Kris Salata

Kris Salata is a Polish-born artist-scholar and Associate Professor of Performance in the School of Theatre at Florida State University, where he teaches acting, directing, devised theatre and critical theory courses in the BA, MA, MFA and PhD programmes. He earned his PhD in drama and humanities at Stanford University. He began his involvement with performing arts as young writer and performer in Poland (1975–1981). Kris Salata left Poland in 1983 and moved to California, where he received his formal education in theatre and performance studies. He focuses his research on avant-garde theatre and on phenomenological, ontological and epistemological aspects of theatre practice with emphasis on Performance as Research. For the last two decades, he has closely studied the legacy of Jerzy Grotowski. He has published articles and book chapters on Grotowski, Stanislavsky, Kantor, collective creation, and collaboration, and guest-edited a special issue of TDR dedicated to Grotowski. In his book, The Unwritten Grotowski: Theory and Practice of the Encounter (Routledge, 2013), he discusses Grotowski’s legacy and lays out foundations for interdisciplinary studies of the encounter. Since 2004 he has been closely associated with the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards.