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Mischa Twitchin

Mischa's interests include European theatres of the avant-garde; Afro-European cultural politics; historical-theoretical questions of empathy and mimesis; Performance Philosophy; Memory Studies.

Staff details

Dr Mischa Twitchin FHEA teaches courses on Polish Theatre, the legacies of Artaud, East European theatres, an under-graduate workshop on “touch”, and a post-graduate workshop, “Thinking Theatre”. His book, “The Theatre of Death – the Uncanny in Mimesis: Tadeusz Kantor, Aby Warburg and an Iconology of the Actor” is published by Palgrave Macmillan in their Performance Philosophy series; and examples of his own performance- and essay-films can be seen on .

Besides this academic and artistic work, Mischa is a founder-member of the performance collective Shunt, and has also worked as a freelance lighting designer (at the Young Vic, the Barbican Pit, and the Royal Court, amongst other places). He has taught at various institutions, including Central School of Speech and Drama, the University of Kent, and Queen Mary, University of London, where he did his PhD and also held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellowship (2014-17).

Research interests

Mischa's main research interests include: European theatres of the avant-garde; Afro-European cultural politics; historical-theoretical questions of empathy and mimesis; Performance Philosophy; Memory Studies; and dialogues between anthropology, museum ethnography, and art. He would welcome PhD applications in any of these fields.

Publications and research outputs

Book

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2016. The Theatre of Death - the Uncanny in Mimesis: Tadeusz Kantor, Aby Warburg, and an Iconology of the Actor. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137478719

Edited Book

  • Twitchin, Mischa, ed. 2023. Wittgenstein and Performance. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538175095

Edited Journal

  • Twitchin, Mischa, ed. 2024. On Repertoire, Performance Research, 29(1). 1352-8165
  • Twitchin, Mischa and Lavery, Carl, eds. 2019. On Animism, Performance Research, 24(6). 1352-8165

Book Section

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2026. Foreword to Darko Lukić, Unclaimed Memories, Unsolicited Narratives: Mainstreaming the Marginality in Croatian Drama and Theatre. In: Darko Lukić, ed. Unclaimed Memories, Unsolicited Narratives: Mainstreaming the Marginality in Croatian Drama and Theatre. Zagreb: Croatian ITI Centre, pp. 7-10. ISBN 9789536343997
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. Remembering (in) the absence of memorials. In: Tiziana D’Amico, ed. Cultural Discourse on the Holocaust in East-Central and Eastern Europe. Szombathely, Hungary: Savaria University Press, pp. 119-136. ISBN 9786156489579
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. Aguentar o Toque. In: Felipe Henrique Monteiro de Oliveira, ed. Antonin Artaud: Perspectivas Contemporâneas. Porto Velho: Edufro, pp. 166-190. ISBN 9788577641505

Article

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. Dramaturgical Potential: Is it necessary? Performance Philosophy, 10(1), pp. 137-149. ISSN 2057–7176
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. Theatre Making "Space for the Unassimilable". Nordic Theatre Studies, 36(1), pp. 127-146. ISSN 0904-6380
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2024. Introduction - "On Repertoire". Performance Research, 29(1), pp. 1-4. ISSN 1352-8165

Conference or Workshop Item

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2026. '“What does this mean?”'. In: Tarot Cultures. ӣƵ, London, United Kingdom 12-13 June 2026.
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2026. 'Between Here and There'. In: The Bridge Symposium. Queen's University, Belfast, United Kingdom 24 April 2026.
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. 'The Cave of Remembered Dreams'. In: ANTS Annual Conference: Theatre and Natural Intelligence. Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, Lithuania 25-27 September 2025.

Art Object

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2020. "Perspective(s)".

Film/Video

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2025. Tartu Bridge.
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2024. Prelude 2.
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2024. Prelude 1.

Show/Exhibition

  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2020. Sokolowsko. In: "Konteksty Festival 10", Sokolowsko, Poland, 23 – 26 July 2020.
  • Twitchin, Mischa. 2019. Poem Films: “…not only in your theatre but also in the world” (Brecht). In: "Contexts: International Festival of Ephemeral Art", Sokolowsko, Poland, 25-29 July 2019.