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Professor Whatley, in close collaboration with leading British choreographer Siobhan Davies, has developed the world's first digital dance archive: Siobhan Davies RePlay. The archive was rated outstanding by the AHRC, which funded the initial research leading to its launch. Work on the archive continues, as does its economic, IPR practice and policy, cultural and educational impact, improving access to dance, cultural heritage, new technologies and business models within the digital economy, education and creative industries. The archive contains 5,000+ items relating to 40 choreographed works and eight projects, offering free access to a collection of previously unavailable material. Beneficiaries include those within the dance, performance and archiving communities such as students, researchers, artist practitioners, teachers and arts professionals. In addition, it has benefited commercial partners and developed legal and research policy worldwide.
How can digital technology redefine choreographic practices? This is an important question in terms of: the impact of networked technologies in connecting individuals virtually; screen interfaces as mediated contexts for embodied communication; the impact of technology in mediating experiences of motion. Interest in these questions is manifest in both academic, practice-led research and professional arts contexts.
This case study identifies how interdisciplinary, collaborative choreography and technology research projects undertaken within the Centre for Applied Research in Dance have focussed on choreographic innovation in live, mediated networked environments and the development of software tools enabling new methods of choreography and documentation.
The impact is on dancers and audiences in North West England. Choreographic practice in live dance performance was found through a collaborative research programme to build particular relationships with audiences. Where audience feedback influences the choreographic process the subsequent effect on how audiences respond to performances is marked. Strong links between audiences and dancers can enhance creativity in performers, and enrich and expand the imaginations and sensibilities of audiences. On the basis of this kind of empathetic relationship, the Manchester Dance Consortium has worked to enhance locally the quality of dance as a cultural asset and to intensify the involvement and receptivity of dance audiences.
Through community arts practice based on the principles of mindfulness, choreographer Rosemary Lee works with inclusive, therapeutic and inter-generational groups, as well as artists and dancers, using unique elements: close attention through touch and mindful listening. Her work has evolved over two decades of practice, research and collaborations, and shows impact and reach through bringing transformation to community participants, artists, health professionals and professional arts practice. She moves away from the role of choreographer as director with a set agenda, and empowers participants to embody issues that are important to them, setting a model for community life. The performance works Common Dance (2009) and Square Dances (2011) have led to a DVD and symposium that develop a practice-as-research methodology for dance practitioners and researchers, and to workshops for artists and practitioners around the world.
This case study details the impact of South Asian dance research on its practitioners and organisations. Immediate beneficiaries include artists engaging in, and organisations supporting, South Asian dance. Through them, we have given prominence to dance genres outside the established canon and fostered broader understanding of dance in a culturally diverse society. By articulating the relationship between artistic practice and the social, political, and financial mechanisms of late twentieth- and early twenty-first century Britain, our research has influenced creative practice, teaching and dance writing, as well as contributing to the practicalities of artists' business ventures and grant applications.
Ramsay Burt's research into histories of avant-garde and experimental dance performances during the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries has facilitated cultural enrichment through its impact on choreographers, dancers, dance audiences, administrators and policy makers. His publications have advanced understanding both of the general public and members of the dance industry into the ways in which dance is affected by and influenced socially and historically specific concerns or anxieties about changing notions of embodiment. He has received invitations to speak at major international dance festivals, given interviews for radio and television broadcasts, attended meetings with policy makers, and been invited to collaborate with artists involved in making new works based on historical avant-garde performances.
Dance research has frequently suffered from the divide between historical investigation and performance making. This case study focuses on an innovative approach to a practice-based process of making dance histories, or choreological historiography. This approach brings together the narratives that are central to research in Music, Dance, Drama and Performing Arts (MDDPA) at the University of Bedfordshire. Since 2010, this approach has informed choreographic work or performance-lectures across Europe. Events such as the Royal Ballet School's Focus on Style highlight the benefits a practice-based historical investigation in dance brings to both dance scholars and dance practitioners.
This case study addresses new methods for identifying talent in young musicians and dancers, and also concerns issues regarding their wellbeing during training, both inside and outside the academy. This research has achieved impact in two areas, firstly by raising awareness among training institutions and performance companies of the importance of scientific assessment and screening, and secondly through impacts on policy-making, educational and otherwise, beyond the submitting HEI. This impact has been achieved through research dissemination that includes, but goes beyond peer-reviewed journal articles. This has involved broadcast media, digital media, symposia, workshops and numerous conference presentations, the popular press and resource papers for teachers.
Shobana Jeyasingh is one of a handful of British choreographers - and indeed, choreographers worldwide - who successfully choreograph work using a multiplicity of cultural techniques and methods. Having trained in the Indian classical form Bharata Natyam, Jeyasingh produces work that utilizes a mix of classical, contemporary, popular and site-specific techniques. Impacts are generated through her writing, mentoring, public engagement and performance works, as she asks audiences and dancers to re-think notions of authenticity, unchanging tradition, and binary identities such as Asian and British. While her workshops in schools and performance works in various British and European sites change perceptions of gender, ethnic identity and Indian dance, in a tour supported by the British Council and commercial sponsors, she has taken her diasporic, hybrid sensibilities to India, to convey a postmodern, multicultural British identity.
Trinity Laban's research into the effect of dance on health and wellbeing has generated interest and citation at UK Government level, enhanced the public consciousness of the benefits of dance and has had secondary impacts in terms of providing a model for other studies. It has enhanced the professional practice of dance artists and teachers beyond the academy. Participation in dance is now perceived as a viable method of enhancing physical and psychological health, in part due to Trinity Laban's research in this area. The impacts of this research relate primarily to public awareness and public health, particularly in relation to younger people.