A performative interdisciplinary workshop on Dance, Somatic Practices, Architecture & Engineering

UCC Creative and the School of Film, Music & Theatre

Thurs 5th / Fri 6th / Sat 7th Dec, 2019 9am – 6pm

Theatre Lab, Granary Studio & FMT Studio in the School of Film, Music & Theatre at UCC

Many current calls for Research Funding ask for collaborations between radically different disciplines, but who trains us in how to collaborate in this way? This workshop uses the case study of Dance, Architecture and Engineering to propose that Creative Practice Disciplines (here Dance) have unique skills / sensibilities to foster different forms of transdisciplinary collaboration, especially between Arts & Humanities and STEM disciplines.

The aim of this workshop is to propose the methodologies and sensibilities of Dance / Choreographic / Somatic Practices as tools for experimenting with new forms of transdisciplinary collaboration between Dance, Architecture and Engineering. It asserts that creative practice disciplines (here Dance) have untapped and exceptional methodological potential for transdisciplinary collaboration.

 We welcome participants from Dance, Architecture and Engineering as well as those from outside these disciplines to take part in this workshop led / mentored by a group of international experts in transdisciplinary collaboration from Dance and Architecture. Through a series of movement-based explorations, reflections on physical space in buildings / outside contexts, the workshop aims to provide a framework for conducting collaborative research between creative practices and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).

Diego Gil – A choreographer, performer and philosopher, Diego combines the study of somatic practices with process philosophy to think alternative spaces for research-creation.

He holds a PhD from the Interdisciplinary Humanities program of Concordia University on ‘Intervals of Perception’ and the ‘Architectures of Experience’, supervised by Erin Manning & Brian Massumi. He has also worked as a curator for Senselab in Montreal.

Vicky Hunter – A Practitioner-Researcher and Reader in Site-Dance and Choreography at the University of Chichester.

Vicky completed a PhD in site-specific dance performance in 2009. She has published widely on site-dance, including her edited collection Moving Sites: Investigating Site-Specific Dance Performance (Routledge 2015);

(Re) Positioning Site-Dance (Intellect 2019) with Melanie Kloetzel and Karen Barbour, and her forthcoming monograph

- Site, Dance and Body: Movement, Materials and Corporeal Engagement (Palgrave 2020), which explores humanenvironment synergies through material intra-actions.

Caroline Salem – A choreographer, researcher, mentor and dramaturg, Caroline has been committed to questioning ‘the choreographic’ in relation to making architecture, music/sound, theatre, writing and meaning for over thirty years. In recent years, Caroline has developed a series of reflective writings, exhibitions and lecture presentations on Choreography and Architecture with collaborator Ed Frith. Caroline runs Space Clarence Mews in London, which offers independent artists’ studio space, exchange between artists, work in progress performances, and mentorship / dramaturgy.

Ed Frith – An award-winning architect and academic, Ed is MA Course Leader for a new MArch focusing on architecture & performativity at the Arts University Bournemouth. He researches and practices in the moving area between the body and architecture, and has worked with choreographer Caroline Salem for over thirty years on a wide variety of architecture, body and movement projects. Educated at Bristol, Cambridge, Princeton and Columbia Universities, Ed has taught at Bath, Birmingham and Greenwich Universities.

As a director and architect at Moving Architecture he has developed performance pieces and buildings in the UK, China, US and across Europe.