Speaker

Nikolay Barzakov

Dr. Nikolay Barzakov is an actor, director, and artistic researcher. He is Assistant Professor at Southwest University “Neofit Rilski” (Bulgaria), where he works across performance practice, theatre anthropology, and embodied research. His work explores presence and collective perception, with particular attention to how internal states are structured, translated, and transformed through performative action. He holds a PhD in Psychology of Gesture and Behavioral Perception in Cinema and Theatre (2025). His practice has been shaped through collaborations with artists and companies including Forced Entertainment, Julyen Hamilton, Paolo Nani, and Ivo Dimchev. As a pedagogue, he draws on lineages from Grotowski, Lecoq, and Michael Chekhov, integrating them with contemporary embodied research, Eastern movement practices, and psychology-informed performance training. His current research investigates embodiment, spatial organisation, and material approaches to contemporary performance.

Talks at this conference:

 Overview