Ann Cooper Albright is Professor and Chair of Dance at Oberlin College and President of the Society of Dance History Scholars. Combining her interests in movement and cultural theory, she is involved in teaching a variety of courses and workshops that seek to engage participants in both practices and theories of the body. She is the author of Engaging Bodies: the Politics and Poetics of Corporeality (2013), which won the Selma Jeanne Cohen Prize from the American Society for Aesthetics; Modern Gestures: Abraham Walkowitz Draws Isadora Duncan Dancing (2010); Traces of Light: Absence and Presence in the Work of Loie Fuller (2007); Choreographing Difference: the Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance (1997). The book, Encounters with Contact Improvisation (2010), is the product of one of her adventures in writing and dancing and dancing and writing with others. Her new book is entitled How to Land: Finding Ground in an Unstable World (2019).
Tamara Ashley's research investigates the practices of dance improvisation in the context of environmental change. Her work has included several durational site responsive performances, including a 31 day performance of the Pennine Way National Trail with fellow artist, Simone Kenyon. She is particularly interested in the ethical dimensions of ecological dance practices. Tamara's work also draws upon her work as a yoga teacher and somatic practitioner, with a strong emphasis in encouraging rigorous practices of first person enquiry for cultivating well-being and human development. She recently served as a guest editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and chaired the wellbeing and mindfulness group as part of the Climate Change Collaborations Conference. She directs the MA Dance Performance and Choreography programme at the University of Bedfordshire.
Fiona Bannon is Senior Lecturer in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, UK where she teaches courses in research practice, performance and collaborative enterprise and choreography. Fiona is currently the Chair of DanceHE, the representative body for dance in higher education in the UK. As the Chair of World Dance Alliance-Europe she is also a member of the Global Executive of World Dance Alliance. Her career includes time working as a Dance Animateur in the UK and Australia, and more recently as the Head of the School of Arts, University of Hull. Now based at The University of Leeds her research interests include exploration of creative practice, collaboration in art making and learning through arts.
Robert Bingham is an improviser, scholar and teacher living in Philadelphia, where he is a doctoral fellow in dance at Temple University. His dances have been presented throughout the eastern U.S., Canada and Mexico, and he has studied with and performed in works by Ishmael Houston-Jones, Jennifer Monson, Diego Piñon and Merián Soto. His articles on dance and somatics appear in Moving Consciously, Dance and the Quality of Life and elsewhere. In 2013 he received a Fulbright Scholar Award to initiate an interdisciplinary arts laboratory in Berlin. At the time of this writing, Robert is completing his dissertation entitled "Improvising Meaning in the Age of Humans."
Melinda Buckwalter is the author of Composing While Dancing: An Improvisers Companion and co-editor of Contact Quarterly, the dance and improvisation journal since 2005. At Earthdance, the artist-run dance workshop and retreat center, she co-curated the SEEDS Festival of Arts and Ecology and Place [Maker] Space, an interdisciplinary residency. She studied somatics and improvisation with Anatomical Release Technique pioneer Nancy Topf and received her MFA in dance at Bennington College in Bennington, VT. Currently, she is a Fulbright postgraduate scholar in dance anthropology at Roehampton University in London, England. www.melindabuckwalter.com
Jane Carr trained and worked as a ballet dancer before studying at Laban and later at Roehampton University. A founder member of quiet, a collaborative artists' group, Jane also worked for over fifteen years at Morley College, south east London, to provide opportunities for adults and young people to participate in dance. More recently Jane was Head of Studies at Central School of Ballet and lectured at Laban and the University of Lincoln before moving to the University of Bedford, where she is principal Lecturer in Dance.
Kerry Chappell is Senior Lecturer at University of Exeter in the UK, where she is MA Education: Creative Arts Pathway leader and Secondary Dance PGCE Deputy Programme Leader. As part of co-leading the Centre for Creativity, Sustainability and Educational Futures, her research focuses on creativity in education, specifically in the arts (prioritising dance), and how creativity contributes to educational futures debates e.g. in digital environments and science education (e.g. Kerry is PI for the EU-funded H2020 CREATIONs project). Kerry is also interested in the development of methodologies for participatory research. She is a Trustee of the regional organisation Dance in Devon. Her work is informed by her current practice as a dance artist with Devon-based Dancelab Collective, past work as an education manager, and ongoing experience of being a mum to her two children.
