Roehampton University
Open Spaces. Open Minds.
Centre for Dance Research (CDR)
Events
Dance lecturers feature on BBC website
Dr Ann David, Senior Lecturer in Dance, has provided the commentary for a new BBC audio slideshow on Tamil dance in the UK.
The slideshow looks at the traditional Indian dance Bharatanatyam and explores how its renewed popularity is helping Tamil girls keep their culture and religious heritage alive. Dr David gives an expert critique of the dance's technique, style and performance.
View the audio slideshow on the BBC website.
The BBC website also shows Stephanie Jordan, Research Professor in Dance at Roehampton University, discussing Stravinsky Ballets at the Proms on Tuesday 28 July.
Dance History: Politics, Practices and Perspectives
13 March 2010
This one day symposium is a collaboration between the Centre for Dance Research and the Society for Dance Research. Details will follow shortly.
Dance Seminars
Student Seminar Sessions
Saturday March 20th 2010
10 am – 5 pm, PhD student presentations and session with Mark Franko. Duchesne: DU 001
Research Seminars
Mark Franko, Professor, Bard College, New York
March 25th, 2010 at 6pm
Title tbc.
Venue: Michaelis Theatre
Autumn Term
Amita Nijhawan: Squatting in London: Contemporary South Asian Dance in the Diaspora.
Thursday November 12: Duchene, DU.001.
This article analyzes works by contemporary South Asian choreographers, asking questions about the politics of their placement in the London dance scene, their co-mingling of contemporary and classical techniques, their circulation of South Asian signs, and their implication in global cultural traffic. These choreographers challenge notions of self and other, inside and outside, tradition and modernity, while at the same time they use orientalist and exotic signs to bring South Asian dance from the periphery to the centre.
Simon Ellis: Hands that don’t want anything (dancing with Kirstie Simson)
Thursday November 26: Duchene, DU.001.
Hands that don’t want anything (dancing with Kirstie Simson) is a mediated dialogue between my artistic-scholarly practice, and the work of acclaimed dance improviser Kirstie Simson. In this performative-presentation, I will focus on the profound corporeal exchange between certainty and uncertainty proposed by any form of improvisation, but that is explicitly honed and articulated in Simson’s teaching and performative practice. Part of this exchange involves, in Simson’s words, the “tremendous intelligence” of presence, and how presence might “resound in the performance space” (Simson, 2008).
The central component of Hands that don’t want anything (dancing with Kirstie Simson) will be a performed account of the ongoing collaboration—videographic, corporeal, performative, spoken and written—between Kirstie Simson and myself from 2007 to 2009.
Biography
Simon Ellis is a New Zealand born independent artist whose practice has included site-specific investigations, dance on screen, writing, digital outcomes, black box works, and installation. He has a practice-led PhD (investigating improvisation, remembering, documentation and liveness) and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Dance (Practice-based) at the University of Roehampton. His work Gertrud was a finalist in The Place Prize 2008, and most recently he completed a new screen project, Anamnesis. www.skellis.net.
Dance Research Methods 2009-10
(The research methods sessions are shared with the MA programmes).Monday October 5th 2009
4pm Research Methods 1, Emily Selvidge: Electronic resources for dance research (Library: 3rd floor training suite)
Monday October 26th 2009
4pm Research Methods 2, Millicent Hodson: Visual Sources for Dance
Wednesday October 28th 2009
6pm Research Methods 3, Jane Pritchard: Film and video: issues for researching and reading dance.
Monday November 2nd 2009
2pm Research Methods 5, Larraine Nicholas: Working in archives. Fincham 002
Monday November 16th 2009
4.00 -5.30 pm: Research Methods 4, Andrée Grau: Gathering data: interviews and questionnaires. Fincham 002
Monday November 23rd 2009
9. 30 am Research Methods 6, Ann Hutchinson Guest and Stephanie Jordan: Dance scores: their status and potential for use
11.30 am Research Methods 7, Simon Ellis and Stephanie Jordan: Practice as research
Previous seminars organised by the centre:
Sara Houston, Senior Lecturer in Dance, Roehampton University
January 28, 2010 at 5.45 pm
‘Searching for inclusion in dance’
Social inclusion has been at the forefront of community dance discourse over the past twelve years. The seminar will explore philosophically what inclusion can mean within participatory dance. What is it about dance itself that may allow those who feel disconnected from others to reconnect?
