Claire French is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow in dramaturgy at Aarhus University, Denmark, and was previously Assistant Professor of Performance and Creative Practices at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Her research investigates the ethics, aesthetics, and epistemologies of multilingual dramaturgies within socially engaged and ensemble traditions. With a methods-driven approach, she draws on sociolinguistics, decolonial theory, and performance studies to develop analytical strategies for identifying and rethinking how the body reproduces language ideologies.

French’s work spans a wide range of making practices, including performance training, community facilitation, ensemble devising, and playwriting. Her artistic practice deepens her inquiry through roles as facilitator, dramaturg, and playwright, with recent plays including Courage Songs (2024) and The tongue / Die tong (2025) with Mercy Kannemeyer.

She is particularly focused on the geo-political consequences of storytelling that misrepresents the global majority, using multilingualism as a means to expand and enrich knowledge production.

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Co-editor of Applied Theatre Research (Intellect) with Taiwo Afolabi and Bobby Smith, and Reading Decoloniality with Teodora Todorova and Asanda Ngoasheng.

Associate fellowships at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and the University of Warwick (UK).

More about Claire at clairefrench.com