Kent de Spain is a US-based movement/multimedia artist who has taught workshops and intensives in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He has performed internationally and toured to such venues as Judson Church, Jacob's Pillow, and the Painted Bride. He is particularly recognized for his research and writing on movement improvisation, including his essay in the book "Taken by Surprise," his feature-length documentary film, A Moving Presence: Ruth Zaporah and Action Theater, his book Landscape of the Now: A Topography of Movement Improvisation, and essays in Contact Quarterly and Choreographic Practices.
Thomas F. DeFrantz is director of SLIPPAGE: Performance, Culture, Technology. He has authored many books including: Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance (2002), Dancing Revelations Alvin Ailey's Embodiment of African American Culture (2004), Black Performance Theory, co-edited with Anita Gonzalez (2014), Choreography and Corporeality: Relay in Motion, co-edited with Philipa Rothfield (2016). Creative: Queer Theory! An Academic Travesty commissioned by the Theater Offensive of Boston and the Flynn Center for the Arts; fastDANCEpast, created for the Detroit Institute for the Arts; reVERSE-gesture-reVIEW commissioned by the Nasher Museum in response to the work of Kara Walker, January, 2017. Convenor, Black Performance Theory, and Collegium for African Diaspora Dance. Curation: afroFUTUREqu##r with niv ACOSTA at Jack, October, 2015; National Black Arts Festival Dance Focus, 2015. Teaching: American Dance Festival, ImpuseTanz, the New Waves Dance Institute, as well as MIT, Stanford, Yale, NYU, Hampshire College, and the University of Nice.
Evan D. Dorn received his Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems from Caltech in 2005, performing original research in astrobiology, artificial life, and the mathematics of chemical evolution. His work has been published in Icarus, Journal of Molecular Evolution, and Astrobiology. For twenty years, he was the founder and CEO of the software development company Logical Reality Design, Inc., and is interested in applying his background in perception and neuroscience to other fields.
Sally Doughty has choreographed, taught and performed since the early 90s in USA, Latvia, Mexico, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Estonia and the UK. She is published variously and has developed an international reputation as a facilitator and performer of improvisational practices, representing the UK in an on-line conversation with improvisers from Australia and India. Sally is produced by Dance4 (UK) and funded by Arts Council England to make improvised dance performance for middle-scale venues, hosting the 'Dance Improvisation: The Estranged Cousin' symposium (2016) to explore the status of and challenges involved in making improvised dance for larger venues. She is co-researcher in two projects: 'The identity of hybrid dance artist-academics working across academia and the professional arts sector', and 'Body of Knowledge' that promotes the dancer's body as a living archive. Sally is Head of Dance at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she also leads MA/MFA Performance Practices and MA Arts.
Lisa Dowler (MA, SME) is an in independent dance artist, researcher and Somatic Movement Educator. She has 20 years experience in facilitating dance, movement and performance in diverse contexts including community, professional and Higher Education and is the Artistic Director of Small Things Dance Collective. In 2006 she was invited to be the first Dance Artist in Residence at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool, one of the largest Children's Hospitals in Europe. The success of this work has led to a long-term relationship with Alder Hey in both practice development and research. Her practice is underpinned by her studies in the experiential anatomy of Body-Mind Centering® and relational movement practices including Contact Improvisation and Capoeira. Lisa is fascinated by the developmental process and her experience and discovery about movement, creativity and perception is greatly enhanced by witnessing this fluid process through her two daughters.
Colleen Dunagan, Ph.D. is Professor of Dance at California State University, Long Beach. Her research has been published in Dance Research Journal, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre (2015), and The International Journal of Arts in Society. With Roxane Fenton, she has contributed chapters to The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen (2014) and Movies, Moves and Music (2016). Her current book manuscript examines intersections of dance, affect and identity within television advertising. Dunagan has studied contact improvisation with artists such as KJ Holmes and Carolyn Stuart.
