De Montfort University in Leicester recently launched a groundbreaking new research centre, in order to explore the many facets of dance by bringing together academic practitioners from different disciplines. Named The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance, it builds on the university’s internationally recognised profile in dance and will expand the university’s dance research further.
The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance will offer a range of research perspectives and approaches, embracing diversity and connecting artistic academics in dance, adaptations, creative technologies, drama, English literature, fine art, music, performance and theatre. The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Dance aims to bring together the university’s distinct characteristics of creativity, diversity, practice-based research and the building of partnerships in order to open up new perspectives on dance and its place in culture.
Users of The centre will be able to share with and experience researchers in other fields, encouraging growth and learning within all art forms, specifically dance. This is a large investment in dance research in order to understand how research sits in a wider context of practices which is important, especially from a student’s perspective. The centre provides an excellent opportunity for dance practice as research to be placed in conversation with so many other disciplines, and it is hoped the interdisciplinary approach will open up new areas of research in dance in the UK and globally.
Speakers at the launch included Professor Susan Jones from the University of Oxford and author of Literature, Modernism, and Dance, and Paul Russ, Artistic Director of Dance4 and IC4C, the International Centre for Choreography. This was in addition to De Montfort University alumnus and world-renowned choreographer Akram Khan, and Funmi Adewole, a Dance PhD student at the university exploring black choreography in Britain over a 20-year period between 1985 and 2005.