Dr Olga Danylyuk is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. She is an interdisciplinary researcher, theatre director and curator whose work explores the cultural, psychological, ethical and legal dimensions of contemporary armed conflict.

Her research sits at the intersection of war studies, performance studies, medical humanities and law. As a member of the International Society for Intermedial Studies, she investigates how cultural narratives shape understandings of armed conflict and the intermedial dramaturgies through which contemporary wars are staged.

Dr Danylyuk is a member of the Law & Theory Lab and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Westminster.

Alongside her academic research, Dr Danylyuk has directed and curated numerous practice-led projects in collaboration with cultural institutions, museums, humanitarian organisations and communities affected by war across the UK and Ukraine. As Artistic Director of I-DO Lab, she develops interdisciplinary projects that bridge scholarship and artistic practice, using participatory performance as both a research methodology and a mode of public engagement in conflict settings.

Before joining King’s College London, Dr Danylyuk was a British Academy Researchers at Risk Fellow at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Her publications span performance studies, conflict studies, digital culture and memory studies.

Research interests:

• War studies and the cultural imagination of war
• Myth, ritual and storytelling in post-conflict recovery
• Performance and intermedial dramaturgies of war
• Medical humanities and moral injury
• Memory, trauma and identity reconstruction
• Participatory and applied performance
• Drone warfare and emerging military technologies
• The ethical and legal implications of the weaponisation of consumer drones
• Ukraine and contemporary conflict

Dr Danylyuk's practice research explores the role of myth, ritual, storytelling and embodied performance in the reconstruction of identity among war veterans. It examines contemporary rituals of homecoming from war, drawing on long-term fieldwork in conflict-affected regions of Ukraine. She also investigates inclusive performance practices with disabled survivors of war, and the phenomenology of sound and emotional memory in the lives of refugees.

Dr Danylyuk's current project, "Who Owns the Sky? Surviving Gamified Warfare," examines the impact of emerging military technologies on human experience, with a particular focus on drone warfare and the ethical and legal implications of the weaponisation of consumer drones.

Recent publications:

Danylyuk, Olga, Katarzyna Lech, and Alyson Stuart-Fisher. 2026. “Theatre’s Response to the Russian War on Ukraine: Performances of Witnessing, Documentation, and Intervention.” Contemporary Theatre Review 36 (1): 1–14.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2026. “Stages of Conflict: Applied Theatre and the Ukrainian Experience of War (2014–2024).” Contemporary Theatre Review 36 (1): 15–32.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2026. “‘You Can’t Say That…’: Confronting National Myths.” Contemporary Theatre Review, June 18, 2026.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2026. “Modern Spectatorship of War: The Violence of Watching.” Ruhrtriennale Magazine.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2026. “Cat Stepan and Other Snippets of War: Performing Conflict on TikTok’s Frontlines.” Body, Space & Technology 25 (1).

Danylyuk, Olga. 2025. “Combat at Gamer’s Pace: No Pause nor Reset Button.” Body, Space & Technology 24 (1).

Danylyuk, Olga. 2025. “From Ukraine to London: Home Away from Home.” London Museum. July 10, 2025.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2023. “Ukrainian Theatre.” In The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance, edited by Ralf Remshardt and Aneta Mancewicz, 410–418. Routledge.

Danylyuk, Olga. 2019. “Empire Strikes Back: The 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine: Postmodern Spectatorship and the Battle of Perception in the Public Sphere.” In Intermedial Performance and Politics in the Public Sphere, edited by Katia Arfara, Aneta Mancewicz, and Ralf Remshardt, 157–172. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.