Ulla Kallenbach Professor in Theatre Studies at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, heading the Theatre History and Dramaturgy Research Group.

She is also steering committee member of the Centre for Historical Performance Practice (CHiPP), Aarhus University, Denmark, and President of the Association of Nordic Theatre Scholars.

Kallenbach currently heads the international collective research project Artistic Exchanges - The Royal Danish Theatre and Europe (see more under Current Projects).

Ulla Kallenbach holds a MA in Text and Performance (2005, King’s College London/Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) and an MA in Theatre Studies for which she received the University of Copenhagen’s Gold Medal for the dissertation ‘Space and Visuality in the Drama Text’ (2007). In 2014, she completed her Ph.D. thesis entitled ‘The Theatre of Imagining: Imagination in the Mind – Imagination on the Stage’, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018 as the first comprehensive study of the cultural history of imagination in the context of theatre and drama.

Prior to joining the University of Bergen, Kallenbach was a Carlsberg Foundation research fellow in Comparative Literature at the Department for the Study of Culture, University of Southern Denmark with the project Imagining Imagination in Philosophy and Drama 1960-. 

I teach and supervise students from BA to PhD level in a broad range of topics, mainly related to dramaturgy, theatre history and historiography.

Conference lecture

• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). What Underlies the Danish-British Connection? UK-DK cultural exchange in the modern world – a return ticket. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2024). Dual gazes: Experiencing the Comédie-Française through Danish Eyes 1788-1838. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2021). Artistic exchanges at the Royal Danish Theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Negotiating Acting Conventions in 19th Century Denmark: Johanne Luise Heiberg. Between Idealism and Realism. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Psykologisk realisme på scenen. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Panel discussion among researchers in theatre archives. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Traces of Italy in the Royal Danish Theatre (‘s Archive). (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2024). Analogue/Digital theatre histories. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Women's theatre archives between materialism and idealism: Johanne Luise Heiberg, star actress and the first female stage director at the Royal Danish Theatre in the Nineteenth Century. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Presentation of the ArtEx Database. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Hvad er dansk teater?. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Forskerens bruk av digitale arkiv: digitale udfordringer i teaterforskningen. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Holberg og digital humaniora. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2013). The Transformation of Imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). Imagination and Dramaturgy. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). At læse Strindberg med AntConc. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Databases, Mappings, Image Analyses: Digital humanities and the Royal Danish Theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Digital challenges and possibilities in theatre research. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Lawaetz Anna (2024). ‘Svend Borbergs skuespil Baaden (1943): Litterær kollaboration eller refleksion af den danske krigserfaring? Konstruktionen af et eftermæle’. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2023). Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Edward Gordon Craig’s pioneering Pretenders in Copenhagen. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Holbergs komedier i digital dramaanalyse. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Annelis Kuhlmann (2017). Re-thinking Dramaturgy and Drama Analysis. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Hvad er fantasi – og kreativitet?. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2024). Holberg og digital dramaanalyse. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Tracing the Concept of Imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Annelis Kuhlmann; Anna Lawaetz (2023). New approaches to analysing drama with digital tools. Demonstration and discussion. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Lawaetz Anna; Annelis Kuhlmann (2024). ’Digital dramaturgisk analyse af Holbergs komedier’. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Illusion, ideality and the “theatrical mind” of Johanne Luise Heiberg – between the real and the imaginary in the 19th century. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Conflux and Imagination: Perspectives from Philosophy and Drama. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). The staging of space in Hamlet: between the real and the imaginary. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). Book presentation, ‘The Theatre of Imagining’. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2010). Fiction on the Brink of Reality/Reality on the Brink of Fiction. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2011). Imagination and Spectatorship. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Layers of Imagination: Imagination in the mind and on the stage. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2010). Imagining Absence. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Fantasiens kulturhistorie. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2013). Performance in the Text. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2010). Værk/Fantasi/Virkelighed. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Annelis Kuhlmann; Anna Lawaetz (2022). How to perceive perception (and make the invisible visible) in digital drama analysis and what to do when you can’t?. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz; Annelis Kuhlmann (2022). Farvestabilitet på tværs i dataanalyser. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House – between idealism and realism. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2019). The Hybridity of Imagination and Spectatorship. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). The Ethics of Spectating and Imagining. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). Fantasiens historie og teatret. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2019). Fantasiens historie og dens betydning for forståelsen af kreativitet, kunstneriske skabelsesprocesser og tilskuerpositioner. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Performing Nations as “imaginaries”: Mythologizing Italy on the Danish National Stage. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Transnational traces in the material and digital archive. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Artistic Exchanges: Between National and Transnational Dramaturgies. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Tim Crouch (2023). 'See with your ears': a conversation on dramaturgy and imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Transgressing Borders: Practices of Mobility and Cultural Exchange at The Royal Danish Theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2024). Svend Borberg. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Artistic Exchanges: The Royal Danish Theatre and Europe. Transnational, transinstitutional and transdisciplinary perspectives. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Travelling through Europe 1788 – A digital mapping of mobility. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Dramaturgy and Imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Historical mimesis in-between the real and the imaginary. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Imagination and spectatorship. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Ethical dramaturgies, dramaturgies of spectatorship. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2009). Macbeth: The Catastrophe of Regicide and the Crisis of Imagination’, The Cultural Life of Catastrophes and Crises. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Alien worlds within: (re-)imagining reality/history. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Conceptualising Imagination in the Early Modern Period. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2015). Beautiful dream' or 'loathsome delusion': Imagination and ideality. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2021). Artistic Exchanges: On the Nordicness and Europeaness of the First Nordic National Theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). August Strindberg’s Miss Julie – between naturalism and symbolism. (external link)

