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Dr. Erika Caterina Piazzoli

Associate Professor (Education)
ARTS BUILDING
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Erika Caterina Piazzoli

Associate Professor (Education)
ARTS BUILDING

 Erika.Piazzoli@tcd.ie

 3531896 1975


Dr Erika Piazzoli is an Associate Professor in Arts Education, School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. She joined Trinity in 2015 and is currently the convenor of the Arts in Education Research Group (AERG). Erika is a Trinity Fellow; her research interests lie within the areas of drama and second language (L2) education, embodiment, aesthetic learning, performative language practice, forced displacement and arts-based research. Erika has practiced process drama, actor voice training, Butoh and cello for 18 years, combining her arts experience with 18 years experience in teaching Italian as additional language and an academic background in drama. She holds a B.A. (Honours) in Applied Theatre and a PhD in Drama Education from Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Since joining Trinity College Dublin in 2015, Erika has taught drama as part of the M.Ed. (Drama in Education) Summer School, as well as Arts in Eduaction and Drama in Education on the Professional Master of Education (PME) programme. She has created and taught the Embodied Language module (M.Ed., Language Education pathway), which she has taught between 2016 and 2025. Erika has served as Course Director for the Master in Education (M.Ed.) between 2023 and 2026 and chaired a redesign of the M.Ed. which significantly reshaped the programme structure, to offer a more flexible experience for M.Ed. students. Within this restructure, in 2025 she created a new M.Ed. programme pathway, Arts Education, featuring two modules: Arts-based Research and Embodied Learning. Erika has supervised to completion over 50 Master thesis students, in the areas of drama, embodiment, language, intercultural education and migration. She has supervised one PhD candidate to completion, and currently supervises seven doctoral students in these areas: drama, post-process writing and foreign language learning; intercultural competence and creative writing; creativity and bilingualism; cultural dance & poetic inquiry; youth-led theatre; teacher education & the aesthetics of picture books; storytelling & visual literacy. Erika has served on the editorial board of 'Scenario: Journal of Performative Language Teaching, Learning and Research' since 2020. She acts as a reviewer for a number of academic journals, such as 'National Drama', 'Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance' (RIDE) and 'Applied Theatre Research: Socially Engaged Performance'. She has written four books, including a monograph (Palgrave, 2018), a co-authored book (Armando, 2023) two edited books (Palgrave, 2024; Routledge, 2024), as well as 45+ book chapters and research articles. She is currently involved in four research studies: Attunement in Multilingual Arts-based Refugee Education (AMARE), as Principal Investigator; The Master in Education (M.Ed.) Review (Principal Investigator); 'Exploring Gaza Student Evacuation and Integration in Irish Higher Education Through Creative Methodologies (Principal Investigator: Dr Rachel Hoare); and 'The Drama Workshop: Collective discernment and artistic practice as relational pedagogies for an epoch of intersecting ecological, social, and economic crises' (Principal Investigator: Prof. Kathleen Gallagher). Previous research projects as Principal Investigator include 'Sorgente: Performative Practice with Refugees Migrants', 'Lacunae: Embodying the Untranslatable' and 'preSENce-absenCE' (SENCE). Erika was the recipient of the Trinity Research Excellence (2023) for her work in L2 education through the arts.
  Aesthetics   Arts Education   classroom second language learning/acquisition   Drama and theatre in education   Educational Psychology   Neuroscience   Teacher Education
Project Title
 Lacunae: Embodying the Untranslatable
From
08-2021
To
Summary
Lacunae's vision is channelling the disorientation brought about by the pandemic into an aesthetic dimension, through a performative exploration of Untranslatable Words.
Funding Agency
Trinity Long Room Hub
Project Title
 Sorgente: Engaging asylum seekers, refugees and their teachers in performative language pedagogy
From
2019
To
Summary
Sorgente's objective is to collaborate with City of Dublin Education and Training Board (CDETB) through two of its services, the Youth and Education Service (YES) for Refugees and Migrants, and the Adult Education Service, to develop a second language learning programme based on Performative Language Pedagogy.
Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Project Title
 Embodiment in Arts-based Language Learning for Students with Intellectual Disabilities: Integrating Visual arts and Italian
From
January 2017
To
ongoing
Summary
This project focuses on exploring embodied learning working with first-year students enrolled in the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID). We aim to consider the effects that embodiment can have on language learning processes, by specifically combining the syllabi of two modules of the ASIAP program in Term 2, 2018: Exploring Art, taught by John Kubiak, and Italian for Beginners, taught by Erika Piazzoli.
Programme
Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities

