The Society for Dance Research Executive Committee is made up of internationally-recognised dance scholars and professionals interested in advancing the study and appreciation of all forms of dance.
Society for Dance Research is managed by an elected executive committee that includes honorary officers and an elected chair. It is responsible for the running of the Society and for delegating members to oversee the publications, events and working parties.
Kathryn Stamp, Chair (she/her)
Kathryn is a dance researcher and educator, specialising in inclusive dance, dance education and dance and health. She is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University. Recently she published Ethical Agility in Dance: Rethinking Technique in British Dance co-edited with Noyale Colin and Catherine Seago (Routledge, 2023) and Dancing, a co-written book part of the Arts for Health Book series is due to be published in late 2024 (Emerald Press). Currently, Kathryn co-leads the AHRC-funded Critical Dance Pedagogy network in collaboration with Canterbury Christ Church University. She is a board member of Dance HE, Ambassador for AWA DANCE (Advancing Women’s Aspirations with Dance) and a We Are Epic advisory board member.
Lise Uytterhoeven, Co-opted
Dr Lise Uytterhoeven is Director of Dance Studies at The Place, London Contemporary Dance School. She holds a BA Dance Education from CODARTS (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) and an MA (Distinction) Dance Studies and PhD from University of Surrey, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Her monograph Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Dramaturgy and Engaged Spectatorship is published by Palgrave Macmillan in the New World Choreographies series. She has published in Contemporary Theatre Review, Research in Dance Education, The Bloomsbury Companion to Dance Studies (ed. Sherril Dodds), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet (ed. Kathrina Farrugia-Kriel & Jill Nunes Jensen) and The Ethics of Art (ed. Guy Cools & Pascal Gielen). She co-authored the study guide What Moves You? Shaping your dissertation in dance (2017) is published by Routledge. Lise is the Chair of the Society for Dance Research and a member of the Associate Board of Dance Research.
Charlotte Waelde, Deputy Chair
Charlotte Waelde is Professor of Intellectual Property law working at the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University. She has long worked with the creative industries while her focus on dance started nearly a decade ago, when she had an AHRC funded project with Professor Sarah Whatley to research disability, dance and law. Following on her work on a number of other European funded projects which included a focus on dance, she moved from Exeter Law School to work full time at the Centre for Dance Research in 2016. This move underpinned her commitment both to dance and to interdisciplinary research. Charlotte is involved in a number of roles with a range of organisations within the creative and cultural sector. She is currently a trustee of Candoco Dance Company.
Bethany Whiteside
Dr Bethany Whiteside, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is Research Lecturer and Doctoral Degrees Coordinator at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Her research focuses on the cultural and social analysis of participatory dance, often through ethnographic means, with a particular focus on the ballet, Highland, and Irish dancing genres. In addition to working closely with the doctoral cohort, Bethany also teaches critical and contextual studies on the BA Modern Ballet programme.
Jane Carr (she/her)
Dr Jane Carr worked as a ballet dancer before studying dance in higher education. She was later a founding member of quiet, an artists’ group that collaborated on multidisciplinary performance works during the 1990’s.Currently Head of School of Media and Performance at the University of Bedfordshire, Jane has taught in a range of higher Education contexts including at Trinity Laban. She also worked for many years at Morley College in Southeast London to develop opportunities for adults and young people to participate in dance. She received a BA and MA in Dance Studies from Laban and a PhD from Roehampton University in 2008. Dr Carr continues to develop upon her doctoral research into embodiment in the context of a wide range of dance practices leading to publications on Uk Jazz dancing, Improvisaton and Choregraphy. She is Co- Investigator on the AHRC funded project ‘Dominica as a Centre of Excellence for the Preservation & Celebration of the Creole Culture through Language, the Arts and its indigenous Kalinagos’
Lee Davall– Secretary (he/him)
Lee Davall is the Head of Learning and Teaching and Master of Arts Education (Dance Teaching) Programme Manager in the Faculty of Education at Royal Academy of Dance. Lee’s research interests include teaching, learning and management in compulsory sectors of education. Lee is particularly interested in cooperative learning and the use of assessment, predominantly peer assessment in raising achievement. Lee is also interested in the training and development of Gifted and Talented students with high achieving Performing Arts specialist contexts. Lee has extensive experience of delivering the Secondary dance curriculum and quality assurance of assessment. Lee has held a number of leadership positions that have required strategic planning, implementation and management. In addition to this, Lee has taught in the private dance sector a range of dance styles for graded exams and competition dances. Previously, Lee worked as Director of Dance for a selective Performing Arts Academy for students aged 14-19 years, with an aptitude for Dance.
Dr Sandie Bourne
Dr Sandie Bourne is a consultant for black dancers in British Ballet. Her Black British Ballet project aims to produce a suite of resources to document the history and experiences of Black dancers and choreographers in British ballet in the last century. Sandie studied performing arts at London Studio Centre. She has a BA in Performing Arts, major in Dance from Middlesex University, a MA in Dance Studies from the University of Surrey and a PhD Dance Studies, University of Roehampton (2017). Her research title was Black British Ballet: Race, Representation and Aesthetics. Published chapters include: Tracing the Evolution of Black Representation in Ballet and the Impact on Black British Dancers Today in (Akinleye 2018), Looking Through the Keyhole in (Brookes 2018), a Book Review on Halifu Osumare, ‘Dancing in Blackness, A Memoir’ in Dance Research, Vol 37.1 (2019), Portrayals of Black people in Western narrative ballets in (Akinleye 2021). She was guest lecture at the University of Roehampton, University of Malta, Middlesex University, English National Ballet School, Canterbury Christ Church University and Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.
