Biographies

 Dr. Adesola Akinleye is a choreographer, performer, writer, teacher and speaker. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries at Middlesex University where she lectures in professional practice, pedagogy, and somatics/frameworks for embodiment. She began her career as a dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem (USA) later working in UK companies such as Green Candle, Carol Straker and Union. Over the past twenty years she has created dance works ranging from live performance (often engaging with site-specific and community collaborations) to dance films, installations and texts. She has an interest in glimpsing and voicing peoples lived experiences through creative moving portraiture. Adesola foundered and directs her company DancingStrong to cultivate a unique multi-generational, multi-disciplinary ensemble and creative space for herself and others to create new works. A key aspect of her process is the artistry of opening creative practices to everyone from ballerinas to women in low wage employment to performance for young audiences. Adesola has been awarded ADAD Trailblazer Award, Bonnie Bird New Choreography Award and One Dance UK Champion Trailblazer. For her work in community dance and education she was awarded Woman of the year in Community Dance by the Town of Islip, New York. Adesola has published in the field of dance scholarship as well as cultural and social studies. In 2018 she was shortlisted for One Dance UK Impact in Dance Writing Award. She is a Fellow of RSA. She holds a PhD from Canterbury Christ Church University and MA from Middlesex University. 

Melanie Bales, Professor Emerita, The Ohio State University Department of Dance, graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy, and studied ballet in New York City at the Joffrey School, and as a Harkness Ballet Trainee. She graduated Magna cum Laude (Phi Beta Kappa) from Carleton College, and received an MFA from the University of Illinois, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor from 1982-1988, choreographing, performing and teaching ballet and modern techniques. She spent three years performing both classical and operetta repertoire in West Germany, and also danced principal duet roles with Douglas Nielsen Dance, New York. Her choreography has received several state and national awards. In 1994, Ms. Bales completed the course in Laban Movement Analysis through the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, New York. At Ohio State, she taught ballet technique, Laban studies, courses in dance history/theory, and choreographed numerous works for OSUDance. Ms. Bales received support to commission dances for performance from choreographers including John Giffin, Iréne Hultman, Daniel Nagrin, Tere O'Connor and Catherine Turocy. She has co-authored two books: The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training (University of Illinois Press 2007), and Dance on its Own Terms: Histories and Methodologies (Oxford University Press 2013). Professor Bales has just been invited to join the Advisory Board for Dance Chronicle.

Fiona Bannon began her professional career as a community dance artist (animateur) after completing the Community Dance  programme with Peter Brinson at the Laban Centre (London).  She was based in the North West working with Cheshire Dance Workshop, Merseyside Dance and Clywd Dance Project in North Wales. In the early 1990s, she moved to Sydney, Australia to work as the Education and Community Officer, for Ausdance (NSW). On returning to the UK, she joined the Scarborough School of Arts (University of Hull) as a Lecturer in Dance and Performance. Here she completed her MEd and Ph.D. at the University of Manchester, researching aesthetic development and aesthetic education as an identifying feature of dance taught at degree level in the UK.  In 2004, she took on the role of Head of School at Scarborough, and led the development of the School of Arts and New Media.  Now as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, she continues to explore collaborative art making, aesthetics, and ethics in studio practice.  Over the past few years, she has led the MA Choreography and MA Performance, Culture, and Context whilst teaching a range of modules on the undergraduate BA Dance.

At Leeds, Fiona was a founding member of Architects of the Invisible, a performance collective that explores experimental choreography and social interaction and led a number of  projects via Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) Awards, for example, Re-Tale Leeds and the  DownTownDance Project.  Fiona continues to teach at undergraduate, postgraduate and  research levels, works as an external examiner, reviewer, and advocate for dance. She frequently writes for dance journals for example Research in Dance Education and Choreographic Practices, presents work nationally and internationally at conferences, contributes to daCi (Dance and the Child International), WDA (World Dance Alliance).  She became Chair of DanceHE in 2013 having joined the Board as a Northern Representative two years before.  She joined the Executive Board of WDA (World Dance Alliance) in the Autumn of 2014 and is currently supporting the development of WDA-E (Europe).  Current research interests include ethics and aesthetics in practice and the valuing of messy practice in practice-led research.

Andrea Barzey is Senior Lecturer in Dance and Course Director for the MA Collaborative Theatre Making (in partnership with Frantic Assembly) at Coventry University.  She is a dance film artist and educationalist and a Senior Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Andrea is currently engaged in pedagogic research projects relating to reflective practice as part of her PhD. She has been extensively involved in teaching and her work is informed by released based techniques and the Alexander Technique.

