Pil Hansen

Biography

Dr. Pil Hansen is professor of performing arts at the University of Calgary, founding editor of the Routledge book series Expanded Dramaturgy, associate editor of Frontiers in Psychology, Performance Science, convener of Performance Studies international's Dramaturgy and Performance working Group, founding member of Vertical City Performance, and a dance/inter-arts dramaturg with a background in arts management. She is also physically disabled.

Her current artistic and empirical research focus is Dramaturgies of Accessibility in the Performing Arts. Working in interdisciplinary arts-science teams and with artistic community partners, Hansen aims to understand and develop strength-based strategies for creating, performing, and teaching with other accessibility deserving artists. Recent and current projects attend to the practices of aging dancers, crip dance dramaturgs, deaf performers, and learners with ADHD, including the ethics of researching and applying strategies from such practices.

Hansen served as president of PSi from 2020-23; has dramaturged 30+ dance, theatre, and inter-arts works; and has authored/edited 50+ publications on dramaturgy, performing arts psychology, and research methodology. She authored the monograph Performance Generating Systems in Dance: Dramaturgy, Psychology, and Performativity (Intellect, 2022) and was primary editor of the books Performing the Remembered Present: The Cognition of Memory in Dance, Theatre and Music (Methuen, 2017) and Dance Dramaturgy: Modes of Agency, Awareness, and Engagement (Palgrave, 2015).