tutor for Bristol Old Vic Theatre School (2021–2025), strengthening relationships between university education, professional training and the creative industries.

A member of the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA), Sarah's areas of expertise include devised and physical theatre; applied and socially engaged performance; movement and performer training; embodied and participatory research methods; interdisciplinary creative practice; practice research; experimental film and screen practice; and arts-based approaches to ecological and social questions.

Her current research interests include the role of creative practice as a form of enquiry, particularly how performance, embodiment, storytelling and participatory methods can generate new ways of understanding lived experience, uncertainty and change. This work connects her expertise in theatre and performance with her research into climate adaptation, community resilience and interdisciplinary creative practice.

Publications

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