Dance Research

The results of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008 for Dance at the University of Chichester show the strength of our Dance Research culture. The assessment panel agreed that 40% of the research submitted by University of Chichester dance researchers was of international excellence in terms of originality, significance and rigour (3*), with a further 45% being recognised internationally as constituting original, rigorous and significant research. Our focus on expanding our distinctive emphasis on Practice as Research, and on developing research in interdisciplinary work and new technologies was praised by the assessors.

Research in Dance at the university is at a very exciting stage in its development. The interests of dance researchers at Chichester, whose number includes Professor Sarah Rubidge, Dr Andrea Davidson, Dr Jill Hayes, Dr Ann Nugent, Dr Clare Parfitt, Marisa Zanotti, Yael Flexer (of Bedlam Dance), Virginia Farman, has extended, now ranging from dance performance through site specific work to interactive installations, from film to post colonial theory, from dance history through cultural studies to philosophy. Details of individual researchers work can be found on the Dance Academic Staff pages.

We have close relationships with researchers in other Arts departments at the university and actively seek out opportunities to work in interdisciplinary projects with researchers from other fields. Individual researchers have worked variously with neuroscientists, film and theatre directors, interactive artists, geographers, computer programmers, fine artists and composers, and have received funding from bodies as diverse as the AHRC, the Welcome Trust, the Arts Council, the BBC, the British Council and the Canada Arts Council. Our researchers publish widely, and are credited as sole, or contributing, authors of books published by major companies such Macmillan, Palgrave and Routledge.

Arts Research Cluster

Recently Dance has been instrumental in developing an Arts Research Cluster (ARC) at the University of Chichester, the members of which include researchers not only in dance but also in contemporary theatre practice, Fine Art, Music, and Film and Media. The dialogue across the Arts remains central to our research activities.

We organise a series of Contemporary Arts Research Seminars given by nationally and internationally renowned visiting speakers (Liz Aggis, Johannes Birringer, Carol Brown and Marcus de Sautoy), weekend symposia and conferences. We have collaborated with universities and artists internationally, at Doctoral and Post Doctoral level, for many years and are regularly invited to give keynote papers at international conferences.

Postgraduate Research

The Dance department at the University of Chichester has gained an international reputation in PhD studies through Practice as Research, and actively encourage applicants in this area of research practice. As a group we have the qualifications to supervise MPhils and PhDs in: choreography, performance, improvisation, dance history and analysis, dance and new technologies, dance on screen, popular dance practices, dance movement therapy, and philosophical and post colonial issues as they impact on dance.

Dance researchers at the University of Chichester are currently supervising 7 PhD students, one from New Zealand, whose projects encompass:

• a phenomenological exploration of improvisation from the dancer's perspective
  
• the interrelationship between scientific theories of emergence and digital dance work,
  
• the relational systems that obtain between the viewer, performer and environment in interactive video installation,
  
• a study of space in dance using sociokinetic analysis,
  
• the generation of intimacy in performance through reconfiguration of the performance space and the use of new technologies
  
• the Costa Rican quadrille and cultural identity.

Most of these PhD projects are being undertaken using choreography or performance as a central research strategy.

If you are interested in discussing Postgraduate research opportunities in Dance at the University of Chichester, please contact Professor Sarah Rubidge on s.rubidge@chi.ac.uk or the dance research administrator on artsresearch@chi.ac.uk

MA Performance: Dance is part of a lively research culture which includes visiting artists contributing to regular research presentations, performances, installations and exhibitions and a weekly Contemporary Critical Theory Reading Group. For more information visit mapdance.org