Alison (Ali) East (MPHED) is a New Zealand dance artist and educator at The University of Otago, New Zealand teaching Choreography, Contemporary dance history, Somatics, and Community dance. In 1980, with poet and musician Denys Trussell, she founded Origins Dance Theatre and has made more than 25 eco-political inter-disciplinary dance works. Ali is the co-ordinator of Dancespeak Dunedin and the annual Shared Agendas Improvised Performance Events - celebrating their twentieth year. From 1989-1996 she founded and directed New Zealand's first choreographic programme, now Bachelor of Performing and Screen Arts, (Unitec, Auckland) training many of New Zealand's dance artists. A regular conference presenter she has published several journal articles and book chapters including her book 'Teaching Dance as if the World Matters: A Design for Teaching Dance-making in the 21st Century' (2011). Her research interests include: Intuitive dance processes and teaching; Dance and Transdisciplinarity; Trans-locational (situated) Teaching and Learning; Dance, Place and Identity.
Hilary Elliott was born in Adelaide, Australia, and grew up in Canberra where she studied ballet and contemporary dance, worked with the Canberra Dance Theatre and gained a BA (Hons) in English and Drama from the Australian National University. She was the recipient of Australia's prestigious Pilkington/Leeds University/Commonwealth Office Scholarship in 1992 and went on to achieve a Masters in Theatre Studies with Distinction at the University of Leeds. She has directed, choreographed and performed in dozens of productions in small-scale touring and educational contexts in England and Australia. Whilst living in Melbourne, she encountered improvisation as a performance form and went on to study with Al Wunder, Peter Trotman and Andrew Morrish. She has performed regularly in Australia and overseas in solo, duet and ensemble formats and written and presented on improvisatory practices in a range of international contexts. She is currently writing a book on Al Wunder.
Roxane L. Fenton received her Ph.D. from the University of California Riverside. She has co-authored articles on Dirty Dancing and Across the Universe with Colleen Dunagan. She taught dance history and appreciation at several colleges and universities in the United States. Roxane studied improvisation with Susan Rose, Susan Foster, and Wendy Rodgers, contact improvisation with Caroline Waters, and taught improvisation at California State University, Long Beach. She has performed improvisationally in Los Angeles and Riverside, California.
April Flakne is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The New College of Florida. Her work centers on phenomenology with special attention to ethics, politics, and dance theory. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Hypatia, New German Critique, and Philosophy Today and she is completing a monograph on intercorporeity and ethical life.
Sondra Fraleigh is professor emeritus at the State University of New York (SUNY Brockport), a Fulbright Scholar and award-winning author of eight books, including Moving Consciously: Somatic Transformations through Dance, Yoga, and Touch (2015); BUTOH: Metamorphic Dance and Global Alchemy (2010); Land to Water Yoga (2008); Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo (2006); Dancing Identity: Metaphysics in Motion (2004); Dancing into Darkness: Butoh, Zen, and Japan (1999); Researching Dance: Evolving Modes of Inquiry (1998); and Dance and the Lived Body (1987). She has published numerous chapters on culture, ecology and cognitive psychology. Fraleigh was Chair of the Department of Dance at SUNY Brockport, later Head of Graduate Dance Studies and also selected as a university-wide Faculty Exchange Scholar. She received the Outstanding Service to Dance Award from CORD in 2003. Her choreography has been shown internationally. She held teaching fellowships at Ochanomizu University in Tokyo and the University of Baroda in India, and is the founder of Eastwest Somatics Institute.
Doran George PhD is a cultural historian writing on sexual culture, avant-garde dance, and performance art. They are currently writing a book that will be the first critical history of 'Somatic' training's on contemporary dance. Doran is also a performance artist and choreographer who deconstructs socio-political identity categories, stages work that builds micro-communities, and cultivates radical practices of intimacy. They stage work in arts and non-arts contexts, which has included working with people facing bereavement and terminal illness. George's artwork and scholarship is represented in art books, Oxford University Press anthologies, and journals. They currently lecture in Dance, Disability Studies and LGBTQ Studies at UCLA, and teach erotic work in art and sex-positive contexts. Doran also engages in public scholarship through writing and symposia that they produce, and they mentor artists such as through California's Choreographers In Mentorship Exchange program and London's Wellcome Trust.
Ivar Hagendoorn is a freelance choreographer, photographer and researcher. His research applies insights from philosophy, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, mathematics and sociology to the study of art in general and dance and choreography in particular. In 2004 he created an evening-long production for the Ballett Frankfurt. He holds an MSc in econometrics and an MA in philosophy (both from Erasmus University Rotterdam), an MA in Latin American Literature from University College London and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Tilburg University. In his spare time he works as a risk manager with a large multinational bank. For more information visit: www.ivarhagendoorn.com.
