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Marcus Bell

Former doctoral student
Research Associate
Image:
A headshot of Marcus Bell, standing outside.
Dr Marcus Bell is an Associate Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths College, University of London. At Goldsmiths Marcus lectures widely on queer theory, experimental performance practice, global performance histories, decolonial approaches to performance, dance, and performance ecologies – convening practice-based modules in addition to taught and research based courses. They are a tutor in Critical Classical Reception, Tragedy and Queer Theory at the University of Oxford and they have also taught in the Classics Faculty at King's College London and in Theatre and Performance at London Metropolitan University.

Marcus completed their D.Phil. 'Choreographing Tragedy into the Twenty-First Century', in 2023 (supervisors: Professor Fiona Macintosh and Professor Felix Budelmann), and they are currently preparing this thesis for publication as a monograph. Marcus is a member of the Critical Ancient World Studies Network and co-convenes both the Queer and the Classical research network and the Queer Futures Working Group of the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR). They are also a Researcher and Archive-Assistant on the APGRD's Digital Ancient Theatre project.
Selected publications
Marcus has published on queer dance as a kinetic and fleeting mode of reception in the work of Derek Jarman; experimental performances of tragedy, embodied through practices of failure, within the context of the queer rave; and they have argued for a reconfiguration of dominant narratives around liveness and presence in the reception of tragedy – through queer choreographic practice. Forthcoming publications consider dance, queerness, the tragic, and the ruin in the work of Gisèle Vienne; an interweaving of the work of José Esteban Muñoz and Lauren Berlant in a reading of Euripides' Bacchae; tragedy and the dying act in Pina Bausch's Rite of Spring ; and further writing on contemporary practice and queer theory for Contemporary Theatre Review.