Sally Jane Norman

Sally Jane Norman is a New Zealand–French performing arts historian, who is currently the inaugural incumbent of the Denis Adam Chair in Music at Victoria University of Wellington, having served as Director of the New Zealand School of Music from July 2017 until April 2024. Norman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts. Her research on performance technologies builds on historical forms and extends to contemporary practices involving digital tools and techniques.

Academic career

Norman gained Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at the University of Canterbury. She then attended the University of Paris 3, where she completed a Doctorat de 3ème cycle (1980) and Doctorat D’Etat (1990) from the Institut D’Etudes Théâtrales; her second thesis on avant-garde performance and embodiment is titled La Mise en scène du corps: vers une nouvelle plastique scénique, 1900-1930. Norman then joined the faculty of the University of Sussex, where she was Professor of Performance Technologies, and co-founding co-director of the Sussex Humanities Lab. In 2017 Norman was appointed the Director of the New Zealand School of Music, and since April 2024 is the Denis Adam Chair in Music at Victoria University of Wellington.

Norman is a New Zealander, and grew up in Tītahi Bay. She publishes in French and English, as a dual citizen of France and New Zealand.

Honours and awards Norman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.

Selected works