Lecture

• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2023). Dramatikeren Svend Borberg. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2015). Dansk teater i 1700-1800-tallet. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Opening address. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Henrik Ibsens Et Dukkehjem. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Om absurdisme og fantasi. Harold Pinters Old Times. (external link)

Radio or TV participation

• Ulla Kallenbach; Liv Thomsen (2022). Teaterfortællinger 9:20 Realismen og Henrik Ibsen. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Peter Lund Madsen (2013). Hvad er fantasi? Fra eksistentialismen til absurdismen. (external link)

Editorial/Leader article

• Anneli Saro; Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Introduction: Theatre and Technology. (external link)
• Anneli Saro; Ulla Kallenbach (2015). Introduction: Mapping Theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). Preface. (external link)

Journal review

• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). "I am in blood step’d in so far…” Macbeth, Teatersalen Odeon, Odense Teater. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Min arm - min forestilling: Gæstespil af Team Teatret på Edison. (external link)

Book anthology

• Bent Holm; Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Djævelens billede - maskens magt - fra karneval til Dario Fo. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Sofie Kluge (2021). Det historiske blik. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2016). stage / page / play – Interdisciplinary Approaches to Theatre and Theatricality. (external link)

Popular science article

• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Tilfældighedernes spil. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Kongen og Narren i King Lear. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Forestillinger om fantasi. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Meningsløs vold?. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Dømt til undergang: om den tragiske karakter. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Fantasi i frit spil. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2015). Historien om historien på teatret. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2017). Hvem er Hamlet. (external link)

Academic book chapter

• Ulla Kallenbach; Knut Ove Arntzen (2024). Theatre Censorship in Denmark and Norway. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). Imagining Absence: Performance in the Text. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2012). Macbeth - The Catastrophe of Regicide and the Crisis of Imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2021). Demaskeringen af idealismen – om historicitet og dramaturgi i Et Dukkehjem. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Fantasiens teaterhistorie. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2016). Imagination at play. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2016). Introduction. (external link)

Academic monograph

• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). En verden af forestillinger. Skuespil & illusion. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). The Theatre of Imagining: A Cultural History of Imagination in the Mind and on the Stage. (external link)

Encyclopedia entry

• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Simultanscene. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Læsedrama. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Dramaturgi. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Freytags pyramide. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Absurd drama. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Versdrama. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). Monolog (drama). (external link)

Academic article

• Ulla Kallenbach (2022). Harold Pinter's Old Times and the play of indistinction. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2010). Værk/fantasi/virkelighed: Salò og det interaktive teater. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2023). Eksklusionen: Danske Dramatikeres Forbunds opgør med Svend Borberg efter besættelsen. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2014). The Disenchantment of the Wonderful - A Doll’s House and the Idealist Imagination. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). “Beautiful Dream” or “Loathsome Delusion”: Imagination and Ideality in Nineteenth-Century Denmark. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2020). The ethics of imagining and the dramaturgy of spectatorship. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach (2018). Feigning History: the early modern imagination and the theatre. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Lawaetz Anna (2022). Svend Borberg: Punktummet, der ikke blev sat. Uopdagede værker fra en dramatiker med europæisk udsyn. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2023). Levels of presence in the drama text: Between close and distant reading. (external link)
• Anna Lawaetz; Ulla Kallenbach (2023). Svend Borberg: Mellemkrigstidens fortrængte dramatiker. (external link)
• Ulla Kallenbach; Annelis Kuhlmann (2019). Towards a Spectatorial Approach to Drama Analysis. (external link)

Introduction

• Ulla Kallenbach; Sofie Kluge; Rasmus Vangshardt (2021). Forord. (external link)

Media interview

• Ulla Kallenbach; Anna Lawaetz (2022). Kvinders rolle i dansk dramatik, Kvindelige dramatikere igennem 300 år. (external link)

Doctoral thesis (PhD)

• Ulla Kallenbach; Bent Holm; Frederik Tygstrup (2014). The Theatre of Imagining: Imagination in the mind – imagination on the stage. (external link)

Non-fiction book chapter

• Ulla Kallenbach (2021). Fantasiens flow og kreativitetens kaos: om styring og ustyrlighed i en teaterproces. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

PI of the international collective research project Artistic Exchanges - The Royal Danish Theatre and Europe. The project explores how the theatre was a “window to the world,” an essential agent for offering the public experiences of foreign cultures and for negotiating cultural identities at a time when international travelling was still rare. Using state of the art digital tools, we are currently developing databases and mappings that will allow us to analyse how artists travelled and how travelling influenced the repertoire and performance practices.

In 2020-21, I have also been participating in the pilot project Danish theater archives in the digital era in research and teaching under DeiC (Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation) and Royal Danish Library’s Cultural Heritage Cluster exploring Ludvig Holberg’s comedies.