Stephanie Hanna is a visual artist and performer. She is researching the range of possible meanings and interpretations of objects and images through shifting their constellations, as well as of specific social situations through engaging with (often antagonistic) counterparts. By doing so, she is learning more about different perspectives on the world and the relations we live in. Stephanie´s artistic works and interventions most often take place in public space, in surprising, unannounced and unframed ways. She is curating a big and previously unused window space on the back side of a department store in the heart of Berlin-Neukölln with nonchalant artistic installations and performances that are accessible for a diverse public of passers-by. She realized works in collaboration with art institutions such as Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Akademie Remscheid and Autostadt Wolfsburg and with established art festivals and art spaces across Berlin and Europe.
Victoria Hunter is a practitioner-researcher and Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Chichester, U.K. Her practice-based research explores site-specific dance performance and the body-self's relationship with space and place encountered through corporeal, material, spatial and kinetic engagement with lived environments. Her work on site-dance has been published in New Theatre Quarterly, Performance Research, Literary Geographies and Contemporary Theatre Review. Her edited volume Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance was published by Routledge in 2015. She is co-author of (Re) Positioning Site-Dance (2018) with Melanie Kloetzel (Canada) and Karen Barbour (New Zealand).
Dimitris Karalis studied music at the Ateneum Conservatory (Flute Class of Stella Gadedi) and Nakas Conservatory. He holds a BA Department of History and Archaeology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and an MA in Advanced Theater Practice from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. As a theatre and sound director he has worked with many international artists including Lee Breuer to produce Aeschylus' Libation Bearers (commissioned by Patras Cultural Capital of Europe 2006) and as music director and composer for Theatre enCorps's new circus project We Implicated and Complicated, choreographed by Ana Sanchez-Colberg and developed with the Circus Department of the University of the Arts, Stockholm (2007). He is currently in the faculty of the Theatre Arts programme at Deree- The American College of Greece, contributing to the modules on Voice and Speech, Dramaturgy, Performance Practice and Sound Design.
Michael Kimmel is a full-time researcher at the University of Vienna, where he earned his PhD in 2002. Trained in cognitive linguistics and cognitive anthropology, he extensively published on metaphor, imagery, socio-cultural embodiment, and gesture. In the past 10 years he turned to interaction research, taking interest in the prerequisites of successful joint improvisation and creativity in fields as diverse as Aikido, Tango argentino, Contact improvisation dance, Shiatsu, and the Feldenkrais Method. He developed methods that help experts explicate their perception, action, and decision making skills, aided by think-alouds, video feedback, and an on-site experimental dialogue between researchers and experts. This work is situated with the "4E" (enactive, embodied, extended, and embedded) cognition paradigm; it focuses on how experts coordinate, build synergies, adapt, invite novelty, and cope with complexity, as well as on the comparison of skill systems. Dr. Kimmel also explores convergences between first-person data and biomechanics.
Larry Lavender is Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts in the School of Visual and Performing arts, and Faculty Fellow in the Lloyd International Honors College at UNC Greensboro. Larry's areas of research and teaching are choreography, dance criticism, creativity theories and practices, and critical animal studies in the arts. He has presented artistic and scholarly works throughout the United States and in many parts of the world.
Amy LaViers is an Assistant Professor in Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia. She studies movement and dance through the lens of robotics and control theory. In particular, she has developed a quantitative definition of "style" for movement and a way of interpreting this notion of style for robotic implementation. Her framework identifies specific parameters that, when varied, change the high-level style of the movement produced by the framework. She completed her Ph.D. at Georgia Institute of Technology in 2013, and her research first began in a senior thesis at Princeton University where she earned a certificate in Dance and bachelors degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She is also a dancer and choreographer and creates work in this vein synergistically with her research, such as a contemporary dance show entitled "Automaton" that was presented as part of her dissertation in Atlanta, GA and a movement score that was used for a performance in Charlottesville, VA "A Dance Score for the Downtown Mall.''