Details Date
External Examiner, Programme Level, MA Youth and Community Studies, University of Malta 2024-25
External Examiner, Programme Level, MA English and Drama, MA Drama and Theatre in Education, The University of Warwick 2024-25
Applied Theatre Research (ATR) Advisory Board 2017-24
Invited advisor for project "LinguaPax: Towards an inclusive and multilingual theatre", as part of the study "Obstacles and opportunities in the artistic development of migrants and refugees" (https://www.languageofbirds.eu/scientific-research/) 20/06/2023
PhD External Examiner, The University of Sydney 2019; 2023
Invited advisor for "Literacy Act: Basic literacy for adult migrants through Community Theatre" Erasmus Programme https://www.literacyact.eu/the-project/ 21/06/2021
PhD External Examiner, The University of Auckland 2021
Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Fluent Fluent Fluent
Italian Fluent Fluent Fluent
Polish Basic Basic Basic
Spanish Fluent Fluent Fluent
Details Date From Date To
International Drama in Education Research Institute (IDIERI) 2008 2024
International Drama in Education Association (IDEA) 2008 2024
Scenario: Performative Teaching, Learning and Research 2013 2024
Educational Studies Association of Ireland (ESAI) 2015 2024
The Arts in Society 2016 2024
Erika Piazzoli; Tania Cañas, A statement by the sun: a Practice-as-Research enquiry into presence and absence, Journal of Creative Research Methods, 2, (1), 2026, p20 - 40, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Erika Piazzoli, "Your Majesty, Do You Have a Headache?" Reflections on Distancing as Vertical Re-framing in a Process Drama on Loneliness, NJ Drama Australia Journal, 48, (1), 2025, p1 - 28, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Tetsuro Shigematsu, Eva Goskel, Erika Piazzoli, George Belliveau, Philippe Naud, Find a home, lose a home: A research-based theatre journey into Acadian heritage, McJill Journal of Education: Research-based Theatre Special Issue, 59, (1), 2025, p178 - 194, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel, Performative Language Learning with Refugees and Migrants Embodied Research and Practice in the Sorgente Project, First, Abingdon, Oxon, UK and New York, USA, Routledge, 2024, 1 - 226pp, Book, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
At the threshold of the ethical imagination: The 'not-a-fish' in, editor(s)Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel , Performative Language Learning with Refugees and Migrants, Abingdon, Oxfon, UK and New York, US, Routledge, 2024, pp57 - 73, [Erika Piazzoli], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
Performative language practice and ethical principles in the Sorgente project in, editor(s)Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel , Performative Language Learning with Refugees and Migrants Embodied Research and Practice in the Sorgente Project, Abingdon, Oxon, and New York, US, Routledge, 2024, pp1 - 15, [Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
Arts Based Methodologies and Embodied Methods in, editor(s)Erika Piazzoli & Fiona Dalziel , Performative Language Learning with Refugees: Embodied Research and Practice in the Sorgente Project and Migrants:, Routledge, 2024, pp1 - 226, [Erika Piazzoli], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Conclusion: A poem and a painting in, editor(s)Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel , Performative Language Learning with Refugees and Migrants: Embodied Research and Practice in the Sorgente Project, Abingdon, Oxfon, UK, New York, US, Routledge, 2024, pp188-198 , [Erika Piazzoli, Fiona Dalziel, Rachael Jacobs], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI  URL
Erika Piazzoli, Presence as the Untranslatable, Scenario 3rd International Conference, Performative Language Teaching, Learning and Research, Trinity College Dublin, 9-11 May 2024, 2024, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Erika Piazzoli, Tania Canas, How might a dramaturgy of absence-presence be understood in community engaged processes?, Scenario 3rd International Conference, Performative Language Teaching, Learning and Research, Trinity College Dublin, 9-11/05/2024, 2024, Scenario: Journal of Performative Teaching, Learning and Research, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
  

