Synne Behrndt

Teaching at Stockholm University of the Arts

I teach and convene courses across BA, MA and freestanding courses (subject area of Performing Arts). I am currently the Head of programme for the MA in Performing Arts.

Profile

I am a professor of Performing Arts, dramaturg and performance scholar, specialising in dramaturgy, performance-making and creative processes. I work as dramaturg within dance, devising and play-production and have presented and published widely on dramaturgy and dramaturgical practice.

My current research includes Dramaturgies of Democracy, a project which brings together dramaturgs, artists, academics and critics to investigate different forms and processes of democracy within artistic practice, collaboration and culture and society at large. The project is funded through the ‘Exploratory Workshops within Artistic Research’ scheme, the Swedish Research Council with participation of artists, independent scholars and researchers from Malmö Theatre Academy, Lund University (hosting institution), Copenhagen University and Stockholm University of the Arts.

I hold a "PhD by Works in the Public Domain" from the University of Winchester (UK).  

Areas of Expertise

• Dramaturgy
• Dance dramaturgy
• Devising and creative processes
• Performance and text analysis
• Performance and theatre history and practices

Key Publications (ORCID: 0000-0002-3603-9113)

“The Making of Breathe”, in The Routledge Companion to Site-Specific Performance, edited by Victoria Hunter and Cathy Turner, London: Routledge, 2025.

"Strange Constellations. Five observations on time, change and attention in Fevered Sleep", in Love and Not knowing. Fevered Sleep (Performance Research Books), eds. Cull Ó Maoilearca and Pell, 2024.

Dramaturgy and Research in Devised Theatre, (NAMU, Prague), co-written with Sodja Lotker and with research funding from Stockholm University of the Arts, 2024.

"Models of Creation and Devising", in The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance (Routledge), eds. Remshardt & Mancewicz, 2023.

"Dramaturgy and the Facilitation of Encounter", in special issue "Dramaturgies in the New Millenium" in Forum Modernes Theatre 44 (Narr Verlag), eds. Pewny; Callens & Coppens, 2014.

Invisible Things: Documentation from a Devising Process, co-written with David Harradine (Fevered Sleep & the University of Winchester), 2010 and second edition 2019.

"Dance, Dramaturgy and Dramaturgical Thinking", in "New Dramaturgies", special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review 20: 2, 2010.

"People Show in Rehearsal: People Show 118 – The Birthday Tour", in Devising in Process, edited by Alex Mermikides and Jackie Smart, Palgrave Macmillan.

Dramaturgy and Performance, co-written with Cathy Turner (Palgrave Macmillan), 2008 and second edition 2016.

Editorial work

New Dramaturgies (book series, co-editor Cathy Turner, Palgrave, Springer Nature)

Elements in Contemporary Performance Text (advisory board, Cambridge University Press)