Irven Lewis' initial experience of dancing was through his local community in Leeds where he experimented with improvisational street jazz styles. He later auditioned for the Urdang Academy in London, winning a three-year scholarship. At college he was awarded the Choreographic Cup by David Bintley while also further developing his reputation as a jazz dancer. Irven was a founder member of the company, Brothers in Jazz that combined jazz with ballet, contemporary and a range of other forms. After touring extensively with Brothers in Jazz, the formation of Irven Lewis Dance Theatre led to further choreographic exploration for which Irven received a Dance UK/ ADAD Trailblazer Fellowship in 2004/5. In addition to his work as a dancer and chorographer, Irven is also a respected dance photographer.
Josephine Machon is Associate Professor in Contemporary Performance at Middlesex University, London. She is the author of Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance (2013), (Syn)aesthetics: Redefining Visceral Performance (2009, 2011), and has published widely on experiential and immersive performance. Josephine is Joint Editor for The Palgrave Macmillan Series in Performance & Technology. Her broad research interests address the audience in immersive theatres and the creative intersections of theory and practice in experiential performance.
Louise McDowall is a dance artist and academic whose interest concerns transdisciplinary ways of working which open avenues of knowledge that advocate and critically engage with dance and body-based practices. In 2014, she completed her PhD entitled Experiencing Dance Improvisation as a 'Conversational Dynamic' at the University of Leeds, and continues to explore the inclusion of hybrid writing practices and 'languaging' within dance pedagogical training. Louise's current research explores the impact of movement and physical activity interventions upon the health and wellbeing of young/elderly people from deprived communities, and within palliative care settings, through ethnographic and qualitative approaches. She also has a strong inclusive community dance practice honed over 12 years working in educational, outreach, and community settings, specialising in early years, adults with learning/physical disabilities, the elderly (including people living with dementia/care home residents) and the development of cultural exchanges through performance projects between Alderney and France.
Vida L Midgelow, dance artist/academic, is Professor of Choreographic Practice at Middlesex University, UK. She has over 20 years experience facilitating and lecturing in performance. Her movement and video work has been shown internationally and she publishes her research in professional, online and academic journals. As a movement artist her work focuses upon somatic approaches to dance training, improvisation and articulating choreographic processes. Recent works include: Scratch, Home (a replacing); Skript; ScreenBody and Voice (a retracing). Some relevant essays include: Nomadism and Ethics in/as Improvised Movement Practices (Critical Studies in Improvisation, 2012) and Sensualities: dancing/writing/experiencing, (New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, 2013) and Improvisation as paradigm for Phenomenologies (forthcoming in Fraleigh) She also enjoys mentoring and undertakes dramaturgical, curatorial and consultancy roles for artists and organisations. These facilitative activities combine with her own research within the framework of the Choreographic Lab, of which she is co-director (with Professor Jane Bacon). Extending these interests Midgelow and Bacon also co-edit the hybrid peer reviewed journal, Choreographic Practices, published with Intellect. The summer 2014 issue this journal includes a co-authored essay (with Bacon) that outlines their Creative Articulations Process (CAP), which is designed to support artistic practices and (self)-reflexivity.
Clare Parfitt is a Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Chichester, UK. Her research focuses on the cultural histories of popular dance practices, particularly the cancan. She is UK Chair of PoP Moves, an international working group to develop research into popular performance. From 2014-2016 Clare was an AHRC Leadership Fellow directing the project 'Dancing with Memory', which explored the relationship between popular dance and cultural memory via the case study of the cancan. Clare has co-authored the books Planning Your PhD and Completing Your PhD, and published in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen (2014) and Bodies of Sound: Studies Across Popular Music and Dance (2013).
Gary Peters is Professor of Philosophy and Performance in the School of Performance and Media Production at York St John University. His main area of research is continental philosophy and aesthetics with particular reference to improvisation and performance. His book Irony and Singularity: Aesthetic Education from Kant to Levinas was published in 2005 by Routledge. His second book, The Philosophy of Improvisation was published in 2009 by the University of Chicago Press. His latest book: Improvising Improvisation: From Out Of Music, Dance and Literature was published in 2017 by The University of Chicago Press. Other recent publications include: 'Improvisation and Time Consciousness', in The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (2016); and 'Certainty, Contingency and Improvisation', in The Journal Of Critical Improvisation Studies (2013). He is a multi-instrumentalist, improviser and composer working across a broad range of genres.
