Sarah Whatley - Attending to Movement: Somatic Perspectives on Living in this World

CONTRIBUTORS

Kirsty Alexander studied law and then trained in contemporary dance. She performed with a diverse range of artists including Gill Clarke, Rosemary Butcher, Gaby Agis, Michael Clarke, Station House Opera and Michel Laub. Her own choreographic work is generally site specific and in collaboration with artists from other disciplines. She has been involved in educating dancers within the higher education sector for over 15 years, including as Head of Undergraduate Studies at Laban from 2000-2004, and as Assistant Director of London Contemporary Dance School from 2005-2010. As a certified teacher of Skinner Releasing Technique, Kirstys approach to the philosophy of education has been significantly influenced by somatic practice and she is Associate Editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices . She undertook the MA Values in Education at the Institute of Education, London. In October 2010 she was awarded a University of Stirling PhD studentship, and is currently drawing on kinaesthetic experience to reconsider the dynamics of pedagogical experience.

Nadra Assaf received her MFA in Dance from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Doctorate of Education from Leicester University. She has been teaching at the Lebanese American University since 1991. Her recent dance productions include: STS: Space-Time-Shape (2012), I Matter: An Audience Interactive Performance (2010), T he Faces of EVE (2008-2009), and Majnoun Leila (2007). She is the Artistic Director and founder of Al-Sarab Alternative Dance School (1991 to date). In April 2011 she organised and implemented the first annual International Dance Day Festival in Lebanon. Among her publications are: The Meanings of a Modern Dance: An Investigation into the Communicative Properties of a Non-Verbal Medium (2009) and I Matter: An Interactive Exploration of Audience-Performer Connections (2012).

Fiona Bannon PhD trained as a community dance practitioner and later transferred these skills to lecturing in Dance. She is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Senior Lecturer in Dance at the University of Leeds, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses in research methods, collaboration, choreography. As Chair of DanceHE she represents and advocates for dance in higher education in various forums. She is a member of the editorial board of Research in Dance Education and regularly reviews articles for several publications. She writes and presents work on a range of topics; recent projects have included reflections on choreographic practice, collaboration, aesthetics and relational ethics.

Adam Benjamin is a choreographer and improviser. Adam is a founder member of Five Men Dancing and he has performed and taught with Kirstie Simson, Rick Nodine, Kim Itoh, Jordi Corts and Russell Maliphant. He was joint founder/artistic director of CandoCo Dance Company (with Celeste Dandeker) and has made work for community groups and professional companies around the world including Vertigo Dance Company and Scottish Dance Theatre. In South Africa, shortly after the dismantling of apartheid, he founded Tshwaragano Dance Company and also choreographed for Remix Dance Project in Cape Town. In Ethiopia he developed the integrated strand for the Adugna Dance Theatre Company.