ResDance Series 3: EP4: Dance in museums, heritage sites and extraordinary spaces with Katie Green

After reading English at Cambridge University, Katie graduated from London Contemporary Dance School in 2006 and formed Made By Katie Green in the same year. Her work since then has been diverse, including touring work to theatres, creating large-scale commissions for particular communities and specific sites, and delivering participation projects for children and young people. Katie often works in partnership with other organisations to deliver multi-faceted projects responding to particular sites, collections and historical stories. Since 2013, Katie has focused her practice on working with dance in museums, heritage sites and other extraordinary spaces. She has toured her 'dancing tour guides' piece to more than 80 museums across the UK through the Dancing in Museums project, toured her Dancing in Caves project to 6 caves and underground sites from 2017-18, and is currently touring her promenade work for libraries, The Story Detectives to 19 libraries across the SE and SW of England.  She has recently received a Developing Your Creative Practice grant to spend time in 2023 researching new work responding choreographically to archaeology and the archaeological process. As well as directing Made By Katie Green, Katie manages the developing Imagination Museum dance/heritage network and works as a freelance choreographer and teacher/mentor.

Contact details

Email katie@madebykatiegreen.co.uk

Website www.madebykatiegreen.co.uk

Twitter @madebyKG

Instagram @madebykg

Facebook @madebykatiegreen

Other social media links

The Imagination Museum www.imaginationmuseum.co.uk

Twitter @TIMdancemuseums

Instagram @imaginationmuseum

Facebook @TheImaginationMuseum

Other resources

Strategic Touring project evaluation https://indd.adobe.com/view/7ffce1fc-7878-47e2-a2e3-7a40ce0d1619

Made by Katie Green Blog https://madebykatiegreen.co.uk/blog/

Imagination Museum Blog https://imaginationmuseum.co.uk/blog/ 

ResDance S2: Episode 10: Reflections on dance-making and the creative process with Naomi Lefebvre Sell

Dr Naomi Lefebvre Sell shares insight into her choreographic practice, exploring ways of dance-making and the approaches she employs. Through exploration of her creative processes, Naomi highlights the need for openness when considering the body and the richness of working cross-discipline to empower drawing upon a range of perspectives when viewing the body and throughout the dance-making process, more generally.

Naomi Lefebvre Sell is a Reader of Choreographic Practice within the Faculty of Dance and Programme Leader for the MA/MFA Creative Practice at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Naomi lectures across the BA and MA/MFA programmes within the fields of choreography, performance and research methods as well as supervises Practice as Research PhDs. Originally from Canada, Naomi’s background as a professional dancer includes work with both Butoh and Cunningham-influenced companies. Naomi holds a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University and a MA Choreography and PhD in Creative Practice (Dance) from Trinity Laban. She is also a Higher Education Academy Fellow.

Naomi’s professional choreographic work has been commissioned and presented across Canada and Europe (since 1998) within festivals such as TanzArt (Germany), Brighton Fringe (UK), Dancing of the Edge (Canada) and Chutzpah! (Canada). Naomi’s practice-led research is published in academic journals and book chapters (Intellect, Frontiers and Routledge), she presents regularly at national and international conferences and is a reviewer for the Frontiers in Psychology Journal. Naomi’s artistic work and teaching is informed by her doctoral research which examined the effect of mindfulness meditation on a creative process of dance making. Naomi’s current research is funded by Arts Council England.

Contact details:

Twitter: @naomi_sell

Staff page: https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/study/teaching-staff/dr-naomi-lefebvre-sell/

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ResDance Series 4: Episode 4: Noticing in improvisation practices with Sally Doughty

In this episode, Sally shares insight into her research interests in movement improvisation practices. Through locating her thinking in her making and performing experiences, we explore ideas in relation to the role of ‘noticing’, the body as a corporeal archive and the role of decision making in her improvisational practice.  In this episode, Sally highlights the importance of the centrality of a first-person perspective and finding ways to privilege the voice of the artist. 

Sally Doughty has been making and performing internationally since the early 90s (Mexico, USA, Latvia, Paris and Estonia) and she has a particular research interest and specialism in movement improvisation practices that span improvisation, choreography, documentation, corporeal archives, and dancing and drawing.  Her publications emerge from her practice and she writes from a first-person perspective – privileging the voice of the artist.  Recent book chapters in edited collections address improvisation from various perspectives: the role of ‘noticing’ in her improvisational practice (Oxford University Press, 2019), dancing and drawing (Cambridge Scholars, 2020); the tensions in shifting from ‘stage to page’ (Dance Books 2020) and performing corporeal archives (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020).  

She is Associate Professor Dance and the Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance (CIRID) at De Montfort University, Leicester, and was Research Director for FABRIC (Dance4 and DanceXchange together), 2022-2023.

 

Contact details:  

Email: sdoughty@dmu.ac.uk

Instagram: sldoughty67

Twitter: @sdoughty2

Facebook: Sally Doughty

Webpage: www.dmu.ac.uk/sallydoughty

Website:

https://www.bodyofknowledge.co.uk/

Publications:

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-9663-4/

 

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-44085-5

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Fields-Staking-Studies-Twenty-First/dp/1852731818

 

Practice:

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/214462246

 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/193674117

 

https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/244608078

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

 

Applications of psychology research in the dance sector with Lucie Clements

In this episode, Lucie shares insight into her own experiences in dance and her work as “the dance psychologist”, developing evidence-based support for performing artists.  Alongside sharing the approaches employed in her educational and coaching practices and research, Lucie discusses her wider thinking around the role of psychology in dance and a greater awareness of psychological support for performing artists, more generally. Throughout the episode, Lucie opens up about the challenges she has personally faced and how she uses these experiences to further help support dancers.

Dr Lucie Clements studied Psychology, Dance Science and Psychological Coaching and lectures in dance and psychology in several Higher Education institutions. In 2018 she began working as “the dance psychologist”, using her expertise gained as a psychologist, educator and researcher to develop evidence-based coaching, workshops and consultancy for performing artists. Research and evidence are key to Lucie’s work. Her expertise lies in the psychosocial underpinnings of optimal dance performance - which means the role of the training environment,teachers, parents, and peers in nurturing healthy dance engagement.

Biography link: https://www.thedancepsychologist.com/about

Contact details  

Email: lucie@thedancepsychologist.com

Social media

Instagram: @thedancepsychologist

 

Published resources 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15290824.2020.1744154

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-48729-001

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1871187120302133

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 4: Doing movement research through practice with Alexandra Baybutt

In this episode, Alexandra shares insight into her experiences as an artist, researcher and somatic movement educator. Through situating her thinking in her research practice, we explore ideas around collaborative practices and experimental methods of festival making, the cultures of practice in dance, and the centrality of the body. Throughout this episode, Alexandra reflects upon her positionality as a researcher and the importance of sharing the voices of the people she researches to ensure their visibility is known.

Alexandra has worked as a researcher, somatic movement educator, dramaturg and dance artist internationally since 2004. She is interested in questions of embodiment and the construction of space. Her mixed-methods PhD (Middlesex University, 2020) concerned contemporary dance festival curatorial praxis as a form of imperceptible politics and explored how the field contemporary dance mediates changes and transformations to the organisation of life in the former Yugoslav space, taking a long-term view of the dissolution of SFRY. Alexandra is a certified Laban Movement Analyst (2010) and registered somatic movement educator with ISMETA as a practitioner of the Laban/Bartenieff Movement System. Her artistic work includes collaboration with choreographer Stephanie Felber (DE) and dramaturgy for choreographer Tania Soubry (LX/UK). Alexandra's work has been published in range of contexts and journals including Global Performance Studies, Critical Stages, and Something Other.

Staff biography: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of-advanced-studies/dr-alexandra-baybutt

Contact details:

Website: https://alexandrabaybutt.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexandrabaybutt.movement/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexandrabaybutt.movement

Other social media links:

1. PAWA / Moving

Strings https://www.instagram.com/moving.strings/

2. Whole Movement: https://wholemovement.org/

3. Academia profile: https://ucl.academia.edu/AlexandraBaybutt

Links to any published resources

Youtube free Bartenieff Fundamental movement principles classes https://www.youtube.com/@alexandrabaybutt5570

My book https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Dance-Festivals-in-the-Former-Yugoslav-Space-independent-Scenes/Baybutt/p/book/9781032344645

 

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Dr Imogen Aujla shares insight into the methodologies and methods she uses in research and reflects upon the methodological decisions she takes as a researcher. We discuss the importance of giving participants a voice in a research setting and the role that a mixed methods approach can play in gaining further insight into phenomena.

Imogen is a Senior Lecturer in Dance and Dance Science at the University of Bedfordshire. Her research interests include dance psychology, the health and wellbeing impact of dance, and talent identification and development in dance, particularly in inclusive contexts.

Contact: imogen.aujla@beds.ac.uk

ResDance S2: Episode 11: Considerations around risk-taking and 'newness' in practice-based research with Josh Slater

Josh Slater shares insight into his creative process and the role of collaboration in his practice making and research. Through situating his thinking around his current PhD practice, Josh discusses his interests in choreographic practise, risk-taking and collaborative practices, more widely. In this episode, Josh reflects upon the approaches he employs and raises points of interest concerning self-reflexivity as a researcher and ways of documenting.

Josh Slater is programme leader for dance and senior lecturer at De Montfort University in Leicester, as well as a contemporary dance artist, theatre maker and performer. He is a part-time Ph.D. student at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University and assistant editor for the Intellect Choreographic Practices Journal.  He has created, and toured dance and theatre works, nationally and internationally, funded by the Arts Council England. Josh’s research interests are focused on choreographic practices, risk-taking, Dance Theatre, improvisation and collaborative practices. Josh is a mentor for emerging dance and movement practitioners and is a Director on the Board of Trustees for Exim Dance Company CIC in Devon and Cheshire Dance in Cheshire.

Contact details:

E-mail: josh.slater@dmu.ac.uk

Twitter: @joshsla

Other social media handles:

@DMUdance @DMUcirid @CDaRE_CU @dmuleicester

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 3: EP2: Experimental Approaches to Dancing-Writing and Indisciplinary Collaboration with Alys Longley

Alys Longley offers insight into her ways of working and approaches employed in her research and practice. Through exploration of approaches to her ‘dancing-writing’, she discusses ways of working with language and fostering a physicality with language -taking space to the page. In situating her ideas in her past and present research interests and indisciplinary collaborations, we discuss ideas relating to geopolitical borders, translation studies and materiality of practice.

Aly’s Longley is an interdisciplinary artist, writer and teacher, Alys’s work exists as live performance, artist-book, installation, film, education curriculum, poetry, performance writing and lecture-demonstration. Over the last decade, Alys has been exploring mistranslation studies, working across languages and disciplines to explore the spill of ideas beyond conventional systems of meaning, through a series of international artistic-research projects in Berlin (Germany), Santiago (Chile), Coimbra (Portugal), NYC (US), Chicago (US), Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland (NZ), Poneke/ Welllington (NZ), Vienna (Austria) and Stockholm (Sweden). Her books include The Foreign Language of Motion (2014), Radio Strainer (2016) Let Us Drink the New Wine, Together! (2022) and alys & pavle (2020), Life is A Sting on the Bicep of the Fabric of the Universe (2021) and Time Does This For You (2022) all with pavleheidler.  Alys has been based in the Department of Dance Studies, University of Auckland, since 2006, where she is currently an Associate Professor.

Contact details:

Email: a.longley@auckland.ac.nz

Website: alyslongleymoving.com

Social Media:

instagram.com/alyslongley

instagram.com/humattering

https://www.beberemoselvinonuevojuntos.com/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 6: Researching the nexus between dance education and dance science with Elsa Urmston

In this episode, Elsa shares insight into her journey as an educator and researcher and how these continue to inform her interests in professional practice within various educational contexts and settings. We discuss the research methodologies, approaches and methods employed in her PhD research and how such experiences have allowed her to embrace other ways of seeing and understanding. Elsa reflects upon the value she places on embodied knowledge, the foregrounding of the subjective embodied person and the importance of play in helping to translate ideas and foster opportunities for open dialogue. Throughout the episode, Elsa highlights the need to de-centre knowledge to avoid the siloing of understanding in research and to foreground others lived experience.

Elsa is an independent dance educator and researcher based in the UK, having worked in the arts and especially dance for the last 30 years or so. Her interests span performance and training, vocational education and pedagogy, community practice, dance science and the impact of arts participation on people’s lives. The themes of professional practice, and the interplay of pedagogical encounters on participants’ experiences are common threads sewn into her work. Elsa has recently completed her PhD in Education at the University of Exeter, exploring the implications of periodisation on dance education, pedagogy, and practice.

Elsa works as a teacher/lecturer in Higher Education (HE), and consults on educational change, developing curricula with a number of institutions and organisations. She has written several dance HE degree programmes, and recently supported London Contemporary Dance School’s adoption of periodisation as part of their curriculum development. She continues to advise on the embedding of dance science education throughout their offer, whilst also contributing to longitudinal research focussing on students’ health and wellbeing, and facilitating the teachers’ learning exchange programme at the School.Much of Elsa’s work is also as an evaluator, exploring dance participation and its impact on people’s lives from social, psychological and health perspectives with companies such as Made by Katie Green, English National Ballet and Dance Umbrella. She is also a mentor for early-and mid-career dance artists, particularly those for whom teaching and dance education are part of their wider portfolio of work.

Elsa has held a number of leadership positions including as Dance Educators’ Committee Chair at the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science; Expert Panel Member for One Dance UK’s Children and Young People’s programmes; and External Examiner of a range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes both in the UK and internationally. Now, Elsa is Vice Chair and trustee of the Essex-based Dance Network Association.

Website: https://www.elsaurmston.com/

Photo credit: Urmy Urmston

Other details:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-elsa-urmston

Instagram: @elsaurmston

X:@ElsaUrmston

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 10: Thinking differently about the body in interdisciplinary research contexts with Susanne Foellmer

In this episode, Susanne shares insight into her background and experiences as a researcher in dance studies and her various interests positioned within contemporary dance, choreography and performance art. Through situating her ideas within her research practice, we explore perspectives for thinking differently about the body and the importance of understanding dance theory as a critical practice. Throughout the episode, Susanne highlights the need for greater visibility of the field of dance studies and continued open conversation in interdisciplinary research contexts.

Susanne Foellmer is full professor in dance studies at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, UK. Her research interests include aesthetic theory, corporeality, media, and materiality in contemporary dance and performance art and in the Weimar era. She also engages in interdisciplinary research with regards to choreography in an expanded sense, particularly exploring social movements’ interrelations of the onsite, embodied public sphere and its media reverberations online. From 2022-23 she has been Senior Fellow at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald.

 

Staff profile weblink: https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/susanne-foellmer

 

Contact details:

 Email: susanne.foellmer@coventry.ac.uk

 Bluesky: @sufoellmer.bsky.social

Other links:

LinkedIn: Susanne Foellmer

Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University

Published resources of interest

Foellmer, S. (2024). Communal Choreographies: Claiming the Embodied Public Sphere in Recent Climate Activism. Critical Stages, 29. https://www.critical-stages.org/29/commmunal-choreographies-claiming-the-embodied-public-sphere-in-recent-climate-activism/

Foellmer, S. (2023). The Archival Turn in Dance/Studies. Reflections on (Corporeal) Archives and Documents. (Reprint) Theatralia: Journal of Theatre Studies, 25(2), 129-147.

Foellmer, S. (2020). Series and Relics: On the Presence of Remainders in Performance’s Museum. In S. Whatley, I. Racz, K. Paramana, & M.-L. Crawley (Eds.), Art and Dance in Dialogue: Body, Space, Object (1 ed., pp. 147-162). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44085-5_9

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 3: Episode 1: Personal experiences, reflections and thinking on dance with Sondra Fraleigh

Professor Sondra Fraleigh reflects upon her journey in dance and offers rich insights into her experiences and thinking as a theorist, writer, choreographer, teacher and practitioner. Sondra describes the phenomenological approaches and thinking used in her work and draws upon key writers, theorists and practitioners who continue to inform her practice. In this thought-provoking episode, we discuss ideas around phenomenology, truth, considerations around the subjective and inter-subjectivity and the potential for dance and somatic movement practice to be used as a means of fostering environmental awareness and change.

Sondra Fraleigh is an international leader in dance, yoga, and somatic healing arts. She is a Fulbright Scholar and professor emeritus of the State University of New York, College at Brockport, where she chaired the Department of Dance and was later head of graduate dance studies. Her innovative choreography based in somatics and inspired by butoh has been seen on tour in America, Germany, the UK, India and Japan. She served as president of the Congress on Research in Dance (renamed, Dance Studies Association) and was selected as a University-Wide Faculty Exchange Scholar for the State University of New York.

Sondra is a Registered Feldenkrais® teacher, and certifies Registered Somatic Movement Educators and Therapists through ISMETA, International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. She has been a professor of dance and somatics for over forty years, now retired from the Department of Dance at the State University of New York at Brockport. Sondra continues to teach through her institute and is a mentor to dancers and somatic practitioners in the USA, Europe, Japan, Mexico and India.

Contact details:

Email: workshops@eastwestsomatics.com

Social Media: Sondra Fraleigh, Eastwest Somatics, and Eastwest Somatics Network

Website: www.eastwestsomatics.com

Publications and sources:

https://www.eastwestsomatics.com/sondra

Somatic lessons:

Walking on Air: https://www.eastwestsomatics.com/walking-on-air

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 4: Episode 5: Finding a sense of understanding beyond the movement: Reflections and considerations with Abi Mortimer In this episode, Abi shares insight into her experiences in dance thus far and draws upon her thinking as a dancer, maker and educator. Reflecting upon the questions she poses to herself in these different roles, we discuss the role of the body in her practice and the challenges of composing work to exist on her own body and those of others.  Highlighting the importance of having a sense of understanding that is beyond the movement itself, she discusses the role of collaboration and narrative in her practice, alongside her ways of making.  With this, she shares insight into the values and ethos of Lîla Dance and the environment they aspire to create for the care and growth of their dancers.

Abi co-founded Lila Dance in 2006 and received arts council funding to create 9 works on the company, that have undergone national & rural tours, international performances and festivals.  Abi received choreographic mentorship from Hofesh Shechter and amongst others has danced for Yael Flexer, Charlie Morrissey and Detta Howe. She has established collaborations with a range of international artists from various disciplines including Gary Clarke, Simona Bertozzi (Italy), Jon Maya (Spain), International puppetry company Blind Summit and writer for the BBC/ Sky Nick Walker. Her commissioned work has shown at high profile venues including Sadler's Wells, The Roundhouse, The Place, U.Dance Finals, Laban, Northern School of Contemporary Dance. She has made award winning dance films and has extended her practice in delivering integrated professional work through research with Stopgap Dance Company. Abi is a senior lecturer at The University of Chichester and has a passion for extending her practice to creatively engage the community, regularly producing commissions for participants of all ages and abilities.

