Scenofest Leader
Jessica Bowles has worked as a set and costume designer for theatre at Royal Shakespeare Company and the Young Vic in London amongst many others in the UK and more recently as a creative producer on projects in the UK and Europe. As an educator, Jessica Bowles has written and designed the innovative programmes that are now a recognised feature of Central's portfolio, including the BA (Hons) Theatre Practice course and introduced a number of areas to Higher Education never before available at degree level, including puppetry and circus. She is now the Head of the UK government funded Centre for Excellence in Training for Theatre. In this role she develops partnerships with theatre training and its industries, produces international conferences and symposia including Theatre Materials with Anne Bogart (2008) Theatre Noise with Heiner Goebbels (2009) and Theatre Applications with Rustom Bharucha (2010). All of her work is about creating and promoting innovative live and virtual teaching and learning models for performance training, much of which celebrates the interdisciplinary nature of performance making. She is a passionate advocate for the art form of puppetry and is currently working on a knowledge transfer project with the Bartlett School of Architecture to develop proposals for a sustainable touring theatre. Jessica is the UK Commissioner for OISTAT (International Organisation of Scenographers and Theatre Architects) and is the Artistic Leader for Scenofest 2011.
