Heike Gehring

Heike Gehring is the Head of the Drama Department of Rhodes University where she teaches Acting, Voice Studies, Directing, and Contemporary Performance. She also teaches theoretical courses on a broad spectrum of topics, such as storytelling, intertextuality and interculturalism. Apart from lecturing, she is involved as theatre maker in the capacity of creator, director and producer. For this she has won several awards, amongst them the Sanlam Prize for Afrikaans Theatre (SPAT), in the categories Best Director and Best Production and the Rhodes Women of The Year Award for her contribution to the performing arts at Rhodes University. Her research areas are mainly in the fields of multilingual and hybrid theatre. Apart from doing South African research, Gehring has a strong international presence. She is an active member of the International Federation for Theatre Research and guest lectured at the University of Stockholm, the Free University of Berlin, the University of the Arts in Berlin (UdK), the University of Vienna and the Palacky University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. In 2017 she was a DAAD Research Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, researching German/Arabic Theatre at the Maxim Gorki Theatre. Gehring is often invited to be a guest speaker at festivals and other events. Her most recent research interest is in Breathwork.