Fred Dalmasso is Senior Lecturer in Creative Arts at Loughborough University, where his research and teaching centre on storytelling and performance philosophy. He is Programme Director of the MA Applied Storytelling and a member of the research team of the UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainability, based in the Storytelling Academy, one of Loughborough University’s Research centre of Excellence.
His research sits at the intersection of performance philosophy, practice-based theatre translation and political theory, and explores how storytelling and rhythm shape political subjectivity and language — most recently through his work on rhythm as a decolonising and political force in the plays of Bernard-Marie Koltès. He convenes the School’s Politicised Practice Research Group, whose collaborative work on the Re-imagining Citizenship project has been exhibited internationally, including at Palazzo Mora, European Cultural Centre, Venice Biennale (2019). His research has been supported by the National Academics and Creatives Exchange (NACE) and Loughborough’s Impact Accelerator (HEIF) scheme, and he is currently developing further externally funded research projects with the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust and the BRAID programme.
Fred trained at the École du Théâtre National de Chaillot (Paris) and worked in the theatre industry in France and Ireland before joining Loughborough in 2016, having previously taught at the University of Worcester; he remains active as a playwright, director, performer and screenwriter, and is artistic director of the performance group collect-ifs. He gained his PhD from Loughborough University in 2012, with a thesis on the role of theatre in Alain Badiou’s philosophy, and also holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the Université Paris X-Nanterre and an MA in History of Art from the University of Reading.
Fred’s research interests include film and theatre adaptation and practice-based theatre translation, particularly the translation of rhythm. He also researches the interaction between performance, theatre, philosophy and political thought, specifically what he defines as ‘theatres of inexist[a]nce’ and ‘syncopolitics’, and their relation to decolonial and performance-philosophy debates around vincularidad, migration and displacement.
Recent and current publication projects include ‘A Baroque idea of the collective in L’Écharpe rouge’, in Erik Vogt (ed.), Alain Badiou and the Arts (Turia + Kant, 2026); a chapter on the political use of the comic mask in Badiou’s plays in Second Nature: Comic Performance and Philosophy, edited by Lisa Trahair and Josephine Gray (Bloomsbury, 2022); a co-authored monograph with Dr Roger Baines (UEA), Looking for Koltès: Performing Rhythm as Political Ontology, under contract with Liverpool University Press (forthcoming 2027); an article for Performance Philosophy Journal entitled “Storytelling Philosophy: from personal stories to collective practice” submitted for publication (2027); and a monograph, Syncopolitics, developing the notion he introduced in Syncope in Visual and Performing Arts (Le Manuscrit, 2017).
As part of his practice as research, Fred has recently co-written Derrida | Benjamin: Two Plays for the Stage (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and directed Derrida - A play, a stage adaptation of John Schad's documentary novel Someone Called Derrida. The play has been performed at several venues in the UK, including The Ortus in London with support from South London and Maudsley NHS Founation Trust, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford and at the Hay-on-Wye’s HowTheLightGetsIn Festival and Lancaster LitFest. Fred also directed and performed in John Schad's Benjamin - A play that has toured in several UK venues, including the Dukes Theatre Lancaster, Schulman auditorium in Oxford and Judith E Wilson studio in Cambridge. Fred also made a documentary film based on The Late Walter Benjamin’s material, set in 1948 on London-overspill council estate South Oxhey. The film Nowhere Near Utopia that was given its premiere at the Watford Palace Theatre in 2016, documents the lives of bombed-out Londoners and that of newcomers to the estate. It focuses not only on the very early days of the estate but also the racial and political tensions experienced there in the 1970s and how those tensions resonate with the estate as it is today.
Fred is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and his teaching spans Creative Arts, Theatre and Storytelling at undergraduate and postgraduate level. He is Programme Director of the online MA Applied Storytelling, and a member of the teaching and research team of the UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainability, based in Loughborough’s Storytelling Academy.
Fred is module leader on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules including ‘Storytelling and Documentary Practice for Global Change’ (2nd year) 'Creative Dissent: Protest, Activism and Art' (2nd year), 'Translating Theory into Practice' (MA), Co-creative Community Practices (MA),and also contributing to the MA Applied Storytelling modules 'Major Project' and 'Dissertation'. He is currently developing a suite of Online Postgraduate Applied Storytelling Short Courses.
