Dance research: how do we evidence value and the public benefit of dance research?
Chair and Panellists
Chair: Ruth Gibson
Visual artist and choreographer Ruth works across disciplines to produce objects, software, and installations in partnership with artist Bruno Martelli. She exhibits in galleries and museums internationally, creating award-winning projects using computer games, augmented and virtual reality, print and video. Her worldwide commissions include residencies in North America, China, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand, exhibitions at the Barbican Centre, the British Film Institute, Centro de Arte Moderna, Lisbon, Detroit Institute of Arts, and Venice Biennale. Nominated for a BAFTA and recipient of several awards: a Henry Moore Foundation New Commission, a NESTA Innovation Award, an AHRC Creative Fellowship, and in 2015, she won the Lumen Gold Prize. Ruth has over 20 years of experience in technology and transdisciplinary research within higher education and industry sectors at a national and international level. She publishes in journals, recently in Transformations and Performance Research, presenting at conferences: VRUK, TEI, and MOCO. She holds a doctorate in immersive and somatic sensing from RMIT, advocating for the role creative movement plays in performative XR contexts and AI, ML, UX, and UI development. Skinner Releasing Technique underpins her practice – a certified SRT teacher – she combines the technique with her motion capture /performance technology research. Currently Associate Professor in the Centre for Dance Research, she collaborates at Goldsmiths UoL and the Creative Computing Institute UAL on an AI and machine learning project and with dance colleagues at The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance Limerick and Malmö University. She lives and works in London. ruth.gibson@coventry.ac.uk www.gibsonmartelli.com
Rosa Cisneros
Rosa is a researcher, dancer, choreographer, sociologist and curator who works at the Centre for Dance Research (Coventry University) and works closely with the RomArchive, European Hip Hop Studies Network and many NGOs. Cisneros has developed the Romani Dance History course with the Barvalipe University run by ERIAC. She leads various EU-funded projects which aim to make education and arts accessible to vulnerable groups and ethnic minorities, and part of cultural heritage projects that bring dance, site and digital technologies together. Her PhD is in Sociology with a focus on Roma women, intersectionality, dialogic feminism and communicative methodologies and was awarded Summa Cum Laude. She has started her own production company, RosaSenCis Film Production Co., which worked on the Society for Dance Research Oral History Project and also ran the Dancing Bodies in Coventry project. Cisneros’ dance films have screened in the UK, US, Colombia, Mexico, Greece, Cyprus and Germany and her medium-length documentary won best documentary from the UK in 2016. She has also managed major EU-Funded projects and local City of Culture Partnership projects and is organising Hip-Hop conversations looking . She sits on academic Journals as an editorial assistant and those include the Journal for Embodied Practices, International Journal of Romani Studies and OneDance UK’s HOTFOOT Online magazine. ORCID ID.
Rosemary Lee
Known for working in a variety of contexts and media, Rosemary creates large-scale site-specific works with cross-generational casts, solos for herself and other performers, video installations and short films. Her work is characterised by an interest in creating a moving portraiture of the performing individuals and communities she brings together, whilst also exploring and highlighting our relationship with our environment. Her recent work includes Square Dances (Dance Umbrella) involving 150 performers in four London squares, Under the Vaulted Sky – a promenade work for 80 participants in a cathedral of trees for Milton Keynes International Festival, Liquid Gold is the Air (created with Roswitha Chesher) – an award winning video installation touring cathedrals and galleries, Without, a seven-screen video installation capturing a panoramic view of the city of Derry/Londonderry as hundreds of participants move through the streets, Calling Tree (co directed with Simon Whitehead) which takes place in the canopies of urban trees, Passage for Par (Groundwork, Cornwall) a durational work for 30 women slowly crossing tidal sands and Circadian (First Light, Lowestoft beach) a 24 hour durational intergenerational performance of comprising of 24 solos and its development Threaded Fine (Zfin Malta, Valletta Malta) a 5 hour durational work. Rosemary’s work is produced by Artsadmin. She is currently a Work Place affiliate artist, Senior Research Fellow at C-DaRE Coventry University, and holds an Honorary Doctorate from Roehampton University, and an Honorary Fellowship from Trinity Laban. Image credit: Rosemary Lee rehearsing Circadian 2019 photo Nicky Childs.
Emma Redding
Emma is Professor in Performance Science at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London, England. Originally trained as a dancer, she is now Head of Dance Science at Trinity Laban and leads strategically, the education, research and knowledge exchange activity within the department.
Emma was recently one of the Principal Investigators of a Conservatoires UK study into musician health funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which led to the creation of the Healthy Conservatoires Network https://healthyconservatoires.org/ and Co-Investigator of a creativity and imagery study, in collaboration with Plymouth University and Coventry University, UK.
Emma serves on the editorial boards and review committees of several national and international research journals and funding councils and is currently Associate Editor for two international academic journals. She serves on advisory and expert panels and boards and offers consultancy to other higher education institutions in Europe, Asia and the United States on curricula development
Dan Daw
Dan identifies as a Queer, Crip (disabled) artist and develops work at the intersection of theatre, dance and activism. Dan is interested in what it means for the disabled body to occupy and be unapologetic in non-disabled spaces and the function of care and interdependence in those spaces . Dan has worked with companies: Australian Dance Theatre (AUS), Force Majeure (AUS), FRONTLINEdance (UK), Scottish Dance Theatre (UK), balletLORENT (UK), Candoco Dance Company (UK) and Skånes Dansteater (SWE). Choreographers: Kat Worth, Garry Stewart, Kate Champion, Janet Smith, Adam Benjamin, Wendy Houstoun, Sarah Michelson, Rachid Ouramdane, Nigel Charnock, Matthias Sperling/Carlos Motta, Marc Brew, Claire Cunningham, Martin Forsberg, Carl Olof Berg, Dinis Machado & Javier de Frutos.