Dr Noyale Colin is Senior Lecturer in Choreography at the University of Winchester. She is co-editor of the book Collaboration in Performance Practices: Premises, Workings and Failures (2016) published by Palgrave Macmillan. She writes journal articles and produces practical works related to her research around issues of embodied practices and the notion of the collaborative self in performance. In 2015, Noyale was awarded a PhD from Middlesex University. Her thesis examines the politics of co-working in contemporary performance making. Together with Dr Stefanie Sachsenmaier, she organised a number of Symposia and research network events On Collaboration held at Middlesex University in 2012, 2013 and 2016. She is currently working on projects that are concerned with issues of embodied pedagogies and training in performance and dance practice. SInce September 2018, Noyale assumed the role of Convenor of the University's Centre for Performance Practice and Research (CPPR).

Professor Ingo Diehl is director of the Master’s study program MA CoDE (Contemporary Dance Education) at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (DE) and since 2018 President of the Hessian Theatre Academy. After studying dance and dance education Diehl worked as dancer, choreographer, choreographic assistant, mediator and curator in different international settings, and at various festivals. From 2008 to 2011 he directed the educational program of Tanzplan Deutschland, an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and he is co-founder of Diehl + Ritter gUG and Tanzfonds Erbe, a national funding project on dance heritage in Germany.

Since April 2012 Diehl is directing the internationally oriented Master’s study program MA CoDE (Contemporary Dance Education) in Frankfurt. Between April 2015 and June 2018 he has been appointed faculty dean of the Performing Arts. In addition to lecturing, teaching at colleges or universities and publishing diverse specialist articles, he is regularly active as a board member in different dance contexts as well as advising international dance universities and their curricula.

Laura Doehler has an MA (Performance Making). She teaches movement (release, CI, improvisation, composition and movement analysis) in HE in various organisations. H2dance, Tara D'Arquin, Exit Map Collective are artists she is currently working with. Picking up on impermanence Laura choses improvisation to understand and manifest change. She initiates collective processes that circle around social and environmental connectivity. The shedding of boundaries of self and other and ‘performance as practice as being’ are recurring themes. Most recent work of Exit Map (cross-disciplinary collective) which Laura is founder of: The Shared Practice, the Free to Move Movement, and Trilogy TwerkaSonata. Building on collective ownership they are defined by processes as the product based on our own selves is constantly changing.

Jamieson Dryburgh is a dance lecturer at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London. He teaches Release-based Contemporary dance technique and Dance pedagogy across programmes.  Jamieson has been a dance artist for over twenty years combining performance, teaching, community practice and research. He has danced for internationally renowned choreographers and companies including Candoco, Yolande Snaith Theatredance, Physical Recall, H2dance, Ben Wright, First Person, Yelp! (Greece), Charleroi/danses (Belgium), Tandem Cie (Belgium) among others.  Currently, Jamieson is completing his PhD in Dance Pedagogy at Middlesex University. He co-authored a paper (with Louise J. Jackson) for the Journal Research in Dance Education that won the 2016 Linda Rolfe Prize. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and board member of DanceHE.

Gillian Hipp is a Dance Movement Psychotherapist, Movement facilitator and educator. She has over 17 years experience of teaching Movement in Further and Higher Education. She is Joint Course leader on the BA(Hons) in Performing Arts course at Hereford College of Arts. She is currently completing her PhD within the Worcester University Business Research School investigating dance and movement in the workplace and the impact movement has on well-being within this setting.

Denise Horsley has worked as an HPL at Coventry University for almost ten years. During this time, she has delivered a variety of different modules and integrated areas of study across Dance and the performing arts department more broadly, on both Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes. Her main focus and responsibility however remains the delivery of Classical Ballet Technique on the Undergraduate Dance Programme, and moderation across Contemporary Dance Techniques where ballet resides alongside a wealth of other techniques and movement-based practices. Denise also teaches for the Royal Ballet School having just completed an intensive two-year teacher training programme with them, graduating with the Royal Ballet School’s Teaching Diploma in July of this year. She is now Workshop Leader for their Primary Steps Programme in Swindon.

Jenna Hubbard is a Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth, for the BA (Hons) Dance programme, and prior to this had been working in a number of universities as a lecturer and an independent dance artist. She has a Master’s degree in Community Dance from the University of Roehampton. Jenna’s research and practice interests are working with young children and their families, creating site specific performance and improvisational practices, and has started to explore some alternative pedagogical approaches to delivering her teaching at AUB. Jenna is interested in community practice and site-specific dance performance, and has made work specifically for family groups to perform. Jenna has performed and toured with Spiltmilk Dance for a number of years and has a keen interest in improvisational dance performance.

Veronica Jobbins, Head of Learning and Participation (Dance) at Trinity Laban, originally trained as a specialist dance teacher. She was instrumental in the formation of the National Dance Teachers Association, which is now part of One Dance UK, and still takes an active interest in promoting and developing dance in schools.  She regularly writes for journals and presents at conferences in the UK and abroad and serves on various dance, arts and education boards and working groups concerned with youth dance and dance in the curriculum.