Susanne Ravn is Associate professor and Head of the research unit Body, Culture and Society at the Department of Sport Science and Biomechanics, the University of Southern Denmark. In her research, she critically explores the embodied insights of different movement practices - especially dance practices - and actively deals with the interdisciplinary challenges of employing phenomenological thinking into the analysis of these practices. She is the author of several books in Danish and English and has published her research in journals related to phenomenology, qualitative research methods in sport, exercise and health, dance research and sociological analysis of embodied experiences. She is the author of several books and has published in journals related to phenomenology, dance, sports and sociology. She has been the president of the Nordic Forum for Dance Research (NOFOD) and since 2014 part of the executive Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS) board.
Allison Robbins is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Central Missouri, where she teaches courses in musicology and ethnomusicology. Her articles on music and dance in Hollywood musicals appear in Journal of the Society for American Music and Studies in Musical Theatre. Her current book project focuses on the mediatization of Broadway song and dance in the Hollywood studios.
Janice Ross is Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies Department, and Faculty Director, ITALIC, a residential arts immersion program at Stanford University. Her research interests focus on the role of dance in shaping and mediating social change globally, historically, and in the contemporary moment. She is the author of four books the most recent of which is Like A Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia, (2015) named one of the ten best dance books of 2015. Her previous books include; San Francisco Ballet at 75 (2007), Anna Halprin: Experience as Dance, (2007), and Moving Lessons: Margaret H'Doubler and The Beginning of Dance in American Education, (2001). Her Dance Studies essays have been published in numerous anthologies. She is the winner of the CORD 2015 Award for Outstanding Scholarly Research in Dance. Her awards also include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Scholar Fellowship to Israel and two Stanford Humanities Center Fellowships.
Philipa Rothfield (PhD) is adjunct professor in philosophy of the body and dance at the University of Southern Denmark, and honorary Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She writes on philosophy of the body in relation to dance through the work of Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Klossowski, Ravaisson and Deleuze. She has recently published chapters on dance and philosophy in The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, 2nd edition (Routledge), Somatechnics (Ashgate), Performance and Phenomenology (Routledge), and Art and Ethics (Springer). Alongside these commitments, she has engaged in an ongoing but intermittent performance project with Russell Dumas (director Dance Exchange, Australia). Her recent forays into dance improvisation have been facilitated and guided by Alice Cummins. She is co-convenor of the Choreography and Corporeality working group, with Aoife McGrath and Prarthana Purkayastha (International Federation of Theatre Research). She is a dance reviewer for RealTime Magazine, an Australian arts magazine, Momm Magazine (Korea), head of the Editorial Board for the Dancehouse Diary, and Creative Advisor for Dancehouse, Melbourne.
Ana Sánchez-Colberg, BA (Hons), MFA, PHD is a choreographer, dancer and scholar with an extensive track record of dance production and academic publications. She is director of award winning dance theatre company Theatre enCorps with whom she has toured internationally since the company was established in 1989. She has served as coordinator of the MA European Dance Theatre Practice at Trinity/ Laban (2002-2005), Course Leader of the MA Performance Practices & research and PhD & Research Degrees at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2005-2009), and (Visiting) Professor of Choreography and Composition at the University Dance and Circus Stockholm (2007-2013). She is currently Head of Theatre Arts and Dance at Deree- The American College of Greece. For a comprehensive list of works and publications see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Sanchez-Colberg>
Malaika Sarco-Thomas is Head of Department of Dance Studies at the University of Malta's School of Performing Arts. Previously she coordinated Dance Performance and Choreography courses at Falmouth University and Dartington College of Arts, and developed her PhD in collaboration with P.A.R.T.S., researching the potential of improvisation technologies to facilitate developments in environmental perception. With Richard Sarco-Thomas she co-organizes Contact Festival Dartington, an international gathering and platform for exchange in practices of contact and improvisation (www.cfdmalta.com). Co-edited publications include a special issue of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices 'On Contact [and] Improvisation' (2014) with Misri Dey, Performance & Interdisciplinarity: Contemporary Perspectives with Stefan Aquilina (forthcoming 2017), and Thinking Touch: Artistic, Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives on Partnering and Contact Improvisation (forthcoming 2017) with Brandon Shaw. Malaika curates touch + talk, a series of contact improvisation performance dialogues, featured in Warsaw, Falmouth, Freiburg, Cardona, Hungary, Freiburg and Malta (2011-2017).
