C-DaRE Postgraduate Research Community

C-DaRE Postgraduate Research Community

If you are thinking about joining the C-DaRE community or are already studying with us, there are many opportunities to get involved: regular Postgraduate Research (PGR) gatherings, C-DaRE’s international seminar series called C-DaRE invites, Centre-based research symposia and conferences, informal conversations about research with the entire team (a series called ‘Beginnings’), and professional development webinars. PGRs are also supported to organise their own events and meetings, including praxis and reading groups. Together, these opportunities help balance the more solitary aspects of doing postgraduate research.

PGRs are encouraged to get involved with all our events in many ways including submitting proposals, volunteering to help, or joining the organising committee for conferences. PGRs may also gain experience of journal production by supporting the editorial processes with our own journals. Getting involved will also give PGRs hands-on experience of work as an academic.

If you are interested in joining or participating in the C-DaRE PGR community, please email the PGR leads, Hetty Blades and Simon Ellis at cdarepgrenquires@coventry.ac.uk.

  • 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 
    Rachael Davies Chisenhale Dance Space: Uncovering the history and pioneering work of Britain’s leading experimental dance organisation (working title)
    Micia De Wet Developing an Actor's Intuition
    Lisa Dowler The Significance of Dance Improvisation in Clinical and Care Settings.
    Julio Escudero Making Motion Tangible: embodied & critical research at the human-machine interface
    Greta Gauhe Remembering Touch: New Methods for Supporting Bodily Connections Over Distance: A practice-led Community Dance Research
    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
    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
    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.  
    Andrea Ondruskova Somatic resonance in frames of domestic labour
    Louisa Petts The wellbeing of an older dancer: an enquiry into the experience of community dance practice in older
    adult populations
    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
    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
    Catherine Washbrook Communion, Perception and Creative Making in
    Immersive Place Dance Practice
    Linda Westmoreland Feel the Fear and Move Any Way: improvised dance and movement as a creative approach to reducing anxiety 
    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

In terms of my academic and artistic development, my time as a PGR at C-DaRE was both nourishing and nurturing. Being part of such a collegial and vibrant dance research community enabled my research to flourish in a variety of ways and sowed seeds of thought and practice that continue to grow in my work today

Marie-Louise Crawley (graduated 2019)

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)

The stimulating research environment at C-DaRE holds space for audacious projects and practice-research. Events curated by the centre are occasions to think through practices and with others, debating, presenting, experimenting. The team and fellow researchers of C-DaRE provide support, immanent attention, critical voices, rigorous feedback, patience, and delicious humour.”

Emilie Gallier (graduated 2021)
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