Xiyue Ge

Practice-led researcher
bridging East and West

Xiyue Ge (Xi) is a PhD researcher at Kingston School of Art, Kingston University London, specialising in musical theatre pedagogy, curriculum design, and performer career sustainability. Her research sits at the intersection of practice and scholarship, informed by her own experience as a singer, performer, and creator across three countries.

With a multicultural background spanning China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Xi brings a distinctive cross-cultural perspective to the question of how higher education can cultivate creative practitioners — not merely skilled performers, but storytellers and authors of new work rooted in local cultural narratives. This inquiry is especially urgent within China's rapidly expanding musical theatre industry, where institutional investment has outpaced the development of culturally grounded original content.

Her research draws on comparative case studies of programmes in the UK and US, practitioner interviews, and practice-led autoethnographic reflection. She has presented internationally at leading conferences in London, Warwick, New York, and San Diego, and contributes actively to new work development that bridges Chinese cultural storytelling and contemporary musical theatre practice.

Alongside her doctoral work, Xi has pursued continuing studies in drama direction at the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama and photography at the University of the Arts London (UAL) — a deliberately expanded portfolio of practice that directly mirrors her research interest in how creative practitioners build multi-dimensional, sustainable careers beyond a single discipline.