Contact details:  

Email: abi@liladance.co.uk

Website: www.liladance.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/liladanceuk,

Twitter: @LilaDanceUK

Insta: @Liladanceuk

Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/LilaDanceCo

 

See more about how Lila Dance makes work and the library of Lila from the shop:

How We Do It — Lîla Dance (liladance.co.uk)

Shop — Lîla Dance (liladance.co.uk)

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

ResDance Series 4: Episode 1: Shape-shifting and renavigation with Antonia Grove

In this episode, Antonia shares rich insight into her journey as an independent artist and reflects upon the experiences that continue to shape her practice.  Through exploring her previous collaborations and areas of interest, she brings to light questions around stereotypical masculine/feminine binaries, risk-taking, expectation and ownership. Situating these ideas in her recent experience of Master’s study in Creative Practice at Trinity Laban, she advocates the importance of bringing voice to perspectives of women and the need for greater visibility and acknowledgement throughout an artist’s career.

Antonia is a Brighton-based independent artist working in contemporary dance, dance theatre and all its related cross-artform collaborations. She moves between the roles of artistic director, choreographer, lecturer, performer, dramaturg and artistic facilitator. After graduating from the Rambert School she joined Rambert Dance Company (1998-2003) and went on to perform with Walker Dance Park Music, The National Theatre, Wayne McGregor’s Random Dance, Bonachela Dance Company, The Cholmondeleys, Charles Linehan Company, New Art Club, Fabulous Beast, Matthias Sperling, Clod Ensemble, Headspace Dance and Vincent Dance Theatre, obtaining 3 Critics Circle National Dance Award nominations for outstanding performances. Antonia founded the dance theatre company Probe in 2004 and has produced and performed 6 touring productions to date. 

As a maker she continues to be interested in creating live solo work, presenting dance theatre pieces that she writes, directs, performs and realises in collaboration with other creatives. Her work has centred around over-arching themes of power, disguise, and visibility. Since obtaining her Masters Degree in Creative Practice from Trinity Laban her practice is developing a more socially political focus as she questions stereotypical masculine/feminine binaries and explores issues concerning chaos, disorientation and risk-taking through the perspectives of women. Alongside her career, Antonia is raising three children and is an activist for parents/carers working in the Arts. 

Contact details:

Email: deserttone@hotmail.com     antonia@probeproject.com

 

Website: www.antoniagrove.co.uk

               www.probeproject.com

 

Facebook: @Antonia Grove

Instagram: @deserttone

Other links: 

https://researchonline.trinitylaban.ac.uk/oa/thesis/holy-moly-mother-of-chaos-exploring-relationships-between-female-hormones-and-creativity-antonia-grove-2022/

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 11: Sharing Dance Science knowledge to empower young dancers with Kendall Baab

In this episode, Kendall shares insight into her background and experiences as a dance science educator and her interests in ways of enhancing performance and preventing injury through the creation of her business, Bodykinect.  Through a focus on education and training, we discuss her online presence in generating ways to create healthier training practices and in finding accessible and original ways of disseminating dance science knowledge. Throughout the episode, Kendall shares the value she places on the individual dancer through a holistic and consistent approach in the hope to continue empowering the young dancers.

Kendall is a personal trainer for dancers and dance science educator located in Los Angeles, CA. She grew up as a competitive studio dancer and Texas high school drill team member of the Southlake Carroll Emerald Belles Dance/Drill Team in Southlake, TX. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance Science from California State University Long Beach where she trained in ballet and modern dance, and a Master of Science degree in Dance Science from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, UK where she completed dance science research involving perfectionism and self-efficacy in online dance classes and trained in contemporary dance. Kendall is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer and a BASI Certified Pilates Instructor with a dance specialization. She is also a Certified Health Coach through Dr. Sears' Wellness Institute. Kendall works with dancers all over the United States on strength, conditioning, and flexibility to enhance performance and prevent injury. Kendall is the CEO and owner of Body Kinect. Profile weblink: https://www.bodykinect.org/meet-the-team

Contact details:

 Email: hello@bodykinect.org

 Socail media links:

 Instagram: https://instagram.com/trainwithkendall

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@trainwithkendall

TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@trainwithkendall

Other links:

Free Resources & Publications: https://www.bodykinect.org/freeresources

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 6: Episode 1: Multi-disciplined Creative Actions and the Courage to Explore with Keith Alexander

In this episode, Keith shares insight into his background as a multidisciplinary artist scholar and his current experiences as a Fulbright Scholar at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.  By situating his ideas within both theoretical ideas and artistic experience, we explore his ways of working, approaches to practice and the inspirations he draws upon as a researcher and writer. Throughout the episode, Keith advocates the value of embracing new opportunities and his commitment to advocating for marginalized communities across artistic practice.

Keith Alexander is a London based, Black American multidisciplinary artist scholar from Chesapeake, Virginia. An alumnus of Morehouse College, he began his dance training in Atlanta, Georgia through cross-registration with Spelman College’s Dance department. His academic and creative formation in “the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement” has influenced his artistic direction as he creates thought-provoking, social conscious art to heal and help transform the world. He is the 2022-2023 US-UK Fulbright Scholar at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Alexander's creative accomplishments include a documentary dance short film, selected for the 2023 London International Screen Dance Festival, and international projects as a choreographer, writer, and performer. Alexander is committed to courageous storytelling and advocating for marginalized and displaced communities across the world through the arts.

Contact details  

Email: info@kalexander.org

Website: kalexander.org

Social media

Instagram: @kalexandersauce

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 4: Episode 10: Ballet and the Black British dancer experience with Sandie Bourne

In this episode, Dr Sandie Bourne shares insight into her experiences in dance and takes the listener on a journey on how her early experience of ballet inspired her PhD in Dance Studies at the University of Roehampton where she wrote her thesis, Black British Ballet: Race, Representation & Aesthetics.  Through reflecting upon her personal and professional experiences, we discuss how research has led her to create the Black British Ballet project which aims to produce a suite of resources to document the history and experiences of Black dancers and choreographers in British ballet in the last century. Through a website, documentary, children’s book and a new Black British Ballet exhibition, she advocates the importance of documenting history through bringing the voice of the individual to the fore.

Dr Sandie Bourne is a consultant on Black dancers in British Ballet. Her Black British Ballet project aims to produce a suite of resources to document the history and experiences of Black dancers and choreographers in British ballet in the last century. Sandie studied performing arts at London Studio Centre. She has a BA in Performing Arts, major in Dance from Middlesex University; a MA in Dance Studies from the University of Surrey and a PhD Dance Studies, University of Roehampton (2017). Her research title was Black British Ballet: Race, Representation and Aesthetics. 

Contact details:

Email: blackbritishballet@gmail.com

Website: www.blackbritishballet.com

Social media handles:

https://www.instagram.com/blackbritishballet

https://www.facebook.com/BlackBritishBallet

https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/black-british-ballet

 

Other resources:

• Black British Ballet Launch event at English National Ballet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8m2P8hgrAI&ab_channel=EnglishNationalBallet
• PhD: https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/823538/Sandie_Bourne_PhD_Dance_Studies_2017.pdf
• Society for Dance Research –Inclusion & Intersectionality Podcast – Episode 3: Cultural Appropriation and Racial Erasure in Ballet and Lindy Hop https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/inclusion-intersectionality-podcast/id1646948948
• Adesina, P. (25 April 2022) At Ballet Black,Creating Opportunities for British Dancers – The  New York Times: online https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/arts/dance/ballet-black-london.html

 Published chapters include:

• Bourne, S (2022) ‘Celebrating Dance for All, ‘Dr Sandie Bourne reflects on the diversity of Dance Track 25’ in Birmingham Royal Ballet Magazine – Autumn.
• Bourne, S (2022) ‘Diversity: The Key to the Survival of British Ballet’ in One Dance UK Magazine – Autumn.
• Bourne, S (2021) ‘Portrayals of Black people in Western narrative ballets’, in Akinleye, A. (Re:) Claiming Ballet, Intellect Books, Bristol. 
• Bourne, S (2019) Book Review on Halifu Osumare, ‘Dancing in Blackness, A Memoir’ in Dance Research, Vol 37. Issue 1, May.
• Bourne, S (2018) ‘Looking Through the Keyhole’ in Brookes, P. Identity and Choreographic Practice, Serendipity Arts Movement Ltd, Leicester.
• Bourne, S (2018) ‘Tracing the Evolution of Black Representation in Ballet and the Impact on Black British Dancers Today’ in Akinleye, A. Narratives in Black British Dance:Embodied Practices (pp. 51-64). Palgrave Macmillian: London.

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 3: Episode 8: Bringing the voice of the freelance dance artist to the fore with Anna Watkins In this episode, Anna shares insight into her experiences as a freelance dancer and choreographer and the ways she continues to develop her artistic practice. We explore her experiences of being a freelance artist in relation to the challenges it can bring within the industry and the importance of ‘giving voice’ to mid-career and established artists. Anna draws upon experiences from her company ‘Watkins Dance Company’ and her agency ‘theArtists network’ (founded in June 2020) as a platform for collaboration and support of professional dance artists from cross art forms. Throughout the episode, Anna advocates for greater and improved support from the dance industry and highlights how her future research endeavours aim to continue to bring the voice of the freelance dance artist to the fore. Anna has 18 years performing professionally, having worked with dance companies & choreographers such as: Taira Foo, Shobana Jeyasingh, Phoenix Dance Theatre (CC Lab), Tavaziva Dance, Motionhouse, Oceanallover, Thea Barnes, Neville Campbell, Harriet Macauley & more. Anna has toured her 12-year independent company work 'Watkins Dance Company' in the UK & Internationally by funding & commissioning organisations Arts Council England, East London Dance, Swindon Dance, The Garage, DanceEast, South East Dance, awarded Associate Artist (2017-2018) Swindon Dance. Anna has led professional company classes in the UK and internationally for companies such as Rambert, Żfin Malta - National Dance Company of Malta and NDCWales - National Dance Company Wales. Recently Rehearsal Director working on the development process of a newly formed company in Wales, following a commission as choreographer to create a new work '24HR' for the Triple Bill world premiere. in August 2022 Anna worked with Soul City Arts for production 'Waswasa' as Movement Director, creation by Mohammed Ali, Birmingham Hippodrome as part of Birmingham Festival, Commonwealth Games. In 2023 awarded Arts Council England funding for DYCP ‘Over 30’ project. Contact details: Email: anna@watkinsdance.co.uk Website: Website: www.watkinsdancecompany.com Instagram: @anna.watkins  @watkins_dance_company Twitter: @WatkinsDanceCo Facebook: @WatkinsDanceCompany Photo credit for headshot is: Fatima Sastre Useful links: www.the-freelance-artists.com www.watkinsdancecompany.com Support freelance artists, donate to theArtists platform: https://www.gofundme.com/f/theartists-freelancers-funding-pot

ResDance Series 5: Episode 6: Improvisation as a transdisciplinary practice for unstable times with Jo Pollitt

In this episode, Jo shares insight into her practice of improvisation across several performance, choreographic and scholarly platforms.  Alongside sharing the processes and approaches employed in her research, she explores the theoretical frameworks that more widely inform her practice and ways of working with improvisation as method.  Throughout the episode, Jo reflects upon her current research endeavours and emphasises the importance of conversation as a means of making change.   

Dr Jo Pollitt is an artist-scholar with the Centre for People, Place, and Planet, across both the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and the School of Education at Edith Cowan University on Whadjuk Noongar Country. She is convenor of Dance Research Australia,  co-founder of The Ediths, creative director of #FEAS Feminist Educators Against Sexism, co-director of BIG Kids Magazine, and author of ‘The dancer in your hands’. Jo's work is grounded in a practice of improvisation across multiple performance, choreographic and publishing platforms. Her current research is focussed on weather as a studio for grappling with feminist anticolonial relations with place. 

https://www.forrestresearch.org.au/portfolio-item/dr-jo-pollitt/

Contact details

Email: j.pollitt@ecu.edu.au

Web: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-pollitt/ 

Social media

Instagram: @pollittjoanna 

Other resources

https://theediths.org/roundtable-series/

The Centre for People, Place, & Planet: https://www.ecu.edu.au/schools/science/research/strategic-centres/centre-for-people-place-and-planet/overview

https://feministeducatorsagainstsexism.com/ 

BIG Kids Magazine: https://bigkidsmagazine.com/

Published sources

The dancer in your hands: https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/the-dancer-in-your-hands

https://artgallery.wa.gov.au/learn/artist-activation/conversations-with-rain 

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003145615-6/choreographies-presence-jo-pollitt 

The State of Dancingness: https://journals.colorado.edu/index.php/partake/article/view/419

She writes like she dances: Response and radical impermanence in writing as dancing  https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/chor.8.2.199_1

How to think (as) a body of water. A talk by Astrida Neimanis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASKL8EpDVXE

Throat by Ellen van Neervan: https://www.uqp.com.au/books/throat

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 3: Dance Pedagogy: Curiosity and Collaboration with Emily Powell

In the episode,  Emily shares insight into her experiences as a dancer, teacher and researcher and how these continue to inform her research and teaching practices. We discuss the research methodologies and approaches employed in her MA research and how these provided a foundation to explore feminist and democratic perspectives within her teaching.  Emily shares ideas around how play and risk-taking are used in the learning environment she creates and ways of cultivating trust in the studio.  Throughout this episode, Emily highlights the importance of open dialogue within teaching and learning and the value of being curious as a practitioner.

Emily is a dance practitioner based in London. She began her training at The Place CAT, before going on to study vocationally at London Contemporary Dance School. Emily is currently a Contemporary Dance Tutor at Central School of Ballet and at London Studio Centre. She also teaches for various pre-vocational programmes including Central School of Ballet’s Associate Programme, The Place CAT and English National Ballet’s Youth Company. In 2023 Emily was awarded the Fellowship of Higher Education and she recently completed her Masters in Dance Education at London Studio Centre. As a researcher, Emily is interested in exploring the use of feminist and democratic pedagogies within the contemporary dance technique class.  Emily is also a fully certified STOTT Pilates instructor and has been a Guest Lecturer of Pilates at London Contemporary Dance School.

Headshot: Camilla Greenwell

Contact details

Contact email: emily.powell@csbschool.co.uk

Instagram: @emilypowell

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 4: Episode 11:  Reflections and considerations on the role heritage plays in the creation of contemporary dance works with Ceyda Tanc In this episode, Ceyda shares insight into her experiences in dance both as a dancer and a choreographer, creating professional contemporary dance works drawing on Turkish folk culture.  Through reflecting upon her personal and professional experiences, we explore the importance acknowledging her heritage plays in her practice and the approaches she employs when making new work. Ceyda shares insight into her research interests concerning exploring traditional gender representation in dance and the ways these are represented in her work. Through discussing her education partnerships and her own youth company, she highlights the importance of running an accessible programme of dance and her passion for others to experience the joy of dance. Ceyda is a choreographer and movement director, and Artistic Director of Ceyda Tanc Dance. She trained at University of Roehampton & The State Turkish Conservatoire for Music & Folk Dance in Izmir, Turkey. Ceyda founded her all-female company in 2012, creating a body of professional contemporary dance works drawing on Turkish folk culture, and exploring traditional gender representation in dance. Ceyda’s first full-length work, KAYA, was commissioned by Brighton Festival 2018 for performance at Theatre Royal Brighton and was met with critical acclaim to a sold-out audience. Ceyda has presented solo programmes across the UK, including: Brighton Festival, Hull Truck, The Old Market, The Showroom & The Point. In 2014, Ceyda and her company were invited to Turkey for a theatre and universities tour, then again in 2017 to train in Turkish Folk Dance and for a commissioned performance. Choreographic credits include: Map Dance, University of Roehampton, Royal Academy of Music, University of Chichester, University of Brighton, University of Roehampton, Hull Dance (City of Culture 2017), Dance Woking, The Point, MOTUS Festival, ACE Dance and Music and The Place. In 2021 Ceyda was invited by Tamara Rojo to advise on the representation of Turkish folk dance in English National Ballet’s production of ‘Raymonda’. In 2022, she was commissioned by English National Ballet to create an original work for their Emerging Dancer competition. Ceyda directs a highly successful education programme and owns multi-arts space THE STUDIO, Brighton. Her youth company are four-time U.Dance finalists and were invited by Richard Alston to perform alongside his company twice at Theatre Royal, Brighton. Ceyda runs a thriving programme of contemporary classes and workshops for all ages and abilities, has an education partnership with Brighton & Hove City Council and is Associate Lecturer at University of Chichester. Contact details: Email: ceydatancdance@gmail.com Instagram: @ceydatancdance Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CeydaTancDance Twitter: @ceydatancdance Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.  

ResDance Series 5: Episode 3: Dance Pedagogy and collaborative learning with Ashleigh Ritchie

In this episode, Ashleigh shares insight into her experiences as a pedagogue and researcher, with research interests in Dance Pedagogy and collaborative learning and teaching with students as partners.  Underpinned by the coming together of theoretical knowledge and practice in the ‘doing’ of teaching, Ashleigh discusses the theoretical frameworks that inform her research and teaching practices.  Throughout the episode, she highlights the role of collaboration in the co-construction of knowledge and the importance of students locating the ‘self’ in their practice.  Ashleigh shares her thinking around researcher positionality, power imbalances, equal partnerships within teaching and research settings, the importance of taking risks in practice and the wider value of dance and research degrees.

Contact details

Email: aritchie@londonstudiocentre.ac.uk

Linkedln: Ashleigh Ritchie on LinkedIn

Published sources of interest

Dancing towards belonging

Imaging the Future

Democratic and Feminist Pedagogy

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 8: Episode 3: Exploring Dance as a Tool for Awareness and Wellbeing with Alice Marshall

In the episode, Alice shares insight into her experiences both as a professional dancer and choreographer and the work of her company - Adaire to Dance. Through exploring her choreographic identity, she offers insight into performative work and her drive for encouraging accessibility of the arts, presenting opportunities for all in dance. Alice reflects upon the role dance has as a tool for raising awareness ofexperiences and conversations that feel difficult to have, sharing her personal journey with baby loss and the role dance has played in her recovery. Throughout the episode, Alice highlights the need for open dialogue and conversation within dance and reminds listeners as to the wider value of dance.

Please note this episode contains dialogue around baby loss

Alice Marshall is a leading Dance professional in the Midlands area. After an extensive performance career with choreographers such as Paul Bloom, Katie Green and Cathy Seago, Alice went on to form Adaire to Dance – a professional performance company that demonstrates the diversity of Contemporary Dance. Her work with her own company concentrates on accessible dance and combining other art forms with the movement created. Often a collaboration with Illuminos is at the centre of her work. As Choreographer and performer within this company Alice also taught Dance toall ages in the community.

As a lecturer she has a keen interest in the development and upholding of the work of Dance Artists, and therefore strives to present them all with opportunities that her connectionsin the industry can provide. Alice's dance academic research has been recognised, and she has presented papers across the sector including ELIA and Advance HE. Her work has been published in the form of a book Entertainment in the Performing Arts by Routledge and is the start of her exploration into a new way of accessible writing for academia. Alice was awarded Derbyshire's Inspirational Woman of the Year Award in the Arts (IWA) in 2015,and was one of three shortlisted for One Dance UK’s Lecturer of the Year 2018.

https://alicevale.weebly.com/about.html  

Contact details:

Email: a.e.a.marshall@derby.ac.uk 

Instagram @aeamarshall

Linkedin: Alice Marshall (Vale) - SeniorLecturer - University of Derby | LinkedIn
Other social media platforms:

@adairetodance

@creativeparent

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research inaction.

