Dance and Academia: Moving the Boundaries, convened by Miranda Laurence, returns this academic year with a thought-provoking series of three seminars exploring the provocative question “What is Dance without an Audience?“. For academics in all disciplines, dance artists and movement practitioners, and anyone else who wants to exchange thinking about dance!
Tuesday 3rd October 6.00-8.15pm: Chloe Metcalfe (Roehampton University)
When non-dancers dance: considerations of audience and performer in contemporary British community-dance events.
Social dance blurs the distinction between audience and performer. Nowhere is this more true than in community barn dances, usually held by non-performance based organisations across England. This evening will feature a brief talk about the concept of performer within this context, drawing upon PhD research of such dances in Buckinghamshire. This will be followed by a fun, practical workshop where the concepts of audience and performer are engaged with.
Tuesday 5th December 6.00-8.15pm: Susie Crow and Maggie Watson (Roehampton University and Oxford dance practitioners)
Looking in and looking out: ballet performance from the perspective of the viewer and the doer
Presentations and discussion which focus on the audience-performer relationship in ballet, seen from different perspectives but both raising questions about the identity of the work. Maggie Watson uses the example of the first performances of Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère by the Royal Ballet in 1963 to reflect on how the historical and cultural context surrounding performance may colour audience perceptions of a work and understanding of its significance. Susie Crow draws on her own experience as a ballet dancer and choreographer to reflect on the contribution of space, place and different publics to shaping the work in performance, and in consequence to the development of ballet as a form in itself.
Tuesday 6th February 2018, 6.00-8.15pm: Nicky Clayton and Clive Wilkins (Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge)
What is dance without an audience? An investigation beyond language and the complexity of our social interaction to explore wordless thoughts~ to include demonstrations of tango and magic.
- Does an audience have to be real?
- Is dance without an audience merely ritual, resulting in an altered state, and ifso, what kind?
- Is dance without an audience simply the confirmation of a heartbeat?
- Is the introspection of an intimate partner dance audience free, and if so, whatis being explored?
- Is dance without an audience the opportunity to invent and explore realitiesthat exist outside of the compass of shared experience?
Dates: Tuesdays 3 October, 5 December 2017, 6 February 2018 6.00-8.15pm
Venue: Heritage Learning Centre, Town Hall, St Aldate’s, Oxford OX1 1BX
Tickets: £5 cash on the door per seminar (£1 off for any repeat attenders).
Please email miranda.c.laurence@gmail.com to reserve your place.
Presented as part of Dancin’ Oxford 2018 www.dancinoxford.co.uk
Oxford Dance Writers 
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