Barbara Sellers-Young is a Senior Scholar and Professor Emerita at York University where she served as Dean of the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design and Professor in the Department of Dance. She was previously a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, Davis. She has also taught at universities in England, China and Australia. Recent publications include Belly Dance, Pilgrimage and Identity and an edited volume with Anthony Shay, The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity.
Anthony Shay is Associate Professor of Dance and Cultural Studies at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. He received his PhD in Dance History and Theory from UC Riverside, an MA in Anthropology from California State University Los Angeles, an MA in Folklore and Mythology and an MLS from UCLA. He is the author of six monographs and editor or co-editor of four others, the most recent: The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity edited by Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young, and two monographs: The Dangerous Lives of Public Performers: Dance, Sex, and Entertainment in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Ethno Identity Dance for Sex Fun and Profit (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). His book Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power (Wesleyan University Press, 2002) was awarded Outstanding Dance Publication for 2002 by the Congress on Research in Dance. As a choreographer and dancer, he founded the UCLA Village Dancers, which name he changed in 1963 to the AMAN Folk Ensemble. In 1977, he founded the AVAZ International Dance Theatre, which was closed in 2007. He created over 200 choreographies for these companies, and several others.
Stephanie Skura, 'major American experimentalist' & Bessie award-winner, is a choreographer, director, performer, teacher, teacher-trainer and writer. She has performed and taught movement and performance for three decades in sixteen countries. She researches boundaries and intersections of dance, poetry and performance with a deep respect for individual diversity and subconscious realms. Her current work integrates a radically visceral approach to language and voice. In 2008, she instigated Open Source Forms, a practice and Teacher Certification Program addressing deep commonalities and cross-fertilizations of Skinner Releasing Technique and creative process. A BFA and MFA graduate of New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and a former New Yorker directing a touring dance company, she now lives near Seattle & travels frequently. www.stephanieskura@com
Nigel Stewart is a dance artist and scholar. He is Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Contemporary Arts at Lancaster University, is the Artistic Director of Sap Dance, and was Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded project Re-enchantment and Reclamation: New Perceptions of Morecambe Bay Through Dance, Film and Sound (2006-8). He has published many essays on contemporary dance, dance phenomenology and environmental dance; and is co-editor of Performing Nature: Explorations in Ecology and the Arts (Peter Lang 2005). He has danced as a solo artist and for various UK and European choreographers, including Thomas Lehmen, and was a member of the improvisation collective Grace & Danger. Apart from his choreography for Sap Dance, he has worked as a choreographer and director for Artevents, Louise Ann Wilson Company, National Theatre Wales, Theatre Nova, Theatreworks Ltd., Triangle and many other UK companies, and Odin Teatret in Denmark.
Lizzie Swinford is a dance practitioner based in Exeter, in the UK with a background as a dance artist and teacher, working with children and adults in further and higher education. She trained at the London Contemporary Dance School. In the last few years she has begun to focus on dance with Early Years children. Her playful, interactive and interdisciplinary approach has developed through her work with the Devon Carousel Project, involved her in action research and guided her MA studies at the University of Exeter, St Lukes. Lizzie loves to use stories in her practice. This has grown through her work in libraries in her independent project - Flim Flam, with Carousel's Exploratale in collaboration with the visual artist Tamsin Pender, and her collaboration with Pip Jones in their recent work Paper Capers. Find out more about Lizzie's activities at <https://www.facebook.com/flimflam1234/>
Robert Vesty is an artist-scholar based in London. He is a lecturer in Theatre Arts at Middlesex University, a doctoral candidate (Royal Holloway, University of London), and a performer who draws on a training in acting, and a practice in dance. His performance uses improvisation as a tool to make instant compositions and his research is looking at improvised speech in dance or movement-based performance practices. He is a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method. Founder member of TransDisciplinary Improvisation Network (TIN) a research cluster based at Middlesex University. Recent performance work includes: A Piece for Two (Lovers) with Antonio de la Fe (London, 2015); Sand and Vision directed by Julyen Hamilton (Brussels, 2016); ongoing collaboration with a group of dance-artists working as anthologyofamess.