Series 3: Episode 9: ‘Shaking-Up’ Learning with Linzi McLagan

In this episode, Linzi shares insight into her experiences as an educator in Early Years, Primary, Secondary and Further Education settings. Throughout the episode we reflect upon her dance research in Scottish Primary schools, with relation to projects such as: ‘Shake It Up’ and ‘Step It Up’ at YDance which aim to raise attainment and support the confidence and skills of primary teachers delivering dance as part of the curriculum in Scottish schools. Further, we explore the work and aims of YDance as an organisation and reflect upon her thinking around possible barriers to dance participation and ideas for future engagement and research endeavours.

Linzi is a GTCS registered lecturer and works on the BA course at Dundee and Angus college. She has various roles at Scottish Qualification Authority and is Head of Education at YDance (Scottish Youth Dance). At YDance, Linzi is principally responsible for the Education strand of the company’s work which includes strategic planning, management and delivery of education projects and events. Her role aims to promote the delivery of dance within the formal education sector and influence the future development of dance within the Scottish curriculum. She has worked extensively throughout Scotland as a Dance Educationalist in Early Years, Primary, secondary and Further Education settings. Linzi has a passion for learning and teaching and is an advocate for dance within the Education sector. Her goal is to initiate and facilitate discussions that empower teachers as well as challenge their perceptions and tacit assumptions of dance.

Contact details:

Email: linzi@ydance.org

Website: www.ydance.org

Twitter: @LinziMclagan

Useful Resources:

‘Shake it Up’: About Shake It Up | YDance

‘Shake it Up’ video footage: https://youtu.be/XLlPQN0cajg

‘Shake it Up’ Report Evaluation: YDance-Shake-It-Up-Programme-Evaluation-Final-Report.pdf

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 5: Episode 10:  Reflections on enriching human experience and creatively using body movement to celebrate a shared movement language with Jason Keenan Smith

In this episode, Jason shares insight into his background and experiences as a dance artist, trained movement psychotherapist and Artistic Director of ThreeScoreDance and how these continue to inform his teaching practices.  By situating his ideas within theoretical frameworks and artistic experience, we explore the role and portrayal of human experiences and the power of movement in facilitating a shared language, placing it at the fore of his practice. Throughout the episode, Jason advocates a care of practice in relation to listening, an openness of conversation, generosity of time and celebrating the power of dance being for all.

Jason is a dance artist, trained movement psychotherapist and Artistic Director of ThreeScoreDance. His work as performer includes companiesvsuch as English National Opera, The Featherstonehaughs, Protein Dance, Union Dance and Walker Dance Park Music. As an emerging choreographer, he has worked with The Place Theatre, The Gate Theatre and recently premiered a new work as part of Brighton Festival 2023. Currently Jason is a Senior Lecturer at University of Chichester, where he delivers on the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Programmes.  He continues to explore parity of expression and the portrayal of human experiences.

Contact details

Email: j.keenan-smith@chi.ac.uk

Social media

Instagram: @jasonks1

Other Social media: @threescoredance

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 5: Episode 11: Growing up in dance with Siobhan Mitchell

In this episode, Siobhan shares insight into her own background and experiences in dance and her areas of research interests, alongside her current role as a Research Fellow in in Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Exeter. Through situating her ideas within evidence based literature, we discuss the challenges young people face when growing up in dance and the role of education in the area of adolescent development.  Siobhan shares insight into both the GuiDANCE project and the GuiDANCE Network (which she founded) which aim to review practices and propose guidelines in the dance sector around growth and development.  Throughout the episode, Siobhan reflects upon her current research endeavours and the importance of encouraging an openness of conversation and the potential for working collaboratively across disciplines and research spaces.

Siobhan trained vocationally as a dancer before completing a BA Hons in Dance Studies (University of Roehampton), an MSc in Dance Science (Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance) and an MRes in Health and Wellbeing (University of Bath). Awarded a full ESRC studentship in 2014, Siobhan completed her doctorate in 2018 and currently works as a Research Fellow in Child and Adolescent Health at the University of Exeter. Siobhan’s doctoral research explored the psychological and social implications of early and late maturation in adolescent ballet dancers. More recently, Siobhan led the GuiDANCE project and founded the GuiDANCE Network, a collaboration which aims to review practices in the dance sector around growth and development and propose guidelines for the sector going forward. Siobhan is passionate about education in the area of adolescent development and regularly delivers workshops for dance teachers, dance students and parents of young dancers.

Contact details:

Email: theadolescentdancer@gmail.com

Instagram: @Siobhan_Dance

Website: www.theadolescentdancer.com

Other Social Media handles: @GuiDANCEProjec1

Published Resources:

https://www.onedanceuk.org/what-we-do/professional-bodies-and-partners/the-guidance-network

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 1: Creating Movement Ruptions in Educational Research with Kerry Chappell

In the episode, Kerry shares insight into her research interest’s in creativity in arts, science and transdisciplinary education. Together, we explore the theoretical frameworks that inform her research and teaching practices and the richness of using a dialogic approach to see what practices might emerge. Throughout the episode, Kerry highlights the value of working in a multidisciplinary way and the importance of bringing dance into conversation with other disciplines.

Kerry is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Exeter, where she leads the MA Creative Arts in Education Programme and provides dance expertise to the course. Kerry also leads the Creativity and Emergent Educational Futures Network and is a PhD and EdD supervisor. Her research investigates creativity in arts, science and transdisciplinary education and educational futures, alongside participatory research methodologies. Kerry continues to work as a dance-artist within Exeter-based dance lab collective.

Kerry is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre of Creativities, Arts and Science in Education at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway where she contributes dance and creativity in education expertise.

https://education.exeter.ac.uk/people/profile/index.php?web_id=kerry_chappell

Contact details:

Email: k.a.chappell@exeter.ac.uk

Twitter: @X KerryChappell1

Social media platforms

Twitter: @EducationUoE

Published sources of interest:

Chappell, K., Turner, C. & Wren, H. (2024). Creative Ruptions for Emergent Educational Futures. Palgrave MacMillan.  

https://link.springer.com/book/9783031529726

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

ResDanceSeries 7: Episode 2: Bridging the fields of dance producing and popular dance with Laura Robinson

In the episode, Laura shares insight into her research experiences in the areas of popular dance and dance producing and management. She reflects upon how these experiences have come together to inform her teaching and research and discusses the wider value of producing and managing dance practices.  Throughout the episode, we consider factors pertinent to the organisation of popular dance and consider economical drivers within the producing field. The need for an entrepreneurial spirit as both a producer and researcher is celebrated throughout.

Laura is a Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader, and dance researcher with over 15 years of experience in dance and cultural studies. With a passion for fostering intrigue and entrepreneurship in students, Laura holds teaching specialisms in dance producing and management, research methods and dance dissertation writing, dance pedagogy and education, dance policy and practice, dance philosophy and his/hertories, and employability skills. Portfolio career ranging from dance artist, community dance practitioner, dance development manager, and currently dance studies in Higher Education. PhD thesis and research interests focus on spectacle in popular screendance, drawing upon post-capitalist theory, identity studies, and Posthumanist discourse.

Biography - https://uel.academia.edu/LauraRobinson

Contact details:

Email lrobinson@londonstudiocentre.ac.uk

Handle - Insta @lauralauraexplora

                         @londonstudiocentre

Other links

Research Links: https://uel.academia.edu/LauraRobinson

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-laura-robinson-36a189208/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 9: The Reciprocal Relationship between Research and Practice with Catherine Haber

In this episode, Catherine shares insight into her experiences as an educator and researcher and her interests in the intersection of functional and aesthetic components of dance performance. Through situating her ideas within her research practice, Catherine offers insight into methodological approaches for validating dance-specific measures and the value of working collaboratively across disciplines.  Throughout the episode, Catherine reflects on how an openness to dialogue and embracing new perspectives continue to inform her curiosity within the field.  

Catherine Haber, MSc, MAS, FHEA, is the Programme Leader of the MSc/MFA Dance Science Programme at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, UK. Catherine teaches Motor Control, Biomechanics, and Research Methods across the BSc and MSc/MFA Dance Science Programmes, further supervising and supporting student research. Additionally, Catherine leads the Fitness Screening and Health Tracking Program for dancers within the institution. Catherine is also a guest lecturer on the MAS Dance Science Programme at the Institute of Sport Science, University of Bern, Switzerland. Within her doctoral research, Catherine is particularly interested in the intersection of functional and aesthetic components of dance performance. Her research thus aims to examine methodological approaches for validating dance-specific performance measures, and to evaluate the contributions of diverse perspectives and disciplines in furthering our understanding of dance performance. Through her research, Catherine has presented her work at numerous international conferences; such as the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, Performing Arts Medicine Association, and the International Society of Biomechanics. 

Contact details:

 Email: c.haber@trinitylaban.ac.uk

 Instagram: @catherine__haber

 Instagram: @trinitylaban_dancescience

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 3: Episode 6: Dancing Multiplicities with Jenny Roche

In this episode, Jenny shares insight into her research practice and reflects upon her experiences as a performer, educator and practice-maker. We explore the various methods and approaches employed in her work and discuss ideas around articulating processes and the knowledge behind them. Throughout the episode, Jenny reflects upon the witnessing of her own experiences, how these continue to inform her own practices and considerations for future opportunities.

Dr Jenny Roche is Senior Lecturer and Course Director of the MA in Contemporary Dance Performance at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick. From 2013 to 2017 she was a Senior Lecturer in Dance at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane. She has published widely on the creative practice of dancers, dance and Somatics and arts practice research and has worked extensively as a dancer, with a range of choreographers including Rosemary Butcher, Jodi Melnick, John Jasperse, Michael-Keegan Dolan and Liz Roche. She continues to work as a collaborator and performer in various creative arts research contexts. From 2007 to 2011 she was dance advisor to the Arts Council of Ireland. Her book Multiplicity, Embodiment and the Contemporary Dancer: Moving Identities was published in 2015 and Choreography: The Basics, co-authored with Stephanie Burridge was published in 2022.

Contact details:

Email: Jenny.Roche@ul.ie

Instagram

jennyroche4

Instagram and Facebook:

Irish World Academy @irishworldacademy

University of Limerick @universityoflimerick

Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, UL @ahssul

Twitter:

@JennyrocheMail

@IWorldAcademy

@UL

@UL_Research

Resources of interest:

Multiplicity, Embodiment and the Contemporary Dancer: Moving Identities https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137429858

Choreography: The Basics https://www.routledge.com/Choreography-The-Basics/Roche-Burridge/p/book/9780367896164

“And then again, I draw myself to the detail”: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13528165.2021.2005955

Modes of Capture symposium 2023: https://lizrochecompany.com/our-work/intraspaces-residency/modes-of-capture

Critical Dance Pedagogy through Discourse and Practice Network with Angela Pickard and Kathryn Stamp

In this episode, Angela and Kathryn share insight into the focus of the network, which aims to bring together academics, dance educators, researchers and artists to foster opportunities for new thinking on the areas of Critical Dance Pedagogy. Through situating the ideas of the network in relation to their own experiences as educators and researchers, they explore the theoretical frameworks that inform the wider network and share how a series of hybrid symposium events and the Artist lab will explore current issues delving into equity, diversity, inclusion, and student-centered teaching approaches, with a view to generating change and legacy for the dance sector.

Critical Dance Pedagogy through Discourse and Practice Network

The network will connect academics, dance educators, researchers, artists, industry stakeholders in the UK with international peers in Scandinavia/Nordic and US as guest speakers, to support collaboration, and maximise opportunities for new thinking on the topic of Critical Dance Pedagogy, particularly understandings of equity, diversity and inclusion and student-centred pedagogy, through practice (Artist Lab) and discourse (four hybrid symposium events).

Website: www.criticaldancepedagogy.com/home

Twitter: @SDH

AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Network

The five AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks explore current issues and generate change and legacy for the sector. The ecosystems created by the Networks traverse across South Asian dance, digital black dance, future producing dance ecologies, critical dance pedagogies, and pluriversal dance practices and will be mapped for reach and impact in and beyond the sector.

For more information, please visit: danceresearchmatters.coventry.ac.uk

Instagram and Twitter: @danceresearchmatters

Contributor biography: Professor Angela Pickard

Angela is a Professor of Dance Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, where her research is focussed on dance education and performance science. She is interested in relationships between body and identity(ies) in dance and embodiment, drawing on sociology (Bourdieu), pedagogy and psychology. Angela is Editor in Chief for the international journal Research in Dance Education and on the Editorial board for Journal of Dance, Medicine and Science.

Contact: ⁠angela.pickard@canterbury.ac.uk

Contributor biography: Kathryn Stamp

Kathryn is a dance research and educator, specialising in inclusive dance practice and research methods.  Her interests span inclusive dance, dance in education and exploring the value and impact of dance. Kathryn graduated with an MA in Education (Distinction) from University of Brighton (2016) and holds a first-class BA (Hons) in Dance Studies from Roehampton University (2010). In 2020 Kathryn completed her PhD at C-DaRE and her AHRC-funded research focused on photography-based interventional approaches that sought to change public perceptions about disabled people who dance.  Currently, Kathryn's postdoctoral research explores the lived experience of isolated working for disabled dance artists, considering modes of communication, use of technology and change in working practices in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Kathryn is enthusiastic about transdisciplinary research and has worked for the Centre for Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling on the Energy REV project, exploring stakeholder perspectives on Energy, AI and Ethics. Kathryn is one of the project team members for Gap_E[thics], which seeks to explore the concept, understanding and practice of ethics in technological from different disciplinary perspectives.

Contact details:

Email: ad6869@coventry.ac.uk

Twitter:  @kathrynstampy

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance S2: Episode 4 – Reflections on the dancing body with James Hewison

James offers insights into his journey as a dancer, choreographer, educator and researcher, reflecting upon his training and professional experiences, and his current areas of research focus. Through discussion around his different ways of working, he shares thoughts on the role of decision making in his practice and the value of process in improvisation and creative tasks. Throughout this rich and well-considered episode, James reflects upon the questions he asks about his own dancing body.

James Hewison (MA, FHEA) is a Senior Lecturer in Dance in the Department of Creative Arts at Edge Hill University. He has made, performed and toured nationally and internationally in professional dance and physical theatre work since 1991. He was a co-founder and Associate Artistic Director of Vtol Dance Company (Dir. Mark Murphy) with whom he performed from 1991 to 2000. James also has extensive international performance credits with Volcano Theatre Company with whom he has worked in a variety of creative roles since 1993. James has additionally performed with CandoCo Dance Company, Emilyn Claid, Adam Benjamin, Kirstie Simson, and Steve Kirkham, and he was a key collaborative artist and researcher in a series of practice-based and professional dance-theatre projects with Helen Bailey and Ersatz Dance from 1999 to 2010. More recently James has created solo performance work and has collaborated on new creative research projects with professional dance and circus artist, Michelle Man, resulting in a series of international performances including most recently, Luze (2017) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtkDoJNOow0.

James’s teaching expertise focuses on embodied practices in dance techniques, improvisation and composition, and performance-making and direction and he has previously worked as an External Examiner at the University of Chichester, Trinity Laban Centre London, and for London Studio Centre. Current research includes contributions to The Shakespeare and Dance Project (USA) on choreographic adaptations of The Sonnets: https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publications/choreographing-the-sonnets-volcano-theatre-companys-love. He is currently leading on a place-seeking choreographic project that explores the experiences of male dancers in the North West of England, and specifically in his home town of Warrington.

Email: james.hewison@edgehill.ac.uk

Other links:

1) Explorations of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory and its application to Contact Improvisation: https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publications/risk-and-flow-in-contact-improvisation-pleasure-play-and-presence-2.

2) Practice-based research with Michelle Man on the work of surrealist artist and author, Leonora Carrington: https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publications/imaginarium-2

3)Co-editor for the edited collection, Leonora Carrington: Living Legacies. Wilmington: Vernon Press, USA. Cox, A. Hewison, J. Man, M. Shannon, R. (2019).

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ResDance Series 5: Episode 9: Critical Pedagogies in dance education and training - Nurturing the creative agent dancer with Phaedra Petsilas In this episode, Phaedra shares insight into her experiences as a dancer, educator and researcher and how these continue to inform her practices in mentoring and supporting dance students to achieve their full potential as creative and thinking dance artists.  We discuss ways of approaching dance training and explore how Phaedra uses theoretical ideas and frameworks to work towards innovating pedagogy. She brings voice to the importance of encouraging an openness to change within education and particularly within conservatoire education.  Throughout the episode, Phaedra reveals her passion towards inclusion and well-being and fostering a sense of belonging, autonomy and agency for all.

Phaedra Petsilas is Head of Studies at Rambert School where she is a member of the executive management team, responsible for the academic provision, as well as research and professional development. Phaedra is originally from Athens, Greece, and trained as a dancer in ballet and contemporary dance. She has an MA in Dance Studies from Trinity Laban, a PGCE from the University of Greenwich and a BA(Hons) in Dance and Related Arts from the University of Chichester. She is also a senior Fellow of Advance HE.

Phaedra is an experienced dance educator and has expertise in both practical and academic aspects of dance. She thrives on mentoring and supporting dance students to achieve their full potential as fully rounded, creative and thinking dance artists.  She is an activ(ist) approach to her work as an educator and is always working towards innovating pedagogy, particularly within conservatoire education. She is passionate about inclusion and well-being, as well as establishing an ethics of care within education, fostering a sense of belonging, autonomy and agency for all students.

Her research spans across a diverse range of areas within dance as a practice, from embodied reflection to notions of space and place in the perception of choreography. Her current research is centred around radical dance pedagogy. Phaedra has published articles in The Journal for Dance Education and The Journal for Dance and Somatic Practices, as well as chapters in books about education and articles for industry advocate organisations, such as OneDanceUK and People Dancing. Her current research includes exploring ways in which well-being practices are embedded within the dance curriculum, focusing on dancer’s agency and unpacking the tension between artistic freedom, institutionalisation and traditionally entrenched notions of dance training. She is also undertaking PhD research on dance pedagogy and has completed the Inclusive Cultures Clore Leadership Programme.

Contact details:

Instagram: @ppetsilas 

Website: https://www.rambertschool.org.uk/

Other Social Media handles: @rambertschool

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ResDance Series 6: Episode 10: Dance, Touch and Awareness, - Reflections on somatic-informed research and practice with Natalie Garrett Brown

In the episode, Natalie shares insight into her experiences and interests in dance, somatic practices, performance philosophy and feminist inquiry. We explore the role of somatic informed research and practice and how these can bring attention to the body in relation to moving practices, making processes and the relationship to the self.  Throughout the episode, Natalie reflects upon the shared sense of principles and philosophies that embodied knowledge can bring in experiencing the moving body and advocates the value of dance research, throughout.

