Bio
Dr Corinna Di Niro is an interdisciplinary creative practitioner, researcher, and author with over 20 years’ experience in the Creative Industries. Her expertise sits across Theatre, Film and Immersive Technology, and she is a TEDx speaker for integrating virtual reality with live theatre to enhance the audience experience.
In 2022, Corinna received a finalist award for innovation from the Adelaide Critics Circle’s for her role as lead researcher and director of ‘Bone Cage’ – a multidisciplinary immersive experience about the issues of domestic family violence in Australia. Additionally, in the same year, Corinna was a finalist for the South Australian Italian Association’s Art & Culture Award for her contribution to the creative industries as an Italo-Australian.
Corinna is co-editor of the text, ‘Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century: practice and performance in the Asia-Pacific’ (Routledge) and has published widely across diverse fields. Her research can be found in a number of journals and books including Axon: Creative Explorations, International Journal of Contemporary Humanities, National Journal, Text, Lived Experiences of Women in Academia: Metaphors, Manifestos and Memoir, International Journal of Practice Based Humanities, Geographies of Gender-Based Violence (Policy Press), Reimagining the Academy: ShiFting towards Kindness, Connection, and an Ethics of Care (Palgrave, MacMillan), and Changing the Conventional Classroom (Emerald Publishing).
Corinna has a strong passion for diversity and inclusion in academia and the creative sector. Equally, she supports universal design for learning to remove barriers in tertiary education for people living with a disability.
Beyond Academia, Corinna is an avid mask collector. Some masks and artefacts from her private collection are on display at the Migration Museum, Adelaide until October 2023.
Edited Books
Di Niro, C., & Crick, O (eds). (2022). Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century: practice and performance in the Asia-Pacific. Routledge.
Special Issue Journal
Di Niro, C., & Dunkin, A., (eds). (2020). Dr Michael Noble, Writing from Below Journal, Special Edition. Accessed
Chapters in Edited Book
Di Niro, C. (2022). Epilogue. In C. Di Niro & O. Crick (eds), Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century: practice and performance in the Asia-Pacific. Routledge, 268–272.
Di Niro, C. (2022). Commedia in Australia: advocating for a key role in tertiary education. In C. Di Niro & O. Crick (eds), Commedia dell’Arte for the 21st Century: practice and performance in the Asia-Pacific. Routledge, 18–33.
Di Niro, C. & Viljeon, JM. (2022). The classroom as a stage: Commedia dell’Arte as pedagogy for international business school students at the University of South Australia. In P. Blessinger, & E. Sengupta (eds), Changing the Conventional Classroom. Emerald Group Publishing, 83–97.
Di Niro, C. & Walker, A. (2018). You’re Doctor What?: Challenges for Creative Arts Research in a Culture of Binaries’. In A. Black & S. Garvis, (eds), Lived Experiences of Women in Academia: Metaphors, Manifestos and Memoir. Oxon: Routledge, 32–44.
Gou, Y., Di Niro, C., Spasovska, E., Clarkson, R., Cannell, C., Nilsson, A., Levy, N., & Walker, A. (2021). Writing, playing, transforming: a collaborative inquiry into neoliberalism’s effects on academia, and the scope for changing the game. In A. Black & R. Dwyer (eds), Reimagining the Academy: shifting towards kindness, connection and an ethics of care. Palgrave, MacMillan, 219–238.
Walker, A. & Di Niro, C. (2022). Resisting violence through the arts: theatre and poetry as spaces for speaking out and seeking change. In H. Bows & B. Fileborn (eds), Geographies of Gender-based Violence: A Multi-disciplinary Perspective. Policy Press, 250–263.
Journal Articles
Cannell, C., Spasovska, E., Gou, Y., Nilsson, A., Clarkson, R., Di Niro, C., Levy, N., & Walker, A. (2020). Doing collective biography differently by incorporating methods of narrative inquiry, poetic inquiry and performance studies into the analysis of writings-as-data. In A Philp, E Jeffery & L McGowan (eds) Creating communities: Collaboration in creative writing and research, TEXT Special Issue No.59, TEXT: Journal of writing and writing courses 24, 2 (October): textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue59/Cannell_et_al.pdf
Di Niro, C., Muslera, P. & Walker, A. (2020). ‘Fractography as assemblage: connecting para-academic pathways in the ruined university’. Axon: Creative Explorations – Manifestos, diatribes and interventions, vol. 10, no. 2. Accessed at: axonjournal.com.au/issue-vol-10-no-2-dec-2020/fractography-assemblage
Di Niro., C & Walker, A. (2022). ‘Seeing through the bars; speaking our way out: how creative work helps us confront in/visible violences in tertiary education and beyond’. Fulgor. Accessed
Di Niro, C., Walker, A., Nilsson, A., Clarkson, R., Gou, Y., Spasovska, E., Levy, N., & Cannell, C. (2020). Becoming game: an assemblage of perspectives on challenges for early career academics in neoliberal times. In A Philp, E Jeffery & L McGowan (eds) Creating communities: Collaboration in creative writing and research, TEXT Special Issue No.59, TEXT: Journal of writing and writing courses 24, 2: textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue59/diNiro_et_al.pdf
Walker, A. & Di Niro, C. (2019). Creative Duoethnography: a collaborative methodology for arts research. TEXT Special Issue, 57, Peripheral Visions. Accessed
Conference presentation
Di Niro, C. (2021), ‘Bone Cage – a proposal for interdisciplinary learning that enriches social justice through integration of immersive technology and theatre’, UniSA Teaching & Learning Symposium, City West, 12 Nov.
Di Niro, C., Spasovska, E. & Walker, A. (2021), ‘Exploring the transformational potential of a collaborative inquiry among female early career researchers based on ludic-themed writing: improving teaching praxis through collaboration, solidarity, and care’, UniSA Teaching & Learning Symposium, City West campus, 12 Nov.
Di Niro, C., et al. (2021), ‘A collaborative writing-based inquiry among female early career researchers: challenging inequalities within neoliberal academia through writing, playing and sharing’, Unknowing Institutions: decolonisation and critical intersectional practice, Flinders University, 13-16 July.
Di Niro, C., Muslera, P. & Walker, A. (2019), ‘Through Cracks: three narratives of para-academic pathways in post-GFC Australia’, AAWP Annual Conference, University of Technology Sydney, 25-27 November.
Di Niro, C. & Walker, A. (2019), ‘Seeing through the bars; speaking our way out: How creative work helps us confront in/visible violences in tertiary education and beyond’, International Interdisciplinary Conference INDELIBLE (Eng)/INDELIBILE (It)-Representations in the arts of (in)visible violence against women and their resistance, at Flinders University, Adelaide, 23-25 October.
Di Niro, C. (2019), ‘The Virtual Actor: enhancing the audience experience through virtual reality’, PopCAANZ Conference, RMIT University, Melbourne, 3-5 July.
Di Niro, C. (2019), ‘The Virtual Actor: enhancing the audience experience through virtual reality’, Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities, Granada, Spain, 3-5 July, https://bit.ly/3DX4kdC
Qualifications
Corinna Di Niro has completed the following qualifications:
