ResDance – Details, episodes & analysis

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

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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 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

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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/

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