Dr Natalie Garrett Brown undertook her dance training and education at Trinity Laban and London Contemporary Dance School completing her PhD at Roehampton University in the areas of Dance, Somatic Practices and Performance Philosophy. She is also a trained executive Coach and Somatic Movement Educator and is currently Dean, Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology at the University of Northampton.

Her practice and research interests are situated within feminist understandings of embodied subjectivity and the ways in which somatic and reflective practices can inform dance performance, dance making and performance philosophy. Most recently this took the form of a 3-year research project Sensing the City supported by the AHRC (2017-2020). Natalie is Chair for Dance HE and founding member of enter and inhabit, a site-responsive collaborative project and editor of the Dance and Somatic Practices Journal and related international conference series.

Contact details:

Social media platforms

Twitter: @nataliegarrettb

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GarrettBrownCoachingandFacilitation/

Linked In http://linkedin.com/in/dr-natalie-garrett-brown-ba4b0326

Related social media

Enter & Inhabit: www.enterinhabit.com

Editor Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices https://www.intellectbooks.com/journal-of-dance-somatic-practices 

Chair Dance HE (Standing Conference of Dance in Higher Education) https://www.dancehe.org 

Reflect, Re-align and Reframe (RRR Online Programme) https://www.amyvoris.com/facilitation/

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ResDance Series 4: Episode 6: Validating within Resilience with Nadra Assaf

In this episode, Nadra shares insight into her experiences in dance as a dancer, choreographer, educator and researcher and reflects upon her work in dance in the Middle East. A keen advocate for the arts, Nadra shares her passion for education and reflects upon the difficulties she has experienced in relation to the acceptance of dance as a research practice and the barriers she continues to face in her own dance practices.  Throughout the episode, Nadra celebrates the importance of giving voice to subjective experience in dance and shares honest and emotive reflections concerning the validation of her own experiences.

Nadra Majeed Assaf is an American Lebanese Dancer/Choreographer/Academician/Researcher who has worked in the Middle East since 1991.  She is the founder/artistic director and current financial manager of Al-Sarab Dance Foundation which houses Al-Sarab Dance School as well as Al-Sarab Dance Company (or as referred to in Europe: Dance Troupe). She is also a fulltime academic (Lebanese American University) and well-known researcher in dance in the Middle East. She received her M.F.A. in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Doctorate of Education from Leicester University. In addition to those degrees she also has a BA in Theater from Centenary College and a BS in Finance from Louisiana State University. When she returned to Lebanon in 1991, she immediately founded Al-Sarab Dance (which is made up of Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School and Al-Sarab Dance Company). As an academic, she has taught across Lebanon in several different universities. She found a permanent home LAU after 13 years of being an adjunct professor, by accepting a fulltime position in 2004. She also served as associate chair of the Communication Arts Department for 5 years (2015-2020). She is best known for her work in dance in the Middle East as she has lived in Lebanon for the past 30+ years.  

Extended biography: https://nadraassaf.com/about-2/

Contact details:

Email: nassaf@lau.edu.lb  / nadraassaf@gmail.com

Twitter: @NadraAssaf

Facebook: Nadra Assaf; Al-Sarab Dance Company; International Dance Day Festival in Lebanon; Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School

Instagram: iddfl; alsarabdancecompany; alsarabdanceschool

 

Publications:

1.https://doi.org/10.1386/chor_00040_1

2. http://dancercitizen.org/issue-14/nadra-assaf-and-heather-harringon/

3.https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/A5SD2NK6IBPF9PHTXSEM/full?target=10.1080/14647893.2020.1746255

4.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14647893.2012.712103

 

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ResDance S2: Episode 1 - Immersion with Thea Stanton

Thea Stanton explores the notion of an immersive choreographic practice, reflecting upon her experiences as both a choreographer and researcher. She offers insightful and honest reflections concerning her positionally as a researcher, the role of lived experience in her research and how indigenous theory continues to inform her practice-based research.

Thea is an indigenous Chilean British researcher, choreographer and teacher. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Chichester where she is exploring the notion of an immersive choreographic practice.

Contact: theastantondance@gmail.com

Website: www.theastantondance.com

Instagram: @thea_tre

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ResDance Series 3: Episode 5: A community of practice with Simon Ellis

In this episode, Simon shares insight into his practices of choreography, filmmaking and dance. Through exploration of approaches to practice and dance research, he discusses wider thinking and considerations around dance discourse. Simon raises the importance of reflecting on the questions we are not asking within the field and further, looking to address the unseeable. He reflects upon his personal journey thus far and thinking that continues to inform his practice.

Biography

I am an artist working with practices of choreography, filmmaking and dance. I was born in the Wairarapa in Aotearoa New Zealand, but now live in Coventry. I grew up in a politicised family environment where we often talked about things like human dignity, consumerism and even technology. These, in turn, have shaped my values as an artist, and underpin much of what my practice is about, and how it is conducted. I also think a lot about the ways humans might value things that are not easily commodified, and like to imagine a world filled with people who are sensitive to their own bodies, and the bodies of others.

https://www.skellis.net/biography

Contact details:

Email: se@skellis.net

Website: https://www.skellis.net/

Monthly mini-essays: https://www.skellis.net/mailing-list;

Podcast: midlifing.net  

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Glenna Batson and Susan Sentler share insight into their 10-year collaboration, honing a practice-based language on bodily folding. Through discussion of their shared thinking and practices rooted in a inter/trans-disciplinary approach, they share insight into their ways of working and reflect upon their processes of making. They discuss their on-going collaborative research rooted in the concept of ‘the fold’ titled: the f/ol\d as somatic/artistic practice and offer thoughtful consideration around the ideas of languaging and the wider value (and power) of what making can offer. Glenna and Susan are currently writing a book entitled: Embodied Practices in Art Making: The Fold (Intellect Books 2023).

Glenna Batson is a Professor emeritus of physiotherapy, Glenna has drawn from multiple sources both within and outside of the academy as catalysts for teaching, research, advocacy, and artistic growth.  Glenna has worked at the intersection of dance, movement science and somatic education honing a trans-disciplinary approach to embodied cognition. She has lectured and mentored in higher education within dance, bodymind disciplines and neuro-rehabilitation. She currently teaches Somatics as faculty of dance at Peabody Institute for Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD USA), and is a guest dance educator at Duke University and University of Limerick. Clinical investigations offer fresh insights into integrative medicine, including dance improvisation for Parkinson’s, Alexander Technique & balance and mental imagery in stroke rehabilitation, research pathways underscoring mind-body methodologies. Written scholarship includes chief author of Body and Mind in Motion: Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation., a convergence of somatics, dance and neuroscience, and co-editor/contributor to Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives (2014). 

Contact details:

Email: glenna@glennabatson.net / glenna.batson@gmail.com

Website: https://www.glennabatson.net/

Susan Sentler, (she/her), is an independent artist rooted in the field of Dance/Performance working as educator/lecturer, maker/choreographer, researcher, director, curator, dramaturg and performer. She has practiced globally for over 30 years and began teaching in Higher Education since 1992, in early 2000’s meriting Senior Lecturer status from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. As performer, she danced with the original second company ‘The Ensemble’ of the Martha Graham Dance Company in the 1980’s and has returned to performing in the past 10 years with artists such as Tino Sehgal, Xavier le Roy, Dora Garcia and Jerome Bel. Susan’s practice is inter/trans-disciplinary, anchored by a honed expanded somatic relationship to image, interested in ‘dissolving the indexical’, yielding greater potential of sensorial materiality.  In 2013, she received an MACP (Masters in Creative Practice, Dance Professional Practice) from Trinity Laban in collaboration with Independent Dance, London/UK. Susan was on faculty from 2015 to 2020 at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore expanding the somatic and creative environment. Susan focuses on gallery/ museum contexts creating/collaborating on ‘responses’ or ‘activations’ within exhibitions as well as durational installations orchestrating moving/still image, objects, sound and absence/presence of the performing body. 

Contact details

Email: shsentler@gmail.com

Instagram: @susansentler 

Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user9690001 

ResDance Series 6: Episode 5: People watching, making forests, drifting attention and undesigning yourself with Theo Clinkard

In this thought-provoking episode, Theo shares insight into his experiences as a dancer, choreographer, researcher and stage designer.  Through situating his thinking in his practice, we explore his experiences of collaborating with artists across disciplines; the value of encouraging investment from the performer and his thinking around bringing the person into the dancer.

Born in Cornwall and based in Dartmoor, Devon, choreographer and stage designer Theo Clinkard has performed, created and toured contemporary dance internationally for 30 years, collaborating with artists from various disciplines including film, opera, theatre, performance and television. His practice is focused on the communicative potential of the body and the empathetic capacity of dance in performance. He seeks to create opportunities for memorable connection between audiences and dancers through working with attention, the senses and the imagination as a way to generate a landscape of feelings. Theo launched his own dance company in 2012 and has steadily built a reputation for creating affecting and visually arresting contemporary work with large-scale commissions for companies such as Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Danza Contemporanea de Cuba and Candoco Dance Company and creations for his own company, including the celebrated ‘This Bright Field’ in 2017. His next large-scale company work ‘Village’ is planned for touring across the UK in 2025. 

Movement Direction work includes ‘Aida’ at København Opera, ‘Good Luck to you Leo Grande’ starring Emma Thompson and ‘The Faggots and their Friends between Revolutions’, which opened last years Manchester International Festival. Theo has designed for opera, theatre, dance and live art, including work with Sydney Dance Company, Skånes Dansteater, Scottish Dance Theatre, Scottish Opera, Opera La Scala and Malmo Opera. Theo is an Associate Artist at Brighton Dome and Festival and an Honorary Fellow at Plymouth University. 

Photographer Hannah Close

Contact details

Email: theoclinkard@me.com 

Social Media:

Website: www.theoclinkard.com

Published sources of interest

Colin, N. Seago, C. Stamp, K. (2023). Ethical Agility in Dance: Rethinking Technique in British Contemporary Dance. Routledge: London.

Chapter 3 - ‘Choosing a lens of values’: Dance training as relational practice Seke B. Chimutengwende, Theo Clinkard.

Chapter 4 - ⁠‘As technique’⁠ ⁠Theo Clinkard⁠

Other relevant sources

www.under-story.com  -'A place for informal honest chat from people who work in dance focusing on the times when they had to navigate the unexpected in their career.'

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ResDance S3: Episode 3: Dance in Primary Education with Eilidh Slattery

In this episode, Eilidh shares her thinking on dance and creative movement in primary education. She explores her research interests in arts-based pedagogy, arts-based research methods and practices of learning and teaching theory. We explore ideas around the wider value of dance in educational settings, possible barriers and considerations for those delivering dance and the need for the individual voice of the teacher to be heard and brought to the fore. Eilidh’s refers to her recent research report: Dance in the Primary School Scotland (2022).during the episode.

Eilidh Slattery trained as a dancer and dance teacher gaining teaching qualifications in multiple disciplines with the ISTD & RAD and taught in the UK and Ireland. She has experience teaching dance and choreographing productions for all ages in dance schools, community settings, nurseries, primary & secondary schools and in FE & HE settings. Eilidh later qualified as a GTCS registered primary school teacher and continued to explore dance and creative movement with learners alongside the rest of the school curriculum whilst also delivering CLPL dance events for staff and guest lecturing on several Initial Teacher Education programmes.  Eilidh held roles of class teacher, specialist teacher, principal teacher and acting headteacher before moving into the position of Lecturer in Teacher Education at the University of Dundee working on both the undergraduate and postgraduate initial primary teacher education programmes, as well as the BA Childhood Practice, TQFE and MEd programmes. 

Eilidh currently works full-time at RCS on the PG Cert & MEd Learning and Teaching in the Arts programmes, working with arts educators from all educational and community settings. Eilidh’s research interests focus on dance and creative movement in primary education, with wider interests in arts-based pedagogy, arts-based research methods, inclusive practice and diversification of learning & teaching theory. She has been awarded funding from the RCS Athenaeum Award to support the Dance in the Primary School in Scotland project.

Contact details:

Email: E.Slattery@rcs.ac.uk

Twitter: @EilidhSlattery

Learn more about Eilidh’s research on her RCS Portal page

Other social media links:

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland: @RCStweets

RCS Research and Knowledge Exchange: @RCS_TheExchange

PG Cert and MEd Learning & Teaching in the Arts programme at RCS: @RCSpglta

Recent resources:

Dance in the Primary School Scotland (Research Report)

https://pure.rcs.ac.uk/portal/files/17063011/Dance_Education_in_the_Primary_School_in_Scotland_Slattery_Rae_2022_RCS.pdf

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Kathryn Stamp shares insight into her current research interests in the areas of dance, dance in education and the wider value of dance participation. Alongside exploring her research experiences and dance advocacy work, we discuss ideas relating to researcher identity and the sense of value as a dance researcher. Kathryn offers insightful, honest and thought-provoking reflections concerning the questions she asks herself around the value of dance research and emphasises the need to bring voice to the dance sector.

Kathryn is a dance research and educator, specialising in inclusive dance practice and research methods. Her interests span inclusive dance, dance in education and exploring the value and impact of dance. Kathryn graduated with an MA in Education (Distinction) from University of Brighton (2016) and holds a first-class BA (Hons) in Dance Studies from Roehampton University (2010). In 2020 Kathryn completed her PhD at C-DaRE and her AHRC-funded research focused on photography-based interventional approaches that sought to change public perceptions about disabled people who dance. Currently, Kathryn's postdoctoral research explores the lived experience of isolated working for disabled dance artists, considering modes of communication, use of technology and change in working practices in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kathryn is enthusiastic about transdisciplinary research and has worked for the Centre for Computational Science and Mathematical Modelling on the Energy REV project, exploring stakeholder perspectives on Energy, AI and Ethics. She is one of the project team members for Gap_E[thics], which seeks to explore the concept, understanding and practice of ethics in technological from different disciplinary perspectives.

Contact details:

Email: ad6869@coventry.ac.uk

Twitter:  @kathrynstampy

@DanceResMatters

Other useful links:

https://danceresearchmatters.coventry.ac.uk/

https://makinggood.design/thoughts/tasty

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Dr Rebecca Stancliffe shares insight into the philosophy of technology (technological phenomenology) to consider our relationship to the tools and technologies with which we interact and the analysis and documentation of dance. Sharing her current thinking into how the performing arts ‘sit’ in online spaces, we discuss the translation of knowledge and experience and different ways of seeing. Lastly, Rebecca discusses her thinking, interests and research ideas around participatory arts.

Rebecca is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Arts and Community) at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance where her evaluation and research activity focuses on participatory arts, arts and health, collaboration, and digital methods in dance.  Alongside her research, Rebecca teaches on the BA Contemporary Dance, BSc Dance Science, MA Performance, MA/MFA Dance Science, and Graduate Diploma programmes at Trinity Laban.

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Contact: R.Stancliffe@trinitylaban.ac.uk

Staff Profile: https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/study/teaching-staff/dr-rebecca-stancliffe/

Twitter: @r_stancliffe

Recent Publications:

Chappell, K., Redding, E., Crickmay, U., Stancliffe, R., Jobbins, V., & Smith, S. (2021) The aesthetic, artistic and creative contributions of dance for health and wellbeing across the lifecourse: A systematic review. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Wellbeing 16(1)https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2021.1950891

deLahunta, S., Rittershaus, D., & Stancliffe, R. (2021) Editorial.International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media 17(1), 1-6 https://doi.org/10.1080/14794713.2021.1893001

Stancliffe, R. (2021) Differentiating (an)notation practices: An artist-scholar's observations.InternationalJournalof Performance Arts and Digital Media 17(1), 69-85https://doi.org/10.1080/14794713.2021.1885190

Stancliffe, R. (in press) Mediating experience: Online community arts participation, a postphenomenological framing. Bissell, L., & Weir, L. (Eds.) Performance in a pandemic. Routledge

Stancliffe, R. (2019) Training the analytical eye: video annotation for dance. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training 10(2), 273-288 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19443927.2019.1610039

ResDance Series 6: Episode 8: Science inquiry in dance practice with Sarah Needham-Beck

In this episode, Sarah shares insight into her background as a researcher and her research across dance and occupational performance settings.  We discuss her interests in applying scientific principles to a dance context and how researchers can assist dancers with the training and performance demands they may face. Throughout the episode, we explore the wider considerations around supporting the individual in their dance pursuit through the importance of open communication and finding effective ways of working collaboratively between the researcher, artist and practitioner. Sarah highlights the value of dance science education and the need for a greater understanding around the nuances of dance practice within research settings.

Sarah is a Research Fellow in Exercise Physiology and Program Coordinator of the MSc Dance Science at the University of Chichester, UK. Sarah’s research spans dance and occupational performance settings and investigates topics including field measurement of physiological demand, monitoring training load, and developing fitness tests. She has published original research in various peer-reviewed journals and regularly presents at international conferences. Sarah is a longstanding member of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (IADMS) where she currently serves on the Board of Directors. 

Contact details:

Twitter: @SarahCBeck

Other social media handles:

Instagram: @_IADMS_

Website: www.iadms.org  

Links to any published resources:

Needham-Beck, S., Wyon, M.A., & Redding, E. (2019). The Relationship Between Performance Competence and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Contemporary Dance. Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 34(2), 79-84.

Beck, S., Redding, E., & Wyon, M.A. (2015). Methodological considerations for documenting the energy demand of dance activity: a review. Frontiers in Psychology: Performance Science, 6: 568.

Link to Google Scholar for full publications list: https://scholar.google.com/citationsuser=WWYHBTwAAAAJ&hl=en

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ResDance Series 5: Episode 2: Considerations of the screen as a site of discovery and creation with Harmony Bench

In this episode, Harmony shares insight into ways of thinking about the screen as a site of creation, dissemination and discovery.  Alongside sharing the processes and approaches employed in her research, Harmony discusses the theoretical frameworks that more widely inform her research and reflects upon her translation of thinking across discourse as an interdisciplinary researcher.  Throughout the episode, we discuss the specific questions that the screen as a site poses to dance, dance history and wider scholarship.  In her reflections, Harmony highlights the importance of contextualising, historicising and situating thinking, alongside holding ourselves, as a researchers and scholars, accountable to read and learn beyond our own fields of inquiry.

Harmony Bench researches practices, performances, and circulations of dance in the contexts of digital and screen media. She is Associate Professor of Dance at The Ohio State University, and author of Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common (University of Minnesota Press, 2020).

Extended biography and further information: https://u.osu.edu/bench.9/

Contact details

Email: bench.9@osu.edu

Twitter: @harmonybench

Published sources of interest

https://manifold.umn.edu/projects/perpetual-motion

https://screendancejournal.org/

https://www.dunhamsdata.org/

https://visceralhistories.wordpress.com/

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ResDance Series 5: Episode 1:  Rewilding potential for creating lasting positive legacies in practice with Sara Wookey

In this episode, Sara discusses and reflects upon her work and practice around the idea of experiences as a mode for discovery and enlightenment. Alongside sharing the processes and approaches employed in her research, Sara shares insights into the theoretical frameworks that more widely inform her practice-based research and considerations around the shifting of practices in relation to geographical sites, cultural sites and shared spaces.