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Erika Piazzoli, Tania Canas, Youthreach students, 'abSENce-presenCE (SENCE)', Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, 2024, -, Exhibition, PUBLISHED
Erika Piazzoli, Ní Shíocháin, Tríona (2018). Singing Ideas:Performance, Politics and Oral Poetry., Review of Ní Shíocháin, Tríona (2018). Singing Ideas:Performance, Politics and Oral Poetry., by Ní Shíocháin, Tríona , Scenario: Journal of Performative Teaching, Learning and Research, 18, (1), 2018, p96-98 , Review, PUBLISHED
Erika Piazzoli, Process Drama: Aneddoto Contro la Sonnolenza, Officina: La rivista per insegnanti di ALMA Edizioni, Aprile, 2012, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Erika Piazzoli, The Power of 'Teacher in Role', Journal of Modern Language Teachers' Association of Queensland, 49, 2010, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Nominated for Excellence in Research Student Supervision 2023/24
Nominated for Trinity Excellence in Teaching Award 2023/24
Winner: Trinity Research Excellence Awards (Category: Broaden our local and global impact) 2023
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching (Griffith University) 2013
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching (Griffith University) 2013
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching (Griffith University) 2012
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching (Griffith University) 2011
Nominated for Excellence in Teaching (Griffith University) 2010
Griffith University Academic Excellence - Chancellor's Medal Nominee for excellence in Ph.D. Thesis (Awareded with no revisions) 2013
Cassamarca Scholarship Award (Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) 2010
My research focuses on the interplay between performative arts, embodiment and language education, an area known as performative language pedagogy. My PhD considered process drama and its influence on communicative, intercultural, affective, and aesthetic engagement in language education. I noted the impact of dramatic tension in reducing foreign language anxiety, and increasing intercultural engagement. This led me to advance the construct of 'intercultural dramatic tension'. My first book, "Embodying Language in Action" (Piazzoli, 2018), a seminal reference in the field, explored embodiment and intercultural dramatic tension. My chapter in "The Routledge Companion for Drama in Education" (Piazzoli, 2022) expanded this notion and became the basis for a study, which I led as PI, on 'Untranslatable Words' and dramatic tension. My PhD also highlighted the construct of 'aesthetic distance' for affective engagement in language learning. In my second book, "Il Teatro nella Glottodidattica" [Theatre in Language Teaching], I explored aesthetic distance, emotions and play. During the pandemic, I contemplated embodied practice in digital spaces, resulting in a third book, "Digital Displacement" (Piazzoli et al. 2023). Since 2017 I have worked with refugees, researching the impact of creative language practices on belonging and engagement. The Sorgente project, which I led as PI, was selected for the Change Makers series (RTE) and culminated in my fourth book, "Sorgente: Performative Language Teaching with Refugees and Migrants" (Piazzoli & Dalziel, 2024). Here I discussed belonging, creativity and ethical practice, advancing a framework on trauma-informed performative language pedagogy. Lately, I have been interested in the construct of 'presence' in performative language pedagogy, hence I convened an international conference on the topic. I am the PI of a practice-based project, AbSENce-PresenCE" (SENCE) exploring migrant youth perceptions of absence/presence in the community. Currently, I am editing two special issues (Scenario Journal) and writing a book proposal on 'presence'.