Christopher Matthews is an American born choreographer and performance artist working from London. He holds a BFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and a MA in Choreography from TrinityLaban. He has choreographed and directed music videos for Erickatoure Aviance, My Pumps, and Angolan artist Coreon Du, My Heart & It’s Not Ok.  Christopher is a judge and contemporary choreographer on the popular Angolan dance reality series Bounce. His video and performance works have been presented at galleries in  Amsterdam, London, Manchester, NYC and Barcelona. His dance works have been performed in NYC, Guatemala, Germany, Taiwan, Spain, London and Edinburgh. Christopher was CreativeWorks London Entrepreneur in Residence with Roehampton University in 2012 and Dance Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre. He completed a residency in Zagreb through WildCard Jardin D’Europe Award. As a performer, he has danced with Trajal Harrell, Janine Harrington, Alice Tatge, Jeremy Shaw, Tino Sehgal, Laura Peterson Choreography, Ann Reiking, Simone Forti, Marten Spangberg, Xavier Le Roy, Paula Roselen, Ballet NY, Connecticut Ballet, Ballet Moskva and toured with exhibitions at Tate Modern, Hayward Gallery, Haus Der Kunst, K21, and Manchester International Festival. Christopher is interested in exploring the body as a physical axis that can mould the traditional contemporary dance techniques of linear movement with the individual shapes of the performer's form and figure, developing the question “As a spectator how do we observe and what do we see?

Rebecca Nettl-Fiol is a Professor of Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her MA in Dance and Choreography from The Ohio State University, certified as a Labanotation teacher and reconstructor at the Dance Notation Bureau in New York, and received her Alexander Technique certification in 1990. Her research includes the integration of the Alexander technique principles to dance training, resulting in a co-authored book, Dance and the Alexander Technique: Exploring the Missing Link (University of Illinois Press 2011). Other publications include The Body Eclectic: Evolving Practices in Dance Training with Melanie Bales, and a chapter in Martha Eddy’s book, Mindful Movement: The Somatic Arts and Conscious Action. She is a frequent presenter and guest teacher throughout the U.S. and abroad, and is the recipient of the University of Illinois Campus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Her choreography has been selected for performances at the Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival in Chicago, and in New York at both Dance New Amsterdam and the Ailey Citigroup Theatre as part of American Dance Guild’s performance festivals, as well as PS 122 as part of the FranceOff! festival. Her opera and musical theatre choreography includes over 45 productions including Interlochen Center for the Arts, Illinois Opera Theatre, Peoria Civic Opera, SUNY Potsdam, NY, and Lyric Theatre @ Illinois.

Rachel Piekarczyk (nee Rimmer) holds a BA (community arts and dance) and an MA (contemporary arts) from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) where she is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of dance pedagogy. To develop this research, she has received two scholarship of teaching and learning grants (2018 and 2015) by the Centre of Excellence for Learning and Teaching at MMU. She is the subject lead for the BA (Hons) in dance programme at MMU in Cheshire and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is also a performer with Reckless Sleepers and has been touring internationally with the company since 2012 in their projects ‘A String Section’ and ‘Negative Space’.

Sonia Rafferty is Senior Lecturer at Trinity Laban and a freelance teacher, performer, choreographer, director, mentor, researcher and author. She delivers master classes and professional development for a wide range of companies and is co-director of Double Vision Dance Company with Amanda Gough. Over the last thirty years, Sonia’s philosophy of technical teaching has been influenced strongly by Limón principles and incorporates physiological and psychological knowledge from her MSc in Dance Science. Sonia is a consultant in safe dance practice, co-founder of Safe in Dance International (SiDI) and co-author of “Safe Dance Practice: An Applied Dance Science Perspective”.

Dr Sara Reed PhD is Principal Lecturer in Dance and an associate of C-DaRE, the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University. She is on the Editorial Board for the journal of Dance, Movement, & Spiritualities and a Trustee at Independent Dance. Sara’s recent publications include chapters in Attending to Movement: Somatic Perspectives on Living in this World (2015); Mindful Movement: The Evolution of Somatic Arts and Conscious Action (2016); Emerging Practices in Dance: A Somatic Orientation (2016). A Conversation with Gill Clarke (2018), Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices Volume 10 Number 1. Sara is a Feldenkrais practitioner and studies Scaravelli Yoga.