The idea of creating positive lasting legacies inspires me. I’m a dance artist and choreographer; a researcher, writer and educator; and an advisor, coach and mentor working with people in cultural organizations, academia, nonprofits, businesses and boards. I specialize in movement and socio-spatial experiences, creative practices and relationships that are designed to revitalize and rewild potential. I am the only creative movement practitioner who works with people to offer imaginative ways to explore and experience spatial visualization and socio-spatial relationships that reveal the potential of individuals and organizations leading to positive and lasting legacies for them, their work and for society.

Photo credit: Camilla Greenwell

Contact details

Email: info@sarawookey.com

Website: https://sarawookey.com/

Blog: https://sarawookey.com/blog/

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Wookey

Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-wookey-phd-mfa-bfa-b6713813/

Academia: https://independentresearcher.academia.edu/SaraWookey

Facebook

PhD Dissertation (2020): Spatial Relations: Dance in the Changing Museum 

Other area(s)/practitioner(s) of interest

Informer 

Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum

Rennie Tang

James Bridle

Edward Soja

William Whyte

William Forsythe

 

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ResDance Series 4: Episode 7: Conversations in Dance of the African Diaspora with Funmi Adewole

In this episode, Funmi shares insight into her background in media, education and the arts and her performing experiences in various context and settings, across dance and theatre. Through reflecting upon the ways in which she works in an interdisciplinary or cross-sectorial focus, she explores the role storytelling has in her practice and the importance of context in relation to conversation and discourse. Funmi explores her current research interests and encourages the need for greater conversations in Dance of the African Diaspora concerning embodied cognition, critical hybridity and creativity and somatics.

Funmi Adewole has a background in media, education, arts development and performance. She started out as a media practitioner in Nigeria and moved into performance on relocating to England in 1994. For several years she toured with Physical/Visual theatre and African dance drama companies. Her credits include performances with Ritual Arts, Horse and Bamboo Mask and Puppetry Company, Artistes-in-Exile, Adzido Pan-African Dance Ensemble, Mushango African dance and Music Company and the Chomondeleys contemporary dance company. She was chair of Association of Dance of the African Diaspora in Britain (ADAD) from 2005 to 2007. In this role she initiated and directed the ADAD Heritage project, which contributed to the documentation of black-led dance companies and choreographers in England between the 1930s and 1990s. She continues to perform as a storyteller. As a dramaturge she works mainly with makers who are interdisciplinary or cross-sectorial in focus. She completed a PhD in Dance Studies at De Montfort University Leicester in 2017. Her thesis is entitled 'British dance and the African Diaspora: The Discourses of Theatrical dance and the art of choreography – 1985 to 2005'. She is now a VC2020 lecturer in the Dance Department at the same university. Her focus is teaching and research. She is interested in PhD students with similar interests to her own.

Academia Link: Funmi Adewole |DeMontfort University Leicester - Academia.edu

 

Contact details:

Email: Funmi_dance@yahoo.co.uk 

Twitter: @funmiadewoleE

Website: funmiadewoleelliott.com

 

Other details:

Kauma Arts: @kaumaArts

 

Pan-African Creative Exchange: 

https://www.facebook.com/Pacebloem

 

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ResDance Series 3: Episode 11: Person-centredness, practice and advocacy with Karen Wood

In this episode, Karen shares insight into the experiences and influences that continue to inform and shape her areas of practice.  Through discussing the core components of her practice, she reflects upon her interest in the experience of the moving body and the experiences of working, participating and viewing dance.  Karen advocates the importance of a person-centred approach and the need for greater support and advocacy for the freelance dance artist, with reference to her recent research focus.  In further highlighting the role dance can play in making social and environmental change, the value of collaboration and acknowledging individuality within the sector is shared.

Karen is currently a dance practitioner, researcher and educator. She works at the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University, as Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Birmingham Dance Network. Her current research interests are exploring concepts of collaboration, ethics of care and responsibility, collective identities and leadership in relation to freelance communities and cultural policy. She is a Board member for Wired Aerial Theatre and Chair of the Board for Vanhulle Dance Theatre. 

For her artistic research, Karen uses the lens of phenomenology, particularly perception and embodiment, and improvisation to explore digital technology, screendance and contemporary dance and tap dance practices. Karen is passionate about working with artists to expand professional practice. She sees the value in artist-led initiatives and how they can create opportunity and encourage risk taking for dance making practices. Her work includes artistic research projects that have previously been supported by Arts Council England and involved collaborating with other art forms, such as neuroscience, fine art, lighting design and music. 

Biography (Vision Statement) https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/karen-wood

 

Contact details:

Email: karen.wood@coventry.ac.uk

Insta: @karenwoody2

Twitter: karenwood30

 

Centre for Dance Research:

Twitter @CDaRE_CU

Insta: cdare_cu 

Birmingham Dance Network:

Twitter @BrumDN

Insta @brumdancenet

 

Other resources:

  

Petts, L., Artpradid, V., Hayward-Smith, L., Johnson, P. & Wood, K. (2022). The Shape of Sound: An exploration of our moving, felt, embodied hearing technologies, Riffs, 6(1), 27-43.

 

Wood, K. (2021). UK dance graduates and preparation for freelance working: the contribution of artist-led collectives and dance agencies to the dance ecology, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2021.1934530

 

Published resource: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/about-us/researchnews/2018/c-dare-e-book/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

ResDance Series 7: Episode 5: Reflections on ‘Shaking-Up’ Learning with Linzi McLagan

In this episode, Linzi shares insight into her experiences as an educator and lecturer in various educational settings.  Throughout the episode we discuss her dance research in Scottish Primary schools, reflecting upon the: ‘Shake It Up’ and ‘Step It Up’ projects at YDance which aim to raise attainment and support the confidence and skills of primary teachers delivering dance as part of the curriculum in Scottish schools. We discuss how dance might be used as a method to support the curriculum and the importance of managing expectations in research projects, whilst ensuring the voices of teachers and dance artists are heard. Linzi advocates for dance within the Education sector and shares the value of having a Head of Education role within organisations to bridge the gap between them and school settings.

Linzi is a GTCS registered lecturer. She has various roles at Scottish Qualification Authority and is Head of Education at YDance (Scottish Youth Dance). At YDance, Linzi is principally responsible for the Education strand of the company’s work which includes strategic planning, management and delivery of education projects and events. Her role aims to promote the delivery of dance within the formal education sector and influence the future development of dance within the Scottish curriculum.  She has worked extensively throughout Scotland as a Dance Educationalist in Early Years, Primary, secondary and Further Education settings. Linzi has a passion for learning and teaching and is an advocate for dance within the Education sector. Her goal is to initiate and facilitate discussions that empower teachers as well as challenge their perceptions and tacit assumptions of dance.

Contact details:

Personal Email: linzimclagan@hotmail.com

YDance Email: info@ydance.org

Website: www.ydance.org

Twitter: @LinziMclagan

Useful Resources:

‘Shake It Up’: About Shake It Up | YDance

‘Shake It Up’ video footage: https://youtu.be/XLlPQN0cajg

‘Shake It Up’ Report Evaluation: YDance-Shake-It-Up-Programme-Evaluation-Final-Report.pdf

‘Step It Up’ video footage: https://youtu.be/8xI65e_Z4vs

‘Step It Up’ report evaluation: https://ydance.org/s/FINAL-YDance-Step-It-Up-Final-Report.pdf

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

 

 

 

ResDance Episode 11: The intersections between practice and philosophy

Dr Erin Manning offers rich insights into her experiences as a theorist, philosopher and practicing artist. Erin explores ideas around the role of experience and how we value and situate the body in society and wider practice. We also discuss theoretical ideas concerned with the relation between sensation and thought in movement and the merging of research, teaching and creation in her practice. Throughout the episode, Erin offers honest insights into her journey thus far and her current research interests in the transversality of the three ecologies, the social, the environmental and the conceptual.

Dr Erin Manning is a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University (Montreal, Canada). She is also the founder of SenseLab (www.senselab.ca), a laboratory that explores the intersections between art practice and philosophy through the matrix of the sensing body in movement. Erin studies in the interstices of philosophy, aesthetics and politics, concerned, always, about alter-pedagogical and alter-economic practices. 3e is the direction her current research takes - an exploration of the transversality of the three ecologies, the social, the environmental and the conceptual. An iteration of 3e is a land-based project north of Montreal where living and learning is explored. Legacies of SenseLab infuse the project, particularly the question of how collectivity is crafted in a more-than human encounter with worlds in the making.

Contact details:

Email: erintango@gmail.com

Websites:

http://www.senselab.ca

http://www.erinmovement.com

http://www.inflexions.org

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Dr Ashley McGill discusses her PhD research investigating the experience of dancing with Parkinson’s (The University of Roehampton and the English National Ballet). Alongside sharing key findings from her research, she questions the role of randomised controlled research designs (RCT) and the wider applicability of research approaches and methods to dance for health research. Ashley poses thought-provoking questions concerning the importance of acknowledging contextual factors and the need for a more person-centred approach in dance for Parkinson’s research.

Weblink for Dance for Parkinson's research and publications: http://roehamptondance.com/parkinsons/articles/

Ashley is a visiting lecturer and researcher in Dance and Dance Science at University of Roehampton. Her research interests include the health and wellbeing impact of dance and how dance can benefit people with Parkinson’s.

Contact: Ashley.McGill10@roehampton.ac.uk

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 5: Episode 4: Widening awareness and learning on mental health in dance with Manisha Aggarwal

In this episode, Manisha discusses her interests in supporting dancers with their mental health and wider considerations of mental health within the dance sector, more generally. Through situating thinking around her current PhD research, Manisha shares her thinking around barriers around mental health in dance, the application of research findings to sport and dance settings and the importance of context when considering such application. She highlights the importance of cross-discipline research in widening awareness and learning around mental health and reflects upon her position as a researcher in being situated across disciplines.  Throughout the episode, Manisha advocates the need for mental health to be a priority and for there to be greater emphasis on the role the dance sector can have on a dancer’s engagement with dance itself.

Manisha Aggarwal is currently a Trainee Sport and Exercise Psychologist, completing the Professional Doctorate with Liverpool John Moores University. Alongside this, she works as the Learning Support Lead at University Campus of Football Business. Manisha’s background has predominantly been in dance with hope to slowly make change in the dance industry in the NorthWest. Manisha has various research interests including dancers' progression and cultural competency in sports, working towards a more inclusive environment.

Contact details

Contact email: dancersmindset@outlook.com

Instagram: @dancersmindset    

Twitter: @dancersmindset

Social media

@LJMU @UCFBUK 

(1) Manisha Aggarwal | LinkedIn

Other resources 

Social Identity as a Dancer and the Positive Role of Psychotherapy. – Sports Psychotherapy Services (sports-psychotherapy.com)  

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 3: Episode 10: Chasing Curiosity with Matthew Henley

In this episode, Matthew reflects upon his research journey and offers insights into his interests on describing cognitive and social-emotional skills associated with dance education.  We discuss key facets and characteristics of research and wider thinking in relation to the field of dance and associated disciplines. Through highlighting the need to give space to different ways of knowing, Matthew advocates the importance of being curious in research and what knowledge can be learnt from dancers in the unique ways in which they occupy the world.

Matthew Henley, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Dance Education Program and Affiliated Researcher in the Arnhold Institute for Dance Education Research, Policy & Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Henley focuses his research on describing cognitive and social-emotional skills associated with dance education. He takes a phenomenological approach, analyzing how dancers in diverse communities describe the experience of learning concepts in the dance classroom. Henley's related interests include enactive cognition in the arts, developmental and neuroscientific approaches to embodied knowing, research methods for pedagogy, and the pedagogy of research methods. Henley danced professionally in New York City with Sean Curran Company and Randy James Dance Works. Henley earned his doctorate in Educational Psychology: Learning Sciences from the University of Washington, and M.F.A. in Dance from the same institution. Previously, he served as Associate Professor of Dance at Texas Woman's University, where he coordinated the B.A program and taught in the M.F.A. and Ph.D. programs.

Biography: https://www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/mkh2162/

Contact details:

Email: matthew.henley@tc.columbia.edu

Useful Resources:

https://www.routledge.com/Dance-Research-Methodologies-Ethics-Orientations-and-Practices/Candelario-Henley/p/book/9780367703073

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

Dancing Otherwise: Exploring Pluriversal Practices Network

In this episode, Vicky, Daniela and Michelle share insight into the focus of the network, which aims to explore how practices created by artists from diverse backgrounds and artistic perspectives, produce new understandings, positionalities and new modes of knowing.  They reflect upon their network experiences thus far and offer insights into their approaches to the network events, underpinned by practices of care and creating new opportunities for dialogue. Throughout the episode, they consider what being otherwise means to them, the potential of Pluriversal thinking in allowing us to think more broadly and how such provocation may in turn, contribute to a wider dance research ecology. Dancing Otherwise: Exploring Pluriversal Practices Network

The network emerged from the investigators’ interests in dance and politics and a curiosity about the potential for dance to explore, illustrate and provoke ways of relating and being ‘otherwise’. The Dancing Otherwise network looks beyond mainstream UK dance practices to explore culturally diverse, environmentally-engaged, experimental, edgy and novel modes of making, producing and researching dance that tell us something about the aspirations of artists and researchers for ' being otherwise' (Akomolafe 2022).

Website: www.dancingotherwise.com

Instagram: @dancingotherwise

Victoria Hunter (Principal Investigator)

Vicky Hunter is a Practitioner-Researcher and Professor in Site Dance and formerly head of the MA Choreography and Professional Practices programme at the University of Chichester. She joined Bath Spa in October 2023 and leads the AHRC ‘Dancing Otherwise: Exploring Pluriversal Practices’ network and is a member of the Ecotones research project led by Professor Amanda Bayley. Her research is transdisciplinary and includes site dance practice and theory, embodied research methods and post human feminism, eco-somatic awareness, environmental choreography, practice-research methods, dance and new materialisms.

Biography: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/vicky-hunter/

Contact: ⁠ v.hunter@bathspa.ac.uk

Daniela Perazzo (Co-investigator)

Daniela is Senior Lecturer in Dance and Postgraduate Research Coordinator for the School of Arts at Kingston University London. Her research interrogates the intersections of the aesthetic and the political in contemporary choreography, focusing on the ethical, po(i)etic and critical potentialities of experimental and collaborative practices. Her latest research engages with notions of vulnerability and discomfort and attends to the gaps, difficulties and entanglements of modes of being in relation. 

Biography: https://www.kingston.ac.uk/staff/profile/dr-daniela-perazzo-179/

Contact: D.Perazzo@kingston.ac.uk

Michelle Elliott (Co-investigator)

Michelle is the Subject Leader for Dance at Bath Spa University with research interests in a range of sociocultural issues, the ontology of creativity and embodied cognitive theories.  She has publications on critical approaches to dance analysis, dance and cultural identity politics and creativity research.  Michelle is the co-convenor of the Creative Practice and Embodied Knowledge Research Group, a collective that aims to celebrate and elevate knowledge that exists and emerges from our creative, embodied interactions and experiences.  

Biography: https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/our-people/michelle-elliott/

Contact: M.Elliott@bathspa.ac.uk

AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks

The five AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks explore current issues and generate change and legacy for the sector. The ecosystems created by the Networks traverse across South Asian dance, digital black dance, future producing dance ecologies, critical dance pedagogies, and pluriversal dance practices and will be mapped for reach and impact in and beyond the sector.

Please visit: danceresearchmatters.coventry.ac.uk

@danceresearchmatters

ResDance Episode 9: Collaborative ways of working 

Dr Rosa Cisneros discusses her methodology for collaborative and interdisciplinary modes of working when exploring lived experience. Alongside sharing her processes for creating work, Rosa provides insights on the principles that inform her practice and the wider communities she participates with. Lastly, Rosa shares honest reflections on her positionally and the role her cultural heritage plays in her research and practice.

Rosa is an Artist and Researcher at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) and is Principle Investigator at Coventry University for the WEAVE project. Rosa is a film maker, activist and dancer who works closely with many NGOs and public social services. She is involved in and leading various EU-funded projects which aim to make education accessible to vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities, and part of cultural heritage projects that bring dance and digital technologies together.

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Contact details: 

Email: ab4928@coventry.ac.uk

Website: www.rosasencis.org

Twitter: @RosaSenCis

Yellow Couch Convos Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/user-566749993

https://pureportal.coventry.ac.uk/en/persons/rosamaria-kostic-cisneros

ResDance Series 6: Episode 6: The Politics of Contemporary Dance in South Africa with Sarahleigh Castelyn In this thought-provoking episode, Sarahleigh shares insight into her experiences as a dancer, choreographer and researcher.  Through situating her thinking in her practice, we explore ideas on how contemporary dance in South Africa is a political art form, choreographic practices as activism, the importance of the moving body and the geography of space. Sarahleigh offers further reflections on how dance and choreography continue to inform her curiosity of practice. Sarahleigh is Reader at the University of East London (UK) and a performer, choreographer, and researcher: a dance nerd. She has performed in, and choreographed works, for example at JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience and The Playhouse. She recently was part of a screen dance residency with Ivan Barros and Pak Ndjamena with the outcome of a dance film titled HOME that was shared at the 25th Anniversary of JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience in September 2023. Her latest book is Contemporary Dance in South Africa: The Toyi-Toying Body (2022) develops an understanding of the body in contemporary dance and its political and social meanings both in the chosen performance and within the broader context of South African society from 2003-2007.  Her work is centred on how contemporary dance in South Africa is a political art form that is at its core choreography as activism. Staff Bibliography link: https://uel.ac.uk/about uel/staff/sarahleigh-castelyn Contact details Email: s.castelyn@uel.ac.uk Social Media: @dr_sarahleigh Other social media handles of interest: Centre for Creative Arts Flatfoot Dance Company  / @flatfootdanceco JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience / @jomba_dance Mhayise Productions Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre The Ar(t)chive Thobile Maphanga   Val Adamson Photography VERSFELD & ASSOCIATES Published sources of interest  2024. JUMPING Over/Under/Across and Towards: Choreographic Statements/Collaborations/Exchanges and Intentions at JOMBA!  In: Ballantyne, T. (ed) Archiving History and Memory: 25 Years of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience. University of KwaZulu Press. 2023.  We need to talk about Giselle JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues, Issue 23. 2022. Contemporary Dance in South Africa: The Toyi-Toying Body Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2022. Choreographing the Archive of a White Female South African JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues, Issue 2. 2021. Intimacy as a Political Act: Contemporary Dance in South Africa JOMBA! Masihambisane Dialogues, Issue 1. 2019. Saartjie Baartman, Nelisiwe Xaba, and me: the politics of looking at South African bodies South African Theatre Journal, 32:3.  2018. Choreographing HIV and AIDS in Contemporary Dance in South Africa In: Campbell, A., Gindt, D. (eds) Viral Dramaturgies. Palgrave Macmillan. 2018. Why I Am Not a Fan of the Lion King’: Ethically Informed Approaches to the Teaching and Learning of South African Dance Forms in Higher Education in the United Kingdom. In: Akinleye, A. (ed) Narratives in Black British Dance. Palgrave Macmillan Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

In this episode, Rajyashree Ramesh shares her wealth of experiences as a performer-choreographer, Certified Laban Movement Analyst, Movement Researcher and Cultural Scientist. Through the sharing of her cross-cultural journey of dance and body knowledge in cultural traditions, she revels her thinking around the centrality of the body in relation to bodily experience, felt and embodied meaning and approaches to findings a holistic sensed experience of the body. Rajyashree reflects upon her own research practices and the coming together of these in shaping her own journey.

