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: [email protected]

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 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: [email protected]

Instagram: @temitope_ajosecutting 

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: [email protected]

Google scholar profile:

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

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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: [email protected]

Website: www.theastantondance.com

Instagram: @thea_tre

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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: [email protected]

Websites:

http://www.senselab.ca

http://www.erinmovement.com

http://www.inflexions.org

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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: [email protected]

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: [email protected]

Twitter: @drschniff @SupraChem @SupraLab1

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: [email protected]

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 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: [email protected]

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

Instagram: @sherrildodds

Facebook: @sherrildodds

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: [email protected]

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

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: [email protected]

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