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Dr. K.K. (Kasia) Lech

Associate Professor Global Performance History
Faculty of Humanities
Theatre Studies

Visiting address
  • Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16-18
Postal address
  • Postbus 93065
    1090 BB Amsterdam
Contact details
  • Profile

    Kasia Lech, with a PhD from University College Dublin, is a scholar, actor, storyteller, dramaturg, and puppeteer with twenty years of conservatory and university teaching experience in the UK, Ireland, Poland, and Netherlands. This is enhanced by two decades of applied arts projects and interdisciplinary research collaborations with diverse communities and non-academic organizations worldwide. Her research and creative practice – supported by Polish, British, Irish, and Canadian organizations – explore theatre through practice-based and traditional scholarship and primarily focus on verse, multilingualism, translation, migration, and cross-cultural encounters. These areas bring to the fore the dialogue between historical and contemporary performance practices in the multivoiced world and theatre within it. Kasia published Dramaturgy of Form: Performing Verse in Contemporary Theatre (Routledge, 2021), which received outstanding reviews for its content, critical quality, and decolonizing scholarship on verse. Her second book Multilingual Dramaturgies: Towards New European Theatre is forthcoming with Palgrave. She is currently researching how verse stages marginalized artists’ responses to socio-political-cultural contexts worldwide. Kasia is also part of funded research projects on mapping Polish migrant theatre worldwide, on historical and present violence in Polish theatre, and on creating multilingual European theatre ensembles performing for young audiences. Kasia performed internationally and co-founded Polish Theatre Ireland – a multilingual theatre company based in Dublin. She is an Executive Director at TheTheatreTimes.com, a global theatre portal which seeks to decolonize theatre criticism. She co-convenes the Translation Adaptation Dramaturgy working group at the International Federation for Theatre Research.

  • Publications

    2023

    • Lech, K. K. (Accepted/In press). Sonless Mothers and Motherless Sons or How Has Polishness Haunted Polish Theatre Artists in Exile? In Y. Meerzon, & S. E. Wilmer (Eds.), Handbook on Theatre and Migration Palgrave Macmillan.

    2022

    2021

    • Lech, K. K. (2021). Dramaturgy of Form: Performing Verse in Contemporary Theatre. (Focus on Dramaturgy). Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
    • Lech, K. K. (2021). Krytyczki as Activists: on Theatre Criticism, Affect, Objectivism, and #Metoo in Polish Drama Schools. Interview with Monika Kwaśniewska. Critical Stages/Scènes critiques, (23). https://www.critical-stages.org/23/interview-with-monika-kwasniewska/

    2020

    2019

    2018

    2017

    2015

    • Lech, K. K. (2015). Difficult Encounter: Polish Theatre on the Irish Stage between 2004 and 2015. Litteraria Pragensia, (50), 32-46.
    • Lech, K. K. (2015). Pain, Rain, and Rhyme: the Role of Rhythm in Stefanie Preissner’s Work. In M. Haughton, & M. Kurdi (Eds.), Radical Contemporary Theatre Practices by Women in Ireland (pp. 151-166). Peter Lang.
    • Lech, K. K. (2015). Puppets, Dogs, and Vegetarian Angels: Ecocriticism in Jakub Krofta’s Polish productions. Theatralia/Yorick, 18(2), 277-302. https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/handle/11222.digilib/134427

    2014

    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    No ancillary activities