Dr. Rajyashree Ramesh, PhD, CLMA, is an Indian born, Berlin-based performer-choreographer, Certified Laban Movement Analyst, Movement Researcher and Cultural Scientist. Trained since early childhood in the solo dance traditions and music of South India, she moved to Berlin, Germany in 1977. Her unique artistic journey since then has centred around a cross-cultural transmission of dance and body knowledge in Indian traditions beyond cultural boundaries. Since 1996 she has been promoting both upcoming dancers and multi-genre cross-cultural stage productions under the banner Rasika Dance Theatre International.

After certifying as a Laban Movement Analyst under Peggy Hackney in 2008, she channelized her work into academic research, receiving a doctorate in 2019 from the Europe-University Viadrina in Germany. Her empirical research titled “Sensing and Shaping: The emotive-kinetic grounding of meaning. A cross-disciplinary analysis of Indian dance theatre” integrated the dance, body, and movement knowledge in Natya with current fields of research such as Linguistic Gesture Studies, Cognitive Science, Brain Research on Emotions, and Fascia Research. The practical outcome has been a trans-disciplinary Movement Studies program she coins “Bharatha to Bartenieff” with two central modules “FasciaNatya” and “CoreConcepts”.

For further information: https://www.rajyashree-ramesh.com/

Contact details:

Email: natyam@aol.com / fascianatya@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rajyashree.ramesh1

Instagram: @dr_rajyashreeramesh

Linked-In: https://de.linkedin.com/in/rajyashree-ramesh-aa856637

Other Social Media handles:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RajyashreeRameshAcademy/

Instagram: rasika.berlin, Rajyashree Ramesh Academy

Some published articles and papers:

Fernandes, Ciane and Rajyashree Ramesh (2005): Revisiting Ancient Tradition. In: Ravi Chatuverdi and Brian Singleton (eds.), Ethnicity and Identity: Global Performance, 3-15. Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

Fernandes, Ciane and Rajyashree Ramesh (2006): The Laban/Bartenieff System as Applied in Practice to Indian Classical dance. In: Proceedings of the XXIV Biannual Conference of International Council of Kinetography Laban, 87-101. London: LABAN.

Ramesh, Rajyashree (2008): Culture and Cognition in Bharatanatyam. Integrated Movement Studies Certification Program Application Project. Unpublished Document

Ramesh, Rajyashree (2013): Indian traditions: a grammar of gestures in dance, theatre and ritual. In: Cornelia Müller, Alan Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silva H. Ladewig, David McNeill and Sedinha Teßendorf (eds.), Body – Language Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction. (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 38.1), 306-320. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Ramesh, Rajyashree (2014): Gestures in Southwest India: Dance theater. In: Cornelia Müller, Alan Cienki, Ellen Fricke, Silva H. Ladewig, David McNeill and Sedinha Teßendorf (eds.), Body – Language – Communication: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction. (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science 38.2), 1226-1233. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Ramesh, Rajyashree (2023): Embodied concepts in Indian Traditions

https://lbms-community.labaninstitute.org/c/jlbms-info/jlbms_issue_table_of_contents

Dr Clare Parfitt shares with listeners the role of methodologies in her research and reflects upon journey as a researcher. Clare offers honest reflections concerning the translation of different ways of thinking and the potential challenges when asking questions from varying points of view. A thought-provoking episode that puts the researcher and those concerned with the research at the fore.

Clare is an interdisciplinary dance scholar working between popular dance studies, memory studies and Atlantic studies. At the University of Chichester she has been a Reader in Popular Dance, an AHRC Leadership Fellow, and she is currently a PhD Supervisor. Clare is Chair of PoP Moves, an international network for popular dance research, and Co-chair of the Memory Studies Association’s Performance and Memory working group. Her edited collection, Cultural Memory in Popular Dance: Dancing to remember, dancing to forget, is due to be published in October 2021 (Palgrave), and she is working on a monograph Remembering the Cancan: Popular dance and the kinetics of memory between France and the Atlantic world (OUP).

Contact: c.parfitt@chi.ac.uk

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 6: Episode 11: Racial Equity in Dance with Stacey Green and Imogen Aujla

Stacey and Imogen share insight into their thinking and considerations around racial equity in dance. Through exploring the work of the TIRED movement and their current 3-year research project looking at representation in dance training and education (Red Research Project), we discuss the importance of removing the fear of discussing racism in dance and acknowledging the need for good practices to be adhered to within the dance industry. Through reflecting upon her personal and professional experiences, Stacey advocates for a unitedness and bringing together of the dance community, an openness of communication and a greater celebration of the pioneers and origins of dance influenced by black culture. Stacey and Imogen highlight the value of giving voice to students and practitioners within the field and a quest to work collectively to improve racial equality and representation in the dance industry.

Stacey Green -IOD Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire

 “From the very first time I stepped into a ballet class back in 1979, I immediately noticed I was different.  Even at the age of just four years old, the predominately white environment I found myself in felt strange but I didn’t know why.  I do now.  What was apparent then, is still apparent now.  The lack of black representation within dance education is clearly something that needs to be addressed.  If children and young people don’t see someone that looks like them at the top of the pyramid of power, then how do they aspire to be in that space or identify with that profession?  As the principal of my own performing arts school and over 25yrs of experience working within the industry, teaching children and young people to embrace not just the artform but their ethnicity has always been paramount.  As a mixed race educator I have spent the past 42yrs competing in a sector that is predominately white, with very few opportunities to voice my concerns about the lack of representation within The British Festival Federation and various examining boards.”

Contact details:

• info@tiredmovement.com 
• @movementtired on Instagram and X
• TIRED Movement on Facebook
• www.tiredmovement.com

Other social media handles:

• Shades Dancewear
• info@shades-dancewear.com
• @shadesdancewear on Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, Pinterest
• www.shades-dancewear.com

Imogen Aujla

Imogen is a freelance dance psychology researcher, lecturer, and life and wellbeing coach. She originally trained as a dancer before specialising in dance science and later dance psychology. She has a PhD in dance psychology and a Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Prior to going freelance, Imogen was a Senior Lecturer in Dance and Course Coordinator of the MSc Dance Science at the University of Bedfordshire. As well as her project-based freelance work, she is a regular guest tutor on the MAS Dance Science at the University of Bern, Switzerland, is a peer tutor for the mental health charity Mind, and is a member of the Mental Health Advisory Group of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science. Imogen’s research interests include talent development, inclusive dance, and psychological wellbeing among dancers. She has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and has presented her research internationally.

Contact details:

Facebook: @danceinmindUK

Instagram: @dance_in_mind_UK

Website: www.danceinmind.org 

Published sources and recommendations:

https://www.danceinmind.org/post/let-s-talk-about-representation-in-dance

https://www.tiredmovement.com/research-project/

https://www.tiredmovement.com/imogen-aujla/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance S2: Episode 5: Reflections on the research process and greater support for dancers’ mental health with Erin Sanchez

Erin Sanchez shares insight into her current PhD research - in the area of dancers’ mental health and psychological skills development during the talent development process. Alongside exploring her current research, we discuss ideas relating to barriers around participant recruitment, the need for a person-centred approach in all research, ethics of care throughout the research process and a greater need for mental support within the dance sector. Erin offers insightful and honest reflections concerning her researcher journey thus far, the questions she finds herself asking herself about the dance sector and poignantly highlights the need for continued advocacy and support in the areas of mental health for dancers.

Erin is the Manager of the National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science, and Manager of Health, Wellbeing, and Performance at One Dance UK. Erin holds a BA (Hons) in Dance and Sociology from the University of New Mexico and an MSc in Dance Science from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Sport, Physical Education, and Health Sciences from the University of Edinburgh investigating the nature, development and deployment of psychological skills in the pursuit and attainment of high performance in dance. Erin is a registered provider for Safe in Dance International, a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science and holds the qualification in Safe and Effective Dance Practice. She has lectured in dance science and taught dance technique in the United States, UK, Egypt and Malta

Biography: https://www.dancersmentalhealth.co.uk/about-us

Contact details:

Email: erin.sanchez@onedanceuk.org

Instagram: @ Eirinn_sanchez (twitter)

@ Eirinnsanchez (Instagram)

Organisational socials:

• Instagram      - @onedanceuk @nidms.uk @greymattersuk

Resource links:

• https://www.crowood.com/products/performance-psychology-for-dancers-by-erin-sanchez-dave-collins-aine-macnamara
• https://www.greymattersuk.com/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Dr Bethany Whiteside shares her experiences and insights of Dance Health Research, with a particular focus on the Engagement work of Scottish Ballet. In this thought-provoking episode we discuss the use of methodologies when capturing lived experiences and highlight the need for a person-centred focus within a research setting.

Bethany is a Research Lecturer and Doctoral Degrees Coordinator at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Since 2015, her research and knowledge exchange activity has been closely tied to the Engagement work of Scottish Ballet, Scotland’s national dance company.

Contact: B.Whiteside@rcs.ac.uk 

Social Media: @bethjwhiteside 

Staff Profile: https://pure.rcs.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/bethany-whiteside(cbad9dfc-8171-4c7d-bc2e-f803dac9b2ad).html

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 4: Episode 9: Promoting positive parental involvement in performance settings: suggestions for research and practice with Camilla Knight.

In this episode, Camilla shares insight into her research interests concerned with understanding and enhancing the psychosocial experiences of children in sport. With a particular focus upon the influence of parents in performance settings, we discuss the potential barriers and considerations to promoting positive parental involvement, ways of developing and optimising relationships within sport and performance settings and the importance of applying research to practice.

Dr Camilla Knight is a Professor in Sport Psychology and Youth Sport at Swansea University, UK and a visiting Professor at University of Agder, Norway. She is also the Youth Sport lead for the Welsh Institute of Performance Science and a member of the Welsh Safeguarding in Sport Strategy group. Camilla’s research interests are concerned with understanding and enhancing the psychosocial experiences of children in sport, with a particular focus upon the influence of parents. Camilla is co-author of “Parenting in youth sport: From Research to Practice” (Routledge, 2014) and co-editor of “Sport Psychology for Young Athletes” (Routledge, 2017). She has published over 25 book chapters on topics related to parental involvement in sport, as well as 65 peer reviewed journal articles. She has delivered over 20 keynote and invited presentations around the world and her work has been presented at more than 150 conferences. She collaborates extensively with academics across the Globe, including but not limited to Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the USA. Camilla also consults widely with a range of national and international sports organisations on parental involvement and youth sport participation more broadly as well as being a BASES accredited sport and exercise scientist. Due to her research knowledge, Camilla has particularly expertise in relation to developing and optimising relationships with sport settings, with an emphasis on enhancing performance, psychosocial outcomes, and wellbeing.

Contact email: c.j.knight@swansea.ac.uk

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/Camilla-knight-cjk

Other resources of interest

Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=mI8nr28AAAAJ&hl=en

Website: www.sportparent.eu

 

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance S2: Episode 2: The Embodied Researcher with Professor Angela Pickard 

Professor Angela Pickard shares rich insights into her research practices in Dance Education from a variety of perspectives. Reflecting upon the role qualitative methodologies play in facilitating a person-centred approach, we discuss the value of working collaboratively; the importance of longitudinal research when capturing experience and the wider role of a multifaceted approach when gaining insight into the social world in which those in the research inhabit. Through insight into her ethnographic and auto-ethnographic research approaches, she further highlights the need for a person-centred focus within a research setting.

Angela is a Professor of Dance Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, where her research is focussed on dance education and performance science. She is interested in relationships between body and identity(ies) in dance and embodiment, drawing on sociology (Bourdieu), pedagogy and psychology. Angela is Editor in Chief for the international journal Research in Dance Education and on the Editorial board for Journal of Dance, Medicine and Science.

Contact: angela.pickard@canterbury.ac.uk

Google scholar profile:

https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=2X-dbjIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Episode 8: Dancing across Screen and in Popular Performance

Professor Sherril Dodds shares insight into the methodologies and methods she uses in her research and draws upon themes from screen dance, popular dance, ethnography and textual/ screen dance analysis. In this thought-provoking episode, Sherril discusses her first-hand insight into being an active b-girl in the Philadelphia breaking scene and how these rich experiences continue to inform her wider practice and places her identity as a person, along that of a researcher, at the fore. Lastly, we discuss research for her latest book, Facial Choreographies: Performing the Face in Popular Dance (under contract with Oxford University Press).

Sherril is a Professor of Dance and Graduate Programs Coordinator at Temple University. Her books include Dance on Screen (2001), Dancing on the Canon (2011), Bodies of Sound (co-edited with Susan C. Cook, 2014), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Competition (2019) and The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies (2019). Her latest book, Facial Choreographies: Performing the Face in Popular Dance is under contract with Oxford University Press. She has been a visiting scholar at Trondheim University in Norway, Griffith University in Australia, Stanford University in the USA, and Blaise-Pascal University in France. She was awarded the 2015 Gertrude Lippincott prize for her article, “The Choreographic Interface: Dancing Facial Expression in Hip Hop and Neo-burlesque Striptease.” She is an active b-girl in the Philadelphia breaking scene.

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Contact: sherril.dodds@temple.edu

Staff Profile: https://boyer.temple.edu/about/faculty-staff/sherril-dodds-tue43481

Instagram: @sherrildodds

Facebook: @sherrildodds

ResDance Series 6: Episode 2: Archives, Provenance and the Dancing Body with Laura Griffiths

In this thought-provoking episode, Laura offers insight into her experiences as a researcher and educator and shares her thinking around notions of archive in relation to contemporary dance practice. Throughout the episode, Laura encourages listeners to challenge how we might re-think the archive and introduces ideas around originality, provenance and the body as an archive, where the journey begins and understanding remains. Dr Laura Griffiths is Senior Lecturer in Dance in the Leeds School of Arts at Leeds Beckett University, UK. Laura's research focuses primarily upon notions of archive in relation to contemporary dance practice, in particular the concept of the body as archive and the role of technology in producing dance archives. She has published several book chapters and journal articles around this subject. Professional industry experience has encompassed project management within the arts, dance teaching in community settings, lecturing and research project management. Laura is currently Vice Chair of Dance HE, the representative body for the teaching of Dance in Higher Education (https://www.dancehe.org.uk).

Contact details

Email: laura.griffiths@leedsbeckett.ac.uk 

Social media

@phoenixleeds  

@nrcd_org

Published sources of interest

Griffiths, L.E. (2013) Between bodies and the archive: Situating the act, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 9:1, 183-195. DOI: 10.1386/padm.9.1.183_1

Griffiths, L. E., (2023) “Dancing through Social Distance: Connectivity and Creativity in the Online Space”,Body, Space & Technology 22(1), 65–81. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16995/bst.9700 

Other relevant sources

https://www.phoenixdancetheatre.co.uk/book/ 

https://www.phoenixdancetheatre.co.uk/virtual-gallery/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 7: Episode 7: EcoSomatics, kindness as methodology, and Skinner ReleasingTechnique with Polly Hudson.

In this episode, Polly shares insight into her experiences as a dancer, maker, researcher, teacher and gardener.  Through situating her thinking in her practice and life we explore notions of care, rest and kindness as ethical stances, and as vital components of an artistic methodology that places ecological consciousness at its core.

Polly Hudson is an artist-scholar working with performance & film, with ecology (gardening), & with writing. The unifying focus of Polly's work is embodiment: how do we inhabit our psycho-physical selves in ways that serve us best in any given situation? Her work in every area is characterised by the concept of inhabiting our inner and outer landscapes simultaneously.

Her background was in ballet and then in the youth dance movement in the UK. She was a student at London Contemporary Dance School in the late 1980’s, joining their fourth-year graduate company by invitation whilst still in her third year of study, and graduating with a distinction in contemporary dance. She studied Contact Improvisation and related Somatic Practices extensively before discovering Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). She is a certified teacher of SRT, and her PhD examined SRT in relationship to creativity and choreographic practices. She has made performance and Screendance works that have been shown internationally to critical acclaim.

Fore-fronting process within artistic making, ethical embodied approaches to teaching & leadership, and somatics in dance, Polly’s work integrates approaches from SRT, EcoSomatics & Ecofeminism. Grounding the practice in a connection to the environment, specifically an urban allotment plot, there is a current focus on her working-class roots and women’s labour of the body and on the land. She is curator of the EcoSomatic Conversations Series.

Polly is a Reader in Dance, and Head of Movement at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University.

Photo credit: Ming de Nasty

Contact details:

Personal Email: polly.hudson@bcu.ac.uk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/polly__hudson/

EcoSomatics Conversations Series: https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3022557/3022558

Published sources of interest:

https://www.bcu.ac.uk/conservatoire/acting/further-info/tutor-list/polly-hudson

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

 

ResDance Series 4: Episode 8: Studio as site: Voicing bodies through research in dance pedagogy with Jamie Dryburgh

In this episode, Jamie shares insight into his experiences as a dancer, pedagogue and researcher and how these have informed his research interests in learning experiences through dance technique(s) from within the studio. We discuss the research methodologies and approaches employed in his PhD research and his role in putting himself as a teacher, mover and researcher who facilitates the learning of others. Jamie shares insightful ideas around researcher positionality, power imbalances within education and his interests in a somatic approach to learning. Throughout this episode, Jamie brings voice to the importance and validity of each individual experience and the uniqueness of our own journeys.

Dr Jamieson Dryburgh (he/him) is Director of Higher Education at Central School of Ballet, London. A dance leader, artist, pedagogue and researcher with over twenty years of experience in UK Conservatoire settings, his research interests lie in learning experiences through dance technique(s) from within the studio.

Previously as dance lecturer at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance Jamieson specialised in teaching release-based contemporary dance technique, dance pedagogy and participatory dance practice. He has danced for internationally renowned choreographers and companies including Candoco, Yolande Snaith Theatredance, Physical Recall, H2dance, Ben Wright, First Person, Yelp! (Greece), Charleroi/danses (Belgium), Tandem Cie (Belgium) among others.  

 In 2020, Jamieson completed his PhD in Dance Pedagogy at Middlesex University and continues to present and published his research in this field. He is a director of Participatory Arts Qualifications, principal fellow of the Higher Education Academy, board member of DanceHE and Clore Arts Leader. 

Contact email: Jamieson.Dryburgh@csbschool.co.uk

Resources of interest mentioned throughout the episode:

Clarke, G., Cramer, F. A. and Muller, G. (2011) ‘Minding Motion’, in Diehl, I. and Lampert F. (Eds.) Dance techniques 2010: tanzplan Germany. Leipzig: Henschell, pp. 196–229.