Public engagement
- (funded research project) Co-Investigator on a Loughborough Impact Accelerator (HEIF-funded) project developing storytelling-based engagement work with partners in Mumbai as part of the work of the UNESCO Chair in Storytelling Education for Sustainability (2026-2027)
- (collaborative publication and touring exhibition) Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book, co-produced with the Politicised Practice Research Group (which Fred convenes) and the Anarchism Research Group, Loughborough University; exhibited at Loughborough (2018–19) and at Palazzo Mora, European Cultural Centre, Venice Biennale (11 May–24 November 2019)
- (sound and performance installation) Rhythm Resilience Project, in collaboration with performance-poet David ‘Stickman’ Higgins and hip-hop artist Jugga-naut and funded by The National Academics and Creatives Exchange (2018-ongoing)
- (performance) Benjamin, a play by John Schad directed and performed by Fred Dalmasso (The Storey, Lancaster, October 2018)
- (public walk, performance and discussion) as part of Instant Dissidence’s One Last Dance - An Chéad Damhsa (Dance4 Nottingham, September 2018)
- (documentary film) Nowhere Near Utopia (2016)
- (performance) John Schad’s Nowhere Near London (directing and performing): Watford Palace Theatre (2016),
- (co-adaptation and performance) Last Train (2012-2017: Oxford Playhouse, Lancaster Dukes Theatre as part of LitFest, The Ortus (London) with support from South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Worcester Royal Infirmary Hospital, Arts at the Old Firestation - Oxford, Judith E. Wilson Studio - Cambridge, Sheldonian Theatre - Oxford)
- (performance) Bernard Marie Koltès’ In the Solitude of the Cotton Fields (directing), Biennale BM Koltès, Metz (France) Oct. 2014
Membership of editorial boards
- Editorial Board member for the Via Artis series (Paris, Editions Le Manuscrit)
- eviewer for Performance Philosophy journal
- Reviewer for RADAC (Recherche sur les Arts Dramatiques Anglophones Contemporains)
Membership of any relevant societies/organisations
- Co-convenor of the Theatre, Performance and Philosophy research group at TaPRA
- Member of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD), France
- Member of EURODRAM (European network for drama in translation) English Committee
- Member of the research team of the UNESCO Chair in Education for Sustainability, Loughborough University
- Member of the International Platform for Performer Training
- Member of the Performance Philosophy network and the PSi Performance and Philosophy Working Group
Public talks/conference papers
- ‘Soundscape methodologies and public engagement’ – UNESCO and Art-Connection’s Enhancing the 8th European Key Competence conference, Paris, 2022
- ‘Stepping out of the Public Sphere’, TaPRA annual conference, Exeter, Sept. 2019
- ‘Dramaturgies of syncopolitics or fleeing as a mode of thought’, TaPRA annual conference, Aberystwyth University, September 2018
- ‘Non-intervention, rupture, syncopolitics: fleeing as a mode of thought’ – Performance Philosophy Biennial, Amsterdam, 2019
- ‘Withdrawn Images and Syncopolitics’ – Syncope: Exhibition Launch, FRAC Picardie, March 2016
- Between 2009 and 2015, Fred presented his Badiou-inspired performance-philosophy research at a range of international conferences and symposia, including TaPRA (Theatre, Performance & Philosophy) events the inaugural Performance-Philosophy conference at the University of Surrey, the PSi Performance and Philosophy Conference in Helsinki (where he also collaborated with performer Lee Hassall), the German Society for Theatre Studies in Mainz, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Charles University in Prague, and further symposia in Athens, Lyon and Metz — the latter a collaborative keynote on Koltès with Roger Baines (UEA) and David ‘Stickman’ Higgins. These papers addressed presence, subjectivity, ethics of play, rhythm, screen presence and the political staging of the migrant worker, laying the theoretical groundwork later developed in his work on syncopolitics and theatres of inexist[a]nce.
Academic conference and event organisation
- Dispossession: Agency, Ecology and Theatrical Reality, University of Exeter, 4–6 Sept. 2019
- Magic, Exits/Endings and Water, University of Portsmouth, 6 April 2019
- Dialectics of Dread and Refuge, Aberystwyth University, 5–7 Sept. 2018
- Reaching | Outreaching, Loughborough University London, 9 June 2018
- Stages of Utopia and Dissent, 50 years on…, Loughborough University London, 19 May 2018
- Impossible Communities: rethinking the people, University of Salford, 30 Aug.–1 Sept. 2017
PhD Supervision
Fred is welcoming PhD projects on Performance Philosophy, contemporary emancipatory art, theatre translation, cinematic practices, storytelling.
He currently supervises PhD projects on the following topics:
- Embodied, practice-based methods for negotiating the datafied body in contemporary performance practice
- Holarchic storytelling and narrative design in video-game storyworlds
- The role of storytelling in the tipping point for environmental action: hope, fear and re-enactment
- Hauntological spectres in contemporary Britain's sociocultural, urban and political landscapes
- Material-theatrical approaches to populism and political performance
Completions:
- Caroline Astell-Burt, Japanese Otome Bunraku and the Materials of Puppeteer Presence (2020)
- Holly Hou, An exploration of social photography in a visitor museum experience: Understanding engagement and communication through a mixed methods study incorporating service design (2022)
- Joshua Alexander - Haunting the Corporate World: Using experimental moving image to disrupt digital content (2025)
- Yeshan Yang - Dematerializing Sculpture (Fine Arts) (2026)
Current Supervisions:
Principal Supervisor:
- Jhansilin Sasi - Tamil Nadu Performing Arts Practice (Theatre)
- John Tobin - Tipping Point for Environmental Action: The influence of stories of hope and fear in the “momentary undecidability” of re- and preenactment (Storytelling)
- David Hosseini - Incomplete Spaces: How Narrative Designers Use Holarchic Storytelling to Expand Their Storyworlds in Video Games (Storytelling)
- Qiyao Chen - Glitch, Friction, Flesh: Negotiating the Datafied Body through Embodied Practice (Practice as Research, Performing Arts)
- Michelle Darby - Stories that Live: Embodied Storytelling, Presence, and the Social Contract of the Live Room (Storytelling)
- Vougioukas Ioannis - The Multifaceted Manifestation of Hauntological Spectres in Contemporary Britain's Sociocultural, Urban, and Political Landscapes (Political Philosophy)
- Evan Searle - A New Dimension? Towards a Material-Theatrical Approach in Populism Studies (Political Philosophy)
Secondary Supervisor:
- Anayis Der Hakopian - Nature’s Morphology of Illustrating Illness (Animation)
- Lucy Mclaughlin - Mental Health: Frame by Frame (Storytelling)
- Mahsa Sheydani - Re-Performing the Voice of the Stateless (Performance Art)
- Alma Solarte-Tobon - Digital Storytelling and Emotional Literacy: Young People with English as a Second Language and their Mental Health Narrative (Storytelling, part-time)