Venue: Michaelis Theatre
Jungrock seo, completing Phd candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
February 11th, 2010 at 6pm
‘Korean roots for the Nasori puzzle: The Meaning of the Silver-Coloured Stick’
This research is animated by curiosity about the features of ancient Korean dance. Ch’ŏyong-mu is the only Korean dance transmitted from the ancient period, and the seminar will draw possible comparisons with the Nasori dance of Japan. The seminar will include a general introduction to ancient Korean dance and the reconstruction/revival movement.
Venue: Duchesne 104.
Student Seminar Autumn Semester 2009
Thursday December 10th 2009
Tamara Tomic-Vajagic, PhD student presentation, 6 pm – 7pm, DU 001:
‘Methodological Issues in the Research of the Ballet Dancer’s Contribution to Selected Non-Narrative Choreography by George Balanchine and William Forsythe’.
Dance Research seminar series 2007-08
Spring Semester 2008
All seminars will take place in the Adam room, Froebel College, 7pm.
- Thursday 7 February
'Sacre' Dances: Stravinsky in Multiple Guises and Disguises
Stephanie Jordan, Research Professor in Dance, Roehampton University - Thursday 21 February
Greater India: Dance Drama inspired by Java and Bali on South Asian Stages, 1927-1945
Matthew Cohen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway,University of London - Thursday 13 March
Dancing Nietzche: Life Philosophy and the Dance of Mary Wigman
Carole Kew, Independent Scholar - Thursday 24 April
Visionary Dances: Ashton’s Ballets of the Second World War
Geraldine Morris, Senior Lecturer in Dance, and Lesley-Anne Sayers, Research Fellow, Roehampton University - Thursday 8 May
Romeo and Juliet’s Happy Ending (the Mark Morris/Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet)
Simon Morrison, Associate Professor, Department of Music, Princeton University
Autumn Semester 2007
Thursday 22 November
'Choreographies, contradictions and conundrums. What has Derrida ever done for dance?'
Bonnie Rowell, Principal Lecturer in Dance, Roehampton UniversityTerrace Room, Grove House, Froebel College, 7pm
Thursday 6 December
Matteo Fargion, Composer
John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing”: A lecture performance
“I am here, and there is nothing to say. If among you are those who wish to get somewhere, let them leave at once”.John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing”, written in 1950, is one of his most renowned and often-quoted writings. Written and delivered as a piece of music, it is not just a conduit for information, but serves both as an explanation and a concrete demonstration of his revolutionary ideas on form and content, which seem as fresh today as they were over fifty years ago.
Michaelis Dance Theatre, Froebel, 7.30 pm (linked with Dance Diary event, free admission for dance research students and staff)
Spring semester 2007
- Thursday 22 February
‘Liveness and forgetting: Current practice-led research.’
Dr Simon Ellis, Choreographer and Research Fellow, Performance Studies, University of Northampton - Thursday 15 March
‘“Sacre” Dances: Stravinsky in Multiple Guises and Disguises’
Prof Stephanie Jordan, Research Professor in Dance Studies, Roehampton University - Thursday 29 March (please note that this session starts at 6pm)
‘Performing Konarak, Performing Hirapur’. Documenting dance on film.
Dr Alessandra Lopez y Royo, Senior Lecturer in Visual Culture, Dance Studies and Art History Programmes, Roehampton University - Thursday 3 May
Local diasporas/global trajectories: new aspects of place-making in UK Hindu dance practices
Dr Ann David, Visiting Lecturer Roehampton University and Royal Holloway, University of London