Dryburgh, J. (2022) Approaching pedagogical arts research from within the studio, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 13:4, 536-553, DOI: 10.1080/19443927.2021.2012246

Ingold, T. (ed.) (2011) Redrawing anthropology: materials, movements, lines. London: Routledge.

Spatz, B. (2015) What a body can do: technique as knowledge, practice as research. Oxon: Routledge.

Stinson, S. W. (1998) ‘Seeking a feminist pedagogy for children’s dance’, in Shapiro, S. (ed.) Dance, power, and difference: critical and feminist perspectives on dance education. Leeds: Human Kinetics, pp. 23–4.

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

Future Ecologies: Producing Dance Network with Christopher Bannerman, Anita Clark & Sarah Hopfinger

In this episode, Christopher, Anita and Sarah share insight into the focus of the network, which brings together academics and arts professionals to reimagine an inclusive, extended and sustainable ecosystem for dance. They reflect upon their network experiences thus far and share thinking around the fragility and vulnerability of the ecosystems that exist in the arts. Throughout the episode, they consider what a future ecology means to each of them and they re-imagine what opportunities might emerge from the artist offerings and lived experiences shared throughout the network. The importance of seeing producers as creative practitioners and the continued value placed on dance research is highlighted throughout.

https://www.fepdn.net/⁠

Christopher Bannerman (Principal Investigator) London Contemporary Dance School

Professor Christopher Bannerman had a distinguished international career as a performer and choreographer principally with the National Ballet of Canada and London Contemporary Dance Theatre. One of the first dance artists to lead a UK university department, he also achieved one of the first UK practice-research PhDs and professorial conferment. He has contributed to policy as Chair of Dance UK, Arts Council England’s Dance Panel and through membership of the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Dance Forum. He is an Emeritus Professor at Middlesex University and a Visiting Professor at London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) and Beijing Dance Academy (BDA). He co-leads international collaborations including ArtsCross, an intercultural choreographic research initiative with LCDS, BDA, Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts and University of Taipei.

Contact: Chris.Bannerman@theplace.org.uk

Anita Clark (Co-investigator) The Work Room

Anita is Director of The Work Room an artist-led organisation, committed to supporting a sustainable environment for independent dance artists in Scotland. It acts as an incubator for dance ideas to be researched, developed, tested and produced, that go on to performances across Scotland and throughout the world. From its base in Glasgow’s Tramway arts centre, The Work Room connects over 250 artists working in dance, movement and choreography in Scotland. 

Contact: Anita@theworkroom.org.uk

Social media:

F: https://www.facebook.com/TheWorkRoomGlasgow

I: https://www.instagram.com/the_work_room_dance/

Other links:

www.theworkroom.org.uk 

Sarah Hopfinger (Co-investigator) Royal Conservatoire Scotland

Dr Sarah Hopfinger (she/her) is an award-winning queer disabled artist and researcher based in Glasgow. She works across live art, dance, choreography, performance, disability and crip practices, queerness, ecology and environmentalism. Her current performance project, Pain andI, is a diversely accessible body of work made in response to her lived experience of chronic pain, which has toured nationally and internationally. Her current practice-led research project, Ecologies of Pain, explores through dance how chronic pain experience can offer insight into what it means to live and relate with wider ecological pain. She publishes her research across academic books and journals, performance lectures and podcasts, and through creative writing.

W: https://www.sarahhopfinger.org.uk/

Contact: s.hopfinger@rcs.ac.uk

Social Media

I: https://www.instagram.com/sarahhopfinger/

F: https://www.facebook.com/drsarahhopfinger/

AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks

The five AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks explore current issues and generate change and legacy for the sector. The ecosystems created by the Networks traverse across South Asian dance, digital black dance, future producing dance ecologies, critical dance pedagogies, and pluriversal dance practices and will be mapped for reach and impact in and beyond the sector.

Please visit: danceresearchmatters.coventry.ac.uk

ResDance S2: Episode 9: ResDance S2: Episode 9: Choreography and Improvisation with Seke Chimutengwende

Seke Chimutengwende shares insight into his practice making as a choreographer and performer. Through exploring the notion of collectivity and approaches to authorship, he reflects upon his making experiences and working collaboratively across disciplines that more widely inform his practice. Seke shares insight into his latest work It begins in darkness (premiered in September 2022) and the processes involved in the making and dissemination of the work.

Seke Chimutengwende:  www.sekechimutengwende.com

Seke is a choreographer, performer, movement director and teacher. In his practice,

Seke uses choreography to experiment with collectivity and alternative approaches to authorship and governance; playing with form to shift and question hierarchies. His new work It begins in darkness premiered in September 2022, a group choreography looking at ghosts and haunted houses as metaphors for how histories of slavery and colonialism haunt the present. Seke has also recently choreographed a new group work for Candoco Dance Company, In Worlds Unknown, which premiered in October 2022.

Alongside his choreographic work Seke is currently exploring long solo improvisation performances of 50 to 60 minutes and is working as a performer with Forced Entertainment in a new work which will premiere in 2023. He is also working as a dramaturg on Sue MacLaine’s new work, I Maybe Sometime. As a lecturer and teacher, Seke is a visiting lecturer in improvisation and composition at London Contemporary Dance School.

Contact details:

Email: seke.chim@gmail.com

Social media: twitter

facebook

youtube

instagram

Useful links

Hemsley. A. & Chimutengwende, S. (2021). The Future Stared Back at Us for the First Time: Black Holes Revisited. Contemporary Theatre Review (31), 197-203.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10486801.2021.1878509

Tom Cornford (2022) It begins in darkness: https://www.tom6.space/blog/messing-up-mes

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Episode 10: Embodied Inquiry

Dr Nicole Brown and Dr Jennifer Leigh offer insight into their shared understandings of embodiment and embodied practice. Through discussion of their research interests and the variety methods and approaches employed in their own research, they explore what an embodied approach can bring to a research project. Reflections of considerations that need to be acknowledged in research, namely reflective practice, self-acceptance and positionally are also explored. The ideas presented are drawn from principles of embodied inquiry from their recent publication: Embodied Inquiry Research Methods (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Dr. Nicole Brown

Dr Nicole Brown is Director of Social Research & Practice and Education Ltd and Associate Professor at UCL Institute of Education. Nicole’s research interests relate to physical and material representations of experiences, the generation of knowledge and use of metaphors to express what is difficult to express, and more generally, research methods and approaches to explore identity and body work. Her books include Lived Experiences of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education, Ableism in Academia: Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education, Embodied Inquiry: Research Methods, and Making the Most of Your Research Journal. 

Email: nicole.brown@ucl.ac.uk

Website: https://www.nicole-brown.co.uk/

Twitter: @ncjbrown @AbleismAcademia

Dr. Jennifer Leigh

Dr Jennifer Leigh initially trained as a chemist and somatic movement therapist before completing her doctorate in education at the University of Birmingham (2012). She is currently a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice at the University of Kent (UK) where she co-chairs the Disabled Staff Network. She is Vice Chair (Research) of the International Women in Supramolecular Chemistry (WISC) network and has led on a paper setting out the ethos of calling in the community to enact change, and a forthcoming book. She has edited two books: Ableism in Academia with Nicole Brown, and Conversations on Embodiment. This year she co-authored Embodied Inquiry with Nicole Brown. Her research interests include marginalisation in academia, academic practice, academic development, and ableism as well as phenomenological and creative research methods in higher education and other applications.

Email: j.s.leigh@kent.ac.uk

Twitter: @drschniff @SupraChem @SupraLab1

ResDance Series 6: Episode 3: A Dose of Joy with Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu In this episode, Vicki shares insight into her experiences in dance and reflects upon the opportunities and the people who have informed her journey thus far. Through discussion of her work with Uchenna and as a choreographer and movement director in dance and theatre, she reveals her quest to lead with love, joy and peace and the role of empowerment in her practice, more widely. Throughout the episode, Vicki places emphasis on the value given to the individual bring seen and heard and the importance of connecting with others and helping others to see themselves in the stories they tell.

Vicki Igbokwe-Ozoagu is the founder, creative director and joint CEO of Uchenna, a touring dance company that empowers, entertains and educates through dance. Independently, Vicki works as a Choreographer and Movement Director working in dance and theatre and as Coach and Facilitator working in the arts. She is the Director of Empowerment at People Make It Work and won the 2020 Women in Dance Award from AWA (Advancing Women’s Aspirations with Dance), a charity dedicated to helping women and girls aspire to leadership roles through dance. She is the Colossal Connections Coach who empowers Artistic Women to LET GO OF GUILT, experience COLOSSAL TRANSFORMATIONS & RECLAIM their lives.

Contact details

Email: vicki@vickiigbokwe.com

Website: www.vickiigbokwe.com 

Instagram: @vicki_igbokwe

Uchenna Dance

Instagram: @uchenna_dance

Website: www.uchennadance.com 

Coaching

Monday energisers https://mailchi.mp/eaf8c3cd4cff/5sbuiumytt

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ResDance Series 8: Episode 1: The Unknown In Dance with Rhiannon Faith

In the episode, Rhiannon shares insight into her experiences and interests in dance, choreography and theatre and the role theatrical devising continues to play in her work. Throughout the episode, we explore the inspirations for her ways of making, the thinking that underpins her processes and how her creations serve a connection and relationship with an audience. We discuss consideration of the audience in her work and the curating around which audiences the work is trying to reach, where the work is most useful and ways to create a community of work through this.  Rhiannon shares the value she places on the role of legacy in making a change and the potential both her work and more generally, artistic practice, has to make a difference.  Throughout the episode, Rhiannon reflects upon her continued appreciation for her own personal background, who she is and how she responds to her support network around her.  The importance of following your instinct and trusting in the work you make is highlighted throughout, alongside the value of surrounding yourself with a team who share the same vision and are willing to embark on the journey with you.

Rhiannon Faith is a boundary-breaking Artist whose work and experiences cross artforms.  Brought up in a big Irish Catholic, working-class family, she is an exciting British female voice making waves in choreography, directing, social activism and as a published author. Artistic Director of Rhiannon FaithCompany, nominated for five National Dance Awards; ‘Best Digital Choreography’ (2021), ‘Best Dance Film’ (2022), and ‘Best Independent Company’ (2021, 2022 & 2023). Critically acclaimed work DROWNTOWN received 4STARS across the board, and recently toured to Wuzhen Festival, China. New work Lay Down Your Burdens, Co-Commissioned by Barbican,London and Harlow Playhouse, premiered at the Barbican in November 2023 and was shortlisted for a 2023 One Dance UK Award for ‘Innovation in Dance’ and nominated for a 2024 Olivier Award for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Dance’.

Photographer's credit: Foteini Christofilopoulou 

Contact details:

info@rhiannonfaith.comhttps://www.rhiannonfaith.com/Social media platforms:

X: @RhiannonFaithFacebook: @RhiannonFaithCoInstagram:  @rhiannonfaithcompany

Related links:

Rhiannon Faith Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrBJ9bj8Gg4tq9x-vArHfGQ

Harlow Care Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybfu4fpKEzU

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ResDance Series 7: Episode 8: Bodies, materiality and touch in multi-person VR: creating immersive performance with Lisa May Thomas

In this episode, Lisa May shares insight into her experiences as a dance artist and researcher and how these continue to inform her interests in embodiment, immersive performance and digital technologies.  Through situating her ideas in practice, Lisa May offers insight into the body as a site of research, the use of combining dance-somatic and improvisation practices and the value of finding stillness in life and movement.

Dr Lisa May Thomas is a dance artist and researcher, investigating the intersections of dance, embodiment, immersive performance and digital futures. Her PhD (2021, University of Bristol) investigated the role of immersive technologies in performance, combining dance-somatic and improvisation practices with multi-person VR technology. She is currently a Senior Research Associate at the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures (CenSoF) at the University of Bristol. She is a resident at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and Studio Wayne McGregor QuestLab Network Artist. She directed VR experience ‘Soma’ which launched at the Bloomsbury theatre (2021) as a participatory performance and has since been remodelled as a social experience and used as a method for exploring embodiment and the senses, materiality, presence and connectedness across real and virtual worlds with a range of under-represented communities including blind and visually impaired people (working with the CenSoF, University of Bath and Bristol Digital Futures Institute. Lisa teaches and supervises undergraduate and postgraduate students in dance and somatic practices, improvisation, immersive performance, and screendance as part of BA dance/theatre and MA immersive arts courses at the University of Bristol and as guest lecture at Bath Spa University. As artistic director for her company May Productions, she is continually developing her practice in performance and film-making, as well as mentoring, consultancy, and training.

Contact details:

Freelance email: lisamay.thomas@mac.com

Work email: lisamay.thomas@bristol.ac.uk

Lisa May Thomas on LinkedIn

Published sources of interest:

Please see the following for publications:

https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/lisa-may-thomas/publications/

Projects:

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/bristol-digital-futures-institute/research/seed-corn-funding/making-mixed-reality-experiences-accessible/

https://www.bristol.ac.uk/bristol-digital-futures-institute/research/seed-corn-funding/inclusive-digital-innovation-community/

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ResDance Series 5: Episode 5: Rediscovering why dance matters with Heather Harrington 

In this episode, Heather shares insight into her experiences as a dancer, scholar, figure skater, choreographer, and educator who believes in the value of movement and wider dance practices in shifting societal norms.  Heather discusses the approaches and methodologies employed in her research and the importance of working in a cross-collaborative manner, drawing knowledge from a variety of disciplines in fostering her curiosity. Heather shares honest reflections on both her life and experiences in dance and thought-provoking considerations around agency of the female body and her research interests on elevating the dancer above forces of exploitation, specifically the female dancer.

Heather Harrington is a dancer, scholar, figure skater, choreographer, and educator who believes that movement has the power to shift societal norms. Harrington has been steeped in the repertory of iconic dance legends, dancing with the Doris Humphrey Repertory Company, the Martha Graham Ensemble, the Pearl Lang Dance Theater, and the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company. She created her own contemporary dance company in New York City performing nationally and internationally. Being drawn to movement in the public space inspired her to create site-specific work, from creating a piece on the steps of the Federal Hall Memorial on Wall Street, NYC to staging a gun violence protest in Newark, NJ. As a figure skater, Harrington has performed, taught, and choreographed for The Ice Theatre of New York, coached for Sky Rink, NYC and Figure Skating in Harlem. Her interest in dance in the MENA region, has led to teaching and choreographing in Tunisia and Lebanon. Her artistic and scholarly collaboration with Lebanese dance artist and professor Nadra Assaf has led to performances, articles, and conferences across the globe. Assaf and Harrington have continued to create work that speaks against the violence that hauntingly remains embodied in women. She has been on faculty at Kean University, Seton Hall University, and Drew University. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and her BA in psychology from Boston University. Her scholarship examining gender and dance, dance as protest, consumer dance, and the choreographic process has been published by Choreographic Practices, Dancer Citizen, Research in Dance Education, Dance Research Journal, Nordic Journal of Dance, Journal of Dance Education, Beauty Demands, and Dance Education in Practice. A focus of her scholarship has been on elevating the dancer above forces of exploitation, specifically the female dancer.

Contact details:

Email - heatherhah@gmail.com

Social media

https://www.instagram.com/heat201101/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-harrington-5738316/

https://www.facebook.com/heatherharringtondance

https://twitter.com/GmailHeatherhah

Other resources 

https://www.heatherharrington.com/

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7396-5642

https://wadedance.org/wia2023events/dec1performance2

https://wadedance.org/wia2023events

https://o-dcs.org/2023/01/misahat-noon-artistic-bootcamp/

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ResDance Series 6: Episode 3: The continuum between Sport Science and Dance Science with James Brouner

In this episode, James shares insight into his background as a researcher and lecturer teaching performance analysis and biomechanics in both sport and exercise and dance medicine and science settings. We discuss his experiences and considerations when delivering biomechanical knowledge in a dance science setting and the value of the voice of the individual practitioner and artist in shaping research measures and future lines of inquiry.

Dr James Brouner is the course leader for Sport and Exercise Science at Kingston University, teaching performance analysis and biomechanics in sport and exercise settings.  James also delivers on the Dance Science MSc at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance supporting biomechanical knowledge in dance science.  James’ research explores the impact of movement for understanding of optimal technique, tissue mechanics and reducing injury risk. James is currently supporting the Norwegian Breaking team in preparations for the Paris Olympics in 2024 where he is offering sport science support to the athletes in training and performance.

Contact details

Email: James.Brouner@Kingston.ac.uk

Social media

Instagram: @JBrouner11

                      @Kingstonunisportscience

Linkedin -  linkedin.com/in/james-brouner

X - @JBroune11

     @KUSportExSci

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ResDance Series 8: Episode 2: Giving Care: A conversation on dance, motherhood, and sustainability with Satu Hummasti and Shaun Boyle D’Arcy

Satu Hummasti and Shaun Boyle D’Arcy share insight into their individual careers and how their collaboration exploring ethics of care giving and care giving began. In the episode, they explore their ways of working and reflect upon their processes of making and collaborating. Through discussion of their sharedthinking and practices, we explore having accountability and responsibility for beings other than ourselves; gender parity; the role or policy in creating change and the value of collective dance making. Throughout the episode, Satu and Shaun highlight the importance of using dance to share livedexperiences and the hope that through open dialogue and conversation, family life can more readily be integrated into arts and dance spaces.

Satu Hummasti, originally from Helsinki, Finland, is a choreographer, dancer, educator, and writer who hasperformed, choreographed and taught throughout the United States, Europe, South and Central America, and Russia. Her work has been seen in Medellin, Colombia; Bordeaux, France; Edinburgh, Scotland (as a part of the 2007 Edinburgh FringeFestival); St. Petersburg, Russia (as a part of the Open Look Festival 2011), Helsinki, Finland, Oulu, Finland (as a part of the Arctic Steps Festival 2015), Kökar, Åland, and San Jose, Costa Rica; and nationally in New York, Boston, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Edinburgh, Texas, and Seattle. Her work has beencommissioned by Compañía de Cámara Danza UNA in San Jose, Costa Rica; Repertory Dance Theater in Salt Lake City; Kannon Dance Company in St. Petersburg, Russia; for graduate students at the University of the Arts in Helsinki, Finland; and for the graduating class of professional artists at the Keskuspuisto AmmattiOpisto TanssiPuoli, also in Helsinki, and SBDANCE Curbside Theater in Salt Lake City. In NYC she has shown dances at Dance New Amsterdam, Chashama, The Construction Company, Sal Anthony’s Movement Salon, and at The John Ryan Theater at White Wave, as a part of the d.u.m.b.o. and Cool New York Dance Festivals. She currently collaborates on community-based projects and dance theater projects with Daniel Clifton- her most recent project “Shore” was awarded an ÅlandIsland Guest Artist Residency in Åland, Sweden. She is an Associate Professor in the School of Dance at the University Utah.