Nalina Wait is a lecturer at Australian College of Physical Education (ACPE) and current PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), researching the nexus of improvised performance practice and somatic intelligence. Her co-authored chapter, with Dr Erin Brannigan, titled (Non) Competitive Body States: Corporeal Freedom and Innovation in Contemporary Dance is due to be published by Oxford University Press. She has presented her research in several symposia: Dance as Experience at Centre de recherché sur les arts et le language (CRAL) at Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris (2015), ASDA Sydney University (2015), Improvisational Practices Symposium at Critical Path (2014), and Cultures of Change at UNSW (2013). She worked as a professional performer for 20 years in award-winning works by Sue Healey, and with Hans Van Den Broeck, Danceworks, Nikki Haywood, Devastation Menu, Sydney Performance Group, Rosalind Crisp, Marina Abramovi?, Joan Jonas, and in many improvisational settings.
Christopher J. Wells is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Arizona State University's Herberger Institute School of Music and Managing Editor of the Journal of Jazz Studies. A social jazz dancer for over a decade, Dr. Wells is currently writing a book about the history of jazz music's ever-shifting relationship with popular dance and has a chapter in the recently published Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity.
Sarah Whatley is Director of the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University, UK. Her research interests extend to dance and new technologies, intangible cultural heritage, somatic dance practice and pedagogy, dance documentation, and inclusive dance practice; she has published widely on these themes. Funded by the AHRC, European Commission, Leverhulme Trust and Wellcome Trust, her current funded research projects focus on the creative reuse of digital cultural content, smart learning environments for dancers, reimagining dance archives and dance documentation, the generative potential of error in dance and HCI, dance and disability, and dancer imagery. She is also founding Editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and sits on the Editorial Boards of several other Journals.
Libby Worth, senior lecturer in theatre practice in the department of Drama, Theatre and Dance, Royal Holloway, University of London, is a movement practitioner trained in the Feldenkrais Method and in dance with Anna Halprin. She co-edited Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist with Richard Cave; has published on Mabel Todd, Caryl Churchill, and Jenny Kemp; co-authored a book on Anna Halprin and another on the work of Jasmin Vardimon (2017). She co-devised performance Step Feather Stitch (2012) with visual artist Julie Brixey-Williams (see Choreographic Practices Vol 3. 2012) and a new dance film duet 'Fold' is near completion. Current research includes interests in time/temporality in performer training with a co-edited book planned for 2018 and in 'folk' dance in border regions and the issues raised for training in relation to amateur practices. She is co-editor with Jonathan Pitches of the journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.
Sheron Wray is an Associate Professor of dance at the University of California, Irvine, receiving her PhD from the University of Surrey, 2016. Within the realm of contemporary dance she was a dancer with flagship dance companies in the UK - London Contemporary Dance Theatre and Rambert Dance Company and she continues to be the custodian of Jane Dudley's timeless solo Harmonica Breakdown, created in 1938. Alongside her scholarly purpose in developing her neo-African improvisation praxis: Embodiology® she continues her long-standing artistic practice as a choreographer and director, choosing neo-African Performance Architect as a more befitting descriptor of her work. Her collaborators include - Gary Grosby, Julian Joseph, Zoe Rahman and Wynton Marsalis. Beyond dance, she directs and choreographs Mojisola Adebayo's work co-creates Texterritory with Fleeta Siegel, a cellphone based interactive performance platform that stimulates audience participation within performance.
I-Ying Wu is an improvisation practitioner and researcher. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Northampton, UK in 2014, and is doing her postdoctoral research at the Improvisation Studies Centre based in the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance, University of Regina. She developed an improvisational movement practice in her practice-led doctoral research from a Daoist perspective of qi - a pathway towards formlessness and Dao understood through improvised movement. Informed by Chinese traditional qigong and Daoist philosophy, her improvisation practice focuses on subtle awareness of the very moment when an improvisational phenomenon emerges.
Norah Zuniga Shaw is an artist, creative director and facilitator focusing on choreographic ideas as catalysts for interdisciplinary and intercultural discovery. She is best known for her award-winning collaborations with animator Maria Palazzi and choreographers William Forsythe, Thomas Hauert and Bebe Miller integrating art and science research. Synchronous Objects flows from dance to data to objects to visualize counterpoint in a masterwork by Forsythe and Motion Bank visualizes the thinking body and dancing mind in performance improvisation. Shaw tours extensively and since 2004 has been based at The Ohio State University where she is Professor and Director for dance and technology in the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design and Department of Dance. Improvisation has been central to Shaw's dancing life since her upbringing in 1970s North American children's dance contexts and serves as the primary mode of investigation and expression in all of her teaching and research.