Dr Jenny Roche is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Dance at University of Limerick and Course Director of the MA Contemporary Dance Performance. Previously, she was Senior Lecturer at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane where she taught extensively into the undergraduate dance programs. Her research focus is the creative practice of the contemporary dancer and she has published widely in this field as well as on the topic of contemporary dance training. She trained as a dancer at Central School of Ballet, London and has worked with choreographers Janet Smith, Rosemary Butcher, Jodi Melnick, John Jasperse and Yoshiko Chuma. She was co-artistic director of Rex Levitates Dance Company (now Liz Roche Company), which she co-founded with Liz Roche and was a founder member of Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre. From 2007 to 2011 she was dance advisor to the Arts Council of Ireland. Palgrave Macmillan published her book Multiplicity, Embodiment and the Contemporary Dancer: Moving Identities in 2015. Recent creative projects include Time Over Distance Over Time, performed in Dublin, Sydney and Brisbane in 2016 and the film/gallery installation WAHAWAEWAO with Carol Brown, Ruth Gibson and Bruno Martelli (2017).

Stephanie Schober is a lecturer and the year 3 coordinator on the BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London. She graduated with a BA (Hons) in Dance Theatre from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London in 2000. She has completed her PgCHE with the University of East Anglia and the University of Essex and is an HEA fellow. Stephanie is a recipient of the Bonnie Bird New Choreography award. Since 2000.  She has worked as a dance artist in a wide range of contexts involving children, young people, older dancers and specific community groups such as LGBTQI+. She founded Stephanie Schober & Dance Company in 2002. She has been teaching at University of Suffolk since 2012, and has helped develop a new BA (Hons) Dance degree focused on applied dance practices within community, education and health contexts, which will be delivered in partnership between DanceEast and the University of Suffolk from September 2018 onwards. Alongside she has initiated LOCUS at DanceEast, a regular studio session for professional dance and performance artists to share practices, complemented by a series of professional workshops led by international artists.

Dr Catherine Seago is Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader for Choreography and Dance at The University of Winchester.  Further to her BA from the University of Surrey Roehampton, she holds a Specialist Diploma in Choreological Studies from Laban, a Professional Certification from the Merce Cunningham Studio and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College NY.  She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA.  Since the completion of her PhD (2015) which examined and modelled the role of flux in choreographic practices, Cathy has continued to develop her academic research through interdisciplinary collaboration with artists and academic colleagues.  Her research uses performance practices and action research to develop creative and training practices exploring notions of flow and flux, building on interdisciplinary theoretical frames drawn from the fields of somatics, moving image and education.  She has led collaborative projects bringing together visual, film, sound and performance artists.  As Evolving Motion, she has received support for choreographic research and performance since 1998 in Europe, the USA and South East Asia and has facilitated community engagement activities (Arts Council England, Asia-Europe Foundation). 



Erica Stanton is a dance teacher, choreographer and teaching mentor. She is a graduate of Bedford College and of Sarah Lawrence College where she was the recipient of the Bessie Schönberg Scholarship. Erica specialises in Limón technique and has taught throughout the UK, in the USA and in New Zealand. Erica‘s recent research culminated in a website for practitioners interested in the Limón legacy and its contemporary relevance. http://roehamptondance.com/limonproject/. Erica has choreographed for a wide range of settings and was co-founder of the collaborative company ‘Mothers of Invention’. She currently leads the MFA Choreography programme at the University of Roehampton.

David Waring is a teacher, maker, artist mentor and performer and has been the Artistic Director of Transitions Dance Company since 2003. He is Co-Programme Leader for the MA Dance Performance programme at Trinity Laban and teaches professional technique classes in London, nationally and internationally. He also teaches creative/technique classes and makes performance work with community groups of all ages and abilities. His other teaching summer schools at Dance Base school the Open University and DanceXchange summer. David has been performing his work in the “hustler” series throughout the UK since 2006 . David is an Associate Artist at Independent Dance.

Dr Becca Weber investigates the intersections between dance, science, and Somatics. Weber has a PhD in Dance Psychology from Coventry University, and worked on the Leverhulme Trust funded project, “In the Dancer’s Mind.” She is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and holds an MFA in Dance from Temple University and an MA in Dance & Somatic Well-Being from the University of Central Lancashire. Director of Somanaut Dance, Co-Director of Project Trans(m)it, Associate Editor of Dance, Movement and Spiritualities, and Editorial Board Member for thINKingDANCE.net, Weber has been a lecturer on graduate and undergraduate dance programmes internationally. www.somanautdance.com

Libby Worth is a reader in Contemporary Performance Practices in the department of Drama, Theatre and Dance, Royal Holloway, University of London, is a movement practitioner trained in the Feldenkrais Method and in dance with Anna Halprin. With a background in site-responsive performance she co-devised dance films Step, Feather Stitch (2012) and Passing Between Folds (2017). She has published a co-authored book on Anna Halprin and chapters/articles on the work of Ninette de Valois, Mabel Todd, Caryl Churchill, Robert Helpmann and Jenny Kemp with a monograph on Jasmin Vardimon (2017). Current research includes time/temporality in performer training (for co-edited book to be published March 2019), folk/traditional dance, and amateur practices in dance training. She is co-editor of the journal Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.