Contact details:

Email: satu.hummasti@utah.edu 

Instagram: @satuhummasti

Shaun Boyle D’Arcy is a dance artist and educator who hadan extensive performing career, dancing in classical ballet and contemporary companies including BalletMet (USA) and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet (USA). She danced in a broad spectrum of works by leading choreographers such asGeorge Balanchine, Edwaard Liang, Jodie Gates, Larry Keigwin, James Kudelka, David Dorfman, Alonzo King, David Nixon, Marius Petipa, Emily Molnar, and Benoit-Swan Pouffer. Shaun’s own choreography stems from this lineage, intertwining her roots in ballet and contemporary styles. Her work has beenpresented internationally at venues including the Joyce Soho Theater (USA), Ailey Citigroup Theater (USA), Bonnie Bird Theatre (UK), Robin Howard Theatre at The Place (UK), and the Kennedy Center (USA) amongst others. Shaun holdsdegrees from New York University (BFA), Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance (MA), and George Mason University (MFA). She currently serves as a full-time faculty member in the School of Dance at George Mason University,located just outside of Washington D.C., and previously held academic appointments at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Utah. Additionally, Shaun continues to teach and choreograph as a guest artist at dance organizations in the United States and abroad.

Contact details:

Email: sboyleda@gmu.edu

Instagram: @tiny.dancer.shaun

Instagram: @gmu_schoolofdance

Website: Website

ResDance Series 4: Episode 2: The dialogue between access and creativity in dance practice with Susanna Dye

In this episode, Susanna reflects up her thinking and experiences working with movement and dance in community, education and interdisciplinary performance contexts. Through exploring her ways of working, she shares insight into her processes of identifying and dismantling access barriers she experiences in her professional practice.  Underpinned by her question of “what is moving me in the space”, she considers ways of transforming access barriers; her Stimming performance research project, the dialogue of the body with the environment and her future research interests.  Throughout the episode, Susanna highlights the importance of asking questions and acknowledging needs.  

Susanna (they/them, she/her) works with movement and dance between community, education and interdisciplinary performance contexts. Being dyspraxic and dyslexic, Susanna’s approach has developed as a process of identifying and dismantling the access barriers they experience to training and professional practice. Informed by queer and social model of disability thinking Susanna explores ways of working/playing with movement that emerge from our felt sense of what we need, tuning into our senses, and attending to what feels good. Through this, Susanna explores creative ways to be in dialogue with ourselves, our environments and others.

Since completing a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Movement: Directing: and Teaching at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Susanna has developed their professional experience as an artist and facilitator with organisations such as Candoco Dance Company, Bush Theatre, Access all Areas and Turtle Key Arts. At the centre of Susanna’s practice is the performance research project STIMMING R&D, in which Susanna is exploring sensory seeking and self-regulating movement patterns known as stimming movements, and the creative potential of the space between stimming and dancing. This research was awarded project grant funding by Arts Council England, and was supported through residencies at The Place, Wellcome Collection, SHAPE ARTS and Siobhan Davies Studios.

Contact details:

 

Email: susannadye@gmail.com

 

Website: https://www.susannadye.com/

 

Extended biography: https://www.susannadye.com/about

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susannadye/

 

 Other links: 

 

https://stimming.me/

 

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ResDance Series 6: Episode 7: Dance Ecology and Empowering Communities with Ashley (AJ) Jordan. In this episode, AJ shares insight into his experiences in dance and the work of his company-Ascension Dance. Throughout the episode, we explore his approaches to creating work and the value he places on the sharing of practices, community engagement and inclusive practice, in relation to the composition of the work he makes. AJ reflects upon the importance of embracing new opportunities and offers considerations and advice for both freelance artists and graduates looking to start their own company. AJ is a Black British Dancer, Choreographer and Company Director of Ascension Dance Company. He has produced work for the BBC (BBC Dance Passion 2022 & BBC Contains Strong Language 2021), Sky Arts and worked with the Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 to create and tour a piece of work throughout the game’s activities. Inspired by movement physicality and the fusion of contemporary dance with parkour and freerunning, AJ’s work embodies a raw and unrelenting quality that tackles topics relating to us as humans.  Contact email: ashley@ascensiondance.co.uk Social Media: Ascension Dance IG: @ascensiondanceuk FB: @ascensiondanceuk T/X: @ascension_DC Social Media: Ashley Joran IG: @ashleyltjordan T/X: @ascension_DC Link to other Published resources ·      Hotfoot 2021 - Pg54 - 55 / Paving the Way - https://issuu.com/onedanceuk/docs/hotfoot_spring_2021 ·      Motionhouse Blog - https://www.motionhouse.co.uk/2023/03/10/supporting-artists-through-peer-mentoring/   People Dancing Animated Publication - Winter 2023 (Pg 44) - https://edition.pagesuite.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=449ee8fa-266b-45f1-bffb-0a4702054849 Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 4: Episode 3: Journeying into academic research with Dance Mama

In this episode, Lucy McCrudden (Dance Mama) shares insight into her experiences within dance and her journey as the Founder of dancemama.org –a professional hub and platform for parents in dance and the arts.  Through drawing upon such experiences, she reflects upon the dancers, practitioners, researchers and organisations who continue to inspire her, both personally and professionally.  Bringing awareness to the practical solutions dance and Dance Mama can create to better support parents, Lucy shares insight into her PhD research studies and her aspirations for the future.  Throughout the episode, Lucy highlights the need for greater advocacy in bringing voice to support parents and empower them to navigate their dance career and parenthood.

Lucy McCrudden, aka Dance Mama, is a London-based dance entrepreneur and advocate. She is Founder of dancemama.org - a community, information and professional development hub and platform profiling significant parents in dance and the arts. Lucy has instigated international and national networks for colleagues working with dancing parents. Lucy has dove-tailed her own work with holding key positions in learning and participation over the last 20 years. These include: Dance Artist in Residence for DanceXchange (2004), Manager for London Contemporary Dance School, The Place, Centre for Advanced Training (2005-11), Expert Panel member of the DFE Music and Dance Scheme representing the National Dance CATs (2007-2010), Vice-Chair of Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Arts Grants Panel (2006-2009), Learning & Participation Manager, Rambert (2014-16), Chair of the Board of Trustees Dance Woking (2014-16), Head of Learning and Participation, Rambert (2016-18) and Project Manager Chance to Dance, Royal opera House (2019-20).

 

As an independent specialist she has taught over 19,000 people across the UK and has engaged with a wide variety of dance and arts organisations in many other capacities: consultant, management, choreography, and presenting/public speaking. She is Ambassador for the Parents in Performing Arts Campaign. She has a Honourable Mention for the inaugural AWA Woman in Dance Award and nominee for the One Dance UK Awards 2021, winner of the Changemaker One Dance UK Awards 2022 and nominee for AWA Woman In Dance Leadership Award, starting a PhD in the same year at Christ Church Canterbury University. 
Contact details:

 Website: dancemama.org 

 Instagram: @lucymccrudden 

 Facebook: @thedancemama 

 

Other resources:

TEDx

Class Programme 
Film
The Podcast 

 

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ResDance Series 3: Episode 7: Performance Histories with Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel

In this thought-provoking episode, Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel offers insight into her experiences as a researcher, educator and practitioner. Through discussion of her recent publication (the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, 2021), she shares her thinking around the value of ballet histories within dance discourse. Highlighting throughout the episode the importance of brining individual voices to the fore, Kathrina shares the need for curiosity in driving interest in a subject area and the importance of collaboration in the transformation of both the self and others.

Dr Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel is Head of Research at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. Her articles have been published in the South African Dance Journal, Treasures of Malta, and the Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Dance (2019). Her books include Princess Poutiatine and the Art of Ballet in Malta (FPM, 2020), the first book on ballet histories in Malta, and the Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet (2021). Kathrina has organised conferences in London, Paris and New York. For the RAD, she has steered conferences in Australia (Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne), curates the Guest Lectures Series, and is Editor of Focus on Education. She is author of three webinar series on ballet across the 20th and 21st Centuries, and currently working on a new anthology with Adesola Akinleye (author of British Black Dance, 2019; and Reclaiming Ballet, 2021). In 2022, Kathrina joined the Executive Committee of the Society for Dance Research.

Contact details (personal)

Instagram:

@kathrina.farrugiakriel

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrina-farrugia-kriel-8985a4b7/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/kathrina.farrugia

Contact details (RAD)

https://www.linkedin.com/company/royal-academy-of-dance/about/

https://www.instagram.com/royalacademyofdance/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/society-for-dance-research/mycompany/

Sources of interest

The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-contemporary-ballet-9780190871499?cc=us&lang=en&

Princess Poutiatine and the Art of Ballet in Malta (2020) https://www.patrimonju.org/books/princess-poutiatine-and-the-art-of-ballet-in-malta

Guest Lecture Series https://www.royalacademyofdance.org/teacher-training/staff-and-research/conferences-guest-lecture-series-and-events/guest-lecture-series/

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ResDance S2: Episode 6: Reflections on a person-centred approach in a PhD process

Louisa Petts shares insight into her current PhD research at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University. Her research advocates for improved access to dance that is meaningful for older populations, whilst questioning whether dance genre and style offer entirely unique experiences of belonging for participants. Through discussing her PhD process, she shares the varying research approaches, methodologies and methods employed in her research and on the wider reflections she has concerning her role and positionality as a researcher. Providing honest and considered reflections on her PhD journey thus far, Louisa highlights the need for continued advocacy for a person-centred approach throughout the research process.

Louisa is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University. She is the recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship award offered by Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Louisa studied at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, where she graduated with an MSc Dance Science with Distinction in 2019. Prior, Louisa studied at the University of Roehampton, achieving First Class Honours and receiving the prize for Best Dissertation in BA Dance Studies in 2018.

Louisa has worked as a community dance artist delivering dance classes to those living with dementia in assisted living homes and people living with Parkinson’s. She currently works as a lecturer at De Montfort University and bbodance and is an editorial assistant for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. Louisa is also part of the site-specific research project ‘The Shape of Sound’ in collaboration with artist-researcher Petra Johnson and researchers at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), which explores the embodied technologies of the human inner ear through movement practice.

Contact details:

Email: pettsl@coventry.ac.uk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lou_petts/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisa-petts-1702/

Resource links:

• Petts, L. & Urmston, E. (2022) 'An exploration into      the experience of family caregivers for people living with dementia in a      community dance class', Research in Dance      Education,23(1),126-141, DOI:10.1080/14647893.2021.1993175
• Seim, J. (2021) ‘Participant Observation, Observant      Participation, and Hybrid Ethnography’, Sociological Methods &      Research. DOI: 10.1177/0049124120986209.

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ResDance Series 6: Episode 9: Advocating and celebrating dance research with Louisa Petts

Louisa joins ResDance for a second episode and shares insight into her PhD research through discussing her research processes and considerations. Through reflecting on her research experiences, we explore ideas around the continued need for advocacy in research, the value of person centeredness in dance practice and the importance of imploring researchers to question the decisions they make and to explore ways of facilitating research and teaching practice. Sharing honest reflections on her PhD journey thus far, Louisa explores her identity and positionality as a researcher and her ongoing experience of importantly finding the confidence to staking a claim as a dance researcher. 

Louisa is a postgraduate researcher at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University. Her PhD thesis is titled, ‘All dance is legitimate: an advocation and celebration of person-centred older adult dance practice’. She is the recipient of the Arts and Humanities Research Council studentship award, offered by Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership. Her research interests broadly concern person-centred dance practices, that work to empower and include disadvantaged and marginalised communities. She has worked as a community dance artist for people living with dementia and Parkinson’s. She lives with mild/moderate hearing loss and is currently learning British Sign Language (BSL). In 2019, Louisa graduated with a Distinction in MSc Dance Science from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, and with First Class Honours in BA Dance Studies from the University of Roehampton in 2018. She currently works as a lecturer at bbodance, and as editorial manager for the Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices. 

Contact details:

Instagram: lou_petts

Link to any published resources:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/louisa-petts-1702

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ResDance Series 8: Episode 4: Thinking differently about training practices and the value of health care within dance with Steven McRae

In this episode, Steven reflects upon his experiences as a professional dancer and Principal of The Royal Ballet.  We position our conversation around the recently aired documentary “Steven McRae: Dancing Back to the Light”, which documents Steven’s journey with rehabilitation and return from injury. He reflects upon the revolutionary work of the Royal Ballet and a new sense of value he places on the role of scientific and embodied knowledge in underpinningand informing his practice.  Steven advocates the need for open dialogue and conversation around practices within dance and a greater accessibility of health provision within the sector.  Throughout the episode, he reflects upon the hope he holds for a greater sharing of experiences and the opportunity for a cultural shift in the training and workload practices of dancers.

Australian dancer Steven McRae is a Principal of The Royal Ballet. He joined The Royal Ballet School on a Prix de Lausanne scholarship in 2003. He graduated into The Royal Ballet in 2004 and was promoted to First Artist in 2005, Soloist in 2006,First Soloist in 2008 and Principal in 2009. McRae was born in Sydney and trained with Hilary Kaplan and at The Royal Ballet School. He won the 2002 Adeline Genée Gold Medal and the 2003 Prix de Lausanne. His roles with The Royal Ballet include all the classical repertory and leading roles in works by choreographers including Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, David Bintley, William Forsythe, Kenneth MacMillan, Alastair Marriott, Wayne McGregor, LiamScarlett and Christopher Wheeldon. His role creations include Magician/Mad Hatter (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Jack (Sweet Violets), Sandman (Hansel and Gretel), Florizel (The Winter’s Tale), Emble (The Age of Anxiety), Creature (Frankenstein) and roles in Three Songs – Two Voices, Children of Adam, Chroma, Acis and Galatea (Royal Opera), 24 Preludes, The Human Seasons, Tetractys, Connectome, Woolf Works, Multiverse, The Illustrated Farewell, Yugen and concerto pour deux. 

McRae has performed as a guest artist with companies including American Ballet Theatre, National Ballet of Canada, Australian Ballet, Tokyo Ballet and at numerous international galas. His awards include the 2006 Emerging Male Artist (Classical) and the 2011 Best Male Dancer awards at the Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. In 2014 he was named Young Australian Achiever in the UK by the Australia Day Foundation. 

https://www.rbo.org.uk/people/steven-mcrae

Photo Credit: ‘Ballet Nights’

Contact details:

Instagram @stevenmcrae

Other social media platforms:

@royalballetandopera@verdensballetten

@a_resilient_man.film

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Series 1 - Episode 1: Researching Site Dance with Dr Vicky Hunter

Vicky Hunter discusses her own methodology for site-based body practice as a mode of exploring site synergies. Alongside sharing her processes for creating work, Vicky shares insights on the theoretical frameworks that more widely inform her practice-based research.  

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About Vicky 

Vicky is a Practitioner-Researcher and Reader in Site Dance and Choreography at the University of Chichester. 

Contact: v.hunter@chi.ac.uk

Website: https://vickyhunter.weebly.com 

Staff Profile: https://www.chi.ac.uk/staff/dr-victoria-hunter

Academia.edu address: https://chi.academia.edu/VictoriaHunter

Recent Publications

Monograph publication 'Site, Dance and Body: Movement, Materials and Corporeal Engagement' (2021) is now available from Palgrave, follow this link: click here

Special Edition of Choreographic Practices journal (co editor) on 'Dancing Urbanisms':

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/chor/2019/00000010/00000001/art00001 

Co authored book publication with Karen Barbour and Melanie Kloetzel on site dance follow this link:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Positioning-Site-Dance-Global-Perspectives/dp/1783209984

For details of edited volume Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance follow this link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moving-Sites-Investigating-Site-Specific-Performance/dp/0415713250/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430142634&sr=1-1&keywords=moving+sites

ResDance S2: Episode 3: Practices of care: themes of autonomy in the context of dance

Grace Nicol and Temi Ajose Cutting offer insight into their shared experiences as artists, alongside their current research practices and interests. Through revealing their processes and ways of working, they discuss their shared interest of supporting the wellbeing and needs of dancers both inside and outside of the studio. In this open dialogue, they question the autonomy of the performer, the power dynamics of inviting people to be seen, and invite listeners to consider where power and responsibility lie within these exchanges.  

In this episode, they discuss the practice-based collaborative project, Slip Mould Slippery, concerned with body, object and space relations and the power structures that exist around these ideas, exploring how to dismantle these structures through movement practice. This is supported by a new pastoral care offer where they are attempting to redefine the way choreographers work with freelance dance artists.

Grace Nicol 

Grace Nicol is a London-based choreographer, movement director, and activist. Her choreographic work has been shown predominantly in gallery and museum contexts in London and nationally including; London College of Fashion, Hackney Showroom, Performance Space, NN Contemporary, Tate Modern, V&A Museum, Guest Projects. She has also worked on commercial projects/film (including BBC, NTS, Chivas Regal, i-D, Christian Louboutin). She’s a visiting lecturer and provide mentoring, workshops & talks for institutions/community groups (LCDS, Dance4, AMATA, London Bubble’s Creative Homes etc). She has been featured in various media publications (Hunger, Dazed, Arts Professional).

Contact details:

Instagram: @gracebnciol

Website: www.grace-nicol.com/

Temitope Ajose Cutting

Temitope Ajose Cutting is a Bonnie Bird Choreography Award winner (2005) and has created and staged works for venues such as Royal Opera House and ROH2. She has been commissioned by The Place Prize Bloomberg, dance producer Eckhard Thiemann at Woking Dance. Her works have been performed at DanceXchange, RichMix, Dancebase in Edinburgh, Swindon Dance and the Soho Joyce (New York). As a dancer Temitope has worked with Punchdrunk, director Carrie Cracknell at The Gate Theatre and The National, Theo Clinkard and Protein Dance Company (Critally acclaimed Border Tales 2014-2018 creation of En Route 2021) Darcy Wallace at the V&A, Lea Anderson, Joe Moran, Sue Maclaine and Seke Chimutengwende and most recently Lost Dog's A Tale of Two Cities. Temitope also engages with movement direction (Old Vic and National Theatre). In addition to this she has been part of the performance team restaging Joan Jonas retrospective at the Tate Modern, working with choreographer and curator Nefeli Skarmea for artist Megan Rooney at the Serpentine Pavilion and now collaborates with Megan Rooney for her solo shows at Kunsthalle Germany and most recently the Lyon Bianale.  Temitope continues to make her own work producing a work at The Southbank in collaboration with critically acclaimed writer Jay Bernard My Name is my Own 2019 and the creation of her solo work Lady M (at home with Lady Macbeth) Choreodrome 2021.

Contact details:

Email: temi.group11@gmail.com

Instagram: @temitope_ajosecutting 

Virginia Farman discusses the methodological approaches used when creating work and shares insight into her current PhD practice.  We discuss the challenges researchers face during the research process and consider how dancers can reveal a vulnerability and understanding of a place.

Virginia is an artist- researcher and senior lecturer in dance and choreography at the University of Chichester. Her work is most usually associated with directing across a range of non-theatre locations and diverse situations. Virginia’s current PhD research draws on a portfolio of productions that use, dance, choreographic compositional and somatic practices, to cultivate dynamic exchanges between dancers and outdoor environments.

Contact: v.farman@chi.ac.uk

Links to recent works: https://vimeo.com/user45294792

Social Media: @vfarman1

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