C-DaRE Postgraduate Research Community

C-DaRE is an exceptional community of artists and researchers doing exciting scholarly inquiry in diverse ways and settings. Remarkably, their deep understanding of what creative and scholarly research practice involve and their humanness craft an environment of support and care. This inspires a genuine search for one’s own voice, empowers the discovery of one’s unique contribution to dance research, and invites action.
Marisa Godoy (graduated 2022)

Postgraduate Researchers

Current researchers

Name	Research Title
Nina Atkinson	Feeling the Dance - Experiencing immersive dance with and without sight
Mira Balchandran Gokul	Bharatanatyam as a knowledge system; a phenomenological exploration from the dancer's perspective
Hank (Robert) Bamberger	Body-based Confessional Practice in Killer Heels by Gay Hank
Georgina Cockburn	Dance as a catalyst for living well; examining the potential for Living Well Hubs to improve people's lives through dance
Lucy Crowe	Embodying Hip Hop Culture: Wholistic Approaches, Diverse Techniques, Complex Belongings
Sally Davison	Interoceptive Kinship with the More Than Human World: a perceptual pathway through somatic movement awareness
Rachel Drazek	Consent, touch and power: Exploring intimacy direction and inclusion in dance
Greta Gauhe	Remembering Touch: New Methods for Supporting Bodily Connections Over Distance: A practice-led Community Dance Research
Michaela Gerussi	Sensation, regulation, motion: investigating the nervous system through perspectives in dance improvisation and affective neuroscience
Sarah Gottlieb	The Fascia Network: Landscape of Queer Inference and Reshaping
Henrietta Hale	Relational Practices and the Tavistock Institute’s Archive: embodiment and social engagement
Kat Hawkins	The role of the understudy in inclusive dance: Appropriation, Accessibility and Otherness
Anna Heighway	Screendancing philosophy
Canling Huang	Reflection on the Inheritance of Intangible Cultural Heritage: An Ethnography of Fujian Folk Dance “Breast-Slapping Dance” Community
Jing Jie	Citing Dance: Authorship, ownership and acknowledgment in social media dance
Miranda Laurence	Bodies in Space and Time: Conceptualising Dance Dramaturgy through Interaction with Architectural Thinking
Helen Laws	An Investigation into Resistance and Representation: Freelance Dance Artists and the Cultural Ecology
Lizzy Le Quesne	A Dance of Becoming: Skinner Releasing Technique, New Materialism and a dance practice of somatic autobiography
Lola Maury	Encouraging enhanced states of sensorial awareness from the spectator
Megan Mc Conville Shone	Gender and Kinship in Collaborative Theatre
Loren McKillop	Untitled
David Mellor	Smart Cities and AI: supporting ethical development from the bottom up
Patricia Melton	The Pedagogy of Tap Dance: A Cultural and Historical Perspective on Tap Dance Teaching Strategies And Tap Dancer Learning Styles
Hiten Mistry	Reshaping the routines of our past into dances of the new normal – the UK South Asian Dance sectors recovery and resocialisation of community dance in a post-pandemic era.
Melissa Pasut	What is the Pointe? Examining the pointe shoe through the practices and philosophy of butoh
Rosa Postlethwaite	Dramaturgy with Other-Than-Human Species
Andrea Puerta	Anatomy of the embodiment of images: A theory about the embodiment of images based on the sense experience of dancers and actors in the practice of Skinner Releasing and Lecoq techniques
Mandy Rogerson	Towards a phenomenology of choreography; exploring modes of meaning making through the sensory / affective feedback loop
Elizabeth Sells	These Reflections: An Auto-Ethnographic Study Of Dancers Perspectives In Performance In Contemporary Art
Josh Slater	Falling into Spaces
Zrinka Uzbinec	A Cute Crash: Cutting Through Violence with Choreography and Cuteness (M4C)
Kim Vom Kothen	A Transient Space – Filming Dance
Jade Ward	Mindful Changes: Exploring the benefits of Dance for Health and Hip hop Based-Interventions on Health, Well-being, and Community Cohesion during and post COVID-19 Pandemic
Linda Westmoreland	Feel the Fear and Move Any Way: improvised dance and movement as a creative approach to reducing anxiety
Klaudia Wittman	Imperfection of the Perfect Body: An interdisciplinary exploration of gendered oppression in female gymnastics through choreographic practice
Mary Wycherley	A practice(ing) of responsibility. Artist-curator in a dance, screendance and visual arts triangulation. (working title)

C-DaRE Postgraduate Team

Postgraduate Research Leads

Hetty Blades

Assistant Professor

Hetty is co-lead for the Postgraduate Research (PGR) programme at C-DaRE. She completed her PhD in the Centre (2012-15) under the supervision of Sarah Whatley and Scott deLahunta. She enjoys engaging with PGRs’ thinking as it is emerging and supporting people to find ways to effectively communicate their research. View Hetty's Pure Profile

Simon Ellis

Associate Professor Research

Simon is co-lead for the Postgraduate Research (PGR) programme at C-DaRE. He has taught in Higher Education since 1992 and has been a fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2010. Simon is an artist-researcher and was the first person to complete a PhD through practice at the Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne University). He takes tremendous pleasure in supporting the work of other people – particularly postgraduates and early career researchers – to seek to understand how artistic and scholarly practices might contribute to developing new understandings of humans in motion. www.skellis.net Visit Simon's Pure Profile

Midlands4Cities Site Director

Dr Victoria Thoms

Assistant Professor

Victoria is one of Coventry University’s Midlands4Cities (M4C) Site Directors. She is an Assistant Professor at the Centre. She completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PGCertLTHE) and she is a member of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). From joining CDaRE in 2015 until taking up the role of Site Director in 2021, Victoria was the PGR coordinator for the Centre. During this time, she was responsible for maintaining the welfare and progression of a diverse group of more than 30 PGRs, the largest consistent cohort of PGRs in the Institute for Creative Culture. Under Victoria’s guidance, the Centre achieved one of the highest satisfaction rates in the University (2017 PRES). Visit Victoria's Pure Profile