Beth Burrage, Treasurer
Beth Burrage is the Quality and Compliance Manager at London Contemporary Dance School, The Place. Beth has over eight years of experience as an administration, with strong organisational and communication skills and particular experience in policy writing, ensuring compliance with regulation, committee meeting secretary and budget holding skills. Beth has a keen interest in dance and education and following graduating with a BA (Hons) in Dance Performance from Middlesex University, she joined Springs Dance Company as an apprentice dancer performing and teaching workshops in a range of community settings across the UK and New Zealand. She was also Projects Assistant for One Youth Dance for four years, helping to organise various shows and events. Beth has worked at The Place since 2015. During her time at The Place she has worked for the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) programme, collaborated on events with the Royal Academy of Dance and ISTD, and also gained extensive higher education administration experience in various roles within London Contemporary Dance School’s administration team.
Sinibaldo De Rosa- Event Secretary
Sinibaldo De Rosa (whose pronouns are ‘he/his’ in English, although he prefers the third singular and gender-neutral pronoun in Turkish, ‘o’) researches the role of body movement for people at the margins. He is currently a Research Associate at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Performance and Politics at the University of Milan, working on the Cariplo-funded project Negotiating Abjection: Performance and Politics among Turkey’s Diasporas in
Lombardy. Since 2020, he worked as Associate Lecturer at Roehampton University, Bird College and Rose Bruford College.
His AHRC-funded PhD (2020) was co-supervised in Drama and Music (University of Exeter and Cardiff University) and supported by a Max Weber Stiftung research grant at the Orient Institut-Istanbul. He holds an Advanced Diploma in Movement Notation (Laban) from the CNSMDP, a Research Master’s in Area Studies (Turkish) from Leiden University and a Degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Bologna. His works appeared in the journals Performance Research, Dance Research, Recherches en Danse, as well as in the collections Danses et Rituels, Aesthetic and Performative Dimensions of Alevi Cultural Heritage, and Ritual, Tanz, Bühne. As a Laban movement notator, he reconstructed extracts
of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulders (1959) and notated Yeşim Coşkun’s 4Kapı 40Makam (2011), a project supported by an Ivor Guest Research Grant and a Study Grant from the British Institute in Ankara.
As Events Secretary, he contributed to organising the Inclusion and Intersectionality Symposium and Podcast Series, as well as several Choreographic Forums, such as on Mabongou: Being in the World (2023), Ailey: The Film (2021) and Seke Chimutengwende’s It begins in Darkness (2022). He is also a Board Director of Tavaziva Dance Company, as well as a dramaturg and massage therapist.
Bethany Johnstone
I am a PhD research student within the department of Information Studies at University College London. My research investigates the information-seeking behaviours of dance researchers with the aim to understand how this can inform the creation, development, and implementation of new online dance archive resources of the future. Previously, I have completed both a BA and MA in dance and cultural studies from the University of Surrey and MSc information science at University College London.
Presently, I also sit as a board member of the Association of Performing Arts Collections (APAC) as their elected student and academic representative. Within this role, I have been able to launch a series of research cafes for students to come and discuss the trial and tribulations of studying, an annual student and academic showcase for researchers to share their research with the wider APAC community and chair panel events including a joint symposium between both APAC and Society for theatre research entitled Clear sailing: navigating the archives. In the past few years, I have also presented research at Coventry University’s C-DaRE’s Digital Echo’s symposium, University of Gothenburg’s Critical Heritage Studies: Current Discourses and Global Challenges conference and helped publish a series of digital preservation guidance for preforming arts archives sector professionals alongside APAC’s digital preservation working group. Being on the board for Society for Dance Research would help me to bridge the two research interests of performing arts collections and dance further.
Rosamaria Cisneros
Rosamaria is a dancer and choreographer, Dance Historian and Critic, Roma Scholar, Sociologist, Flamenco Historian and Peace Activist who graduated from UW-Madison and went on to complete her Master’s in Dance History and Criticism from UNM-Albuquerque (USA). Her PhD is in Sociology with a focus on Roma women, intersectionality, dialogic feminism and communicative methodologies. At the moment she is an artist-researcher at Coventry University’s Centre for Dance Research based in the UK. She is also an independent artist, dancer, curator and teacher who has organised various festivals and exhibitions. Her dance films have screened in the UK, US, Colombia, Mexico, Greece, Cyprus and Germany and her latest documentary won best documentary from the UK in 2016
Cisneros brings conceptual grounding in debates around decolonising dance, archives and practice research and through her consultancy work for the International Council on Archives, leading their ethical archives project, and chair of the Equality and Diversity Task Force for Europeana Foundation, Cisneros is well placed to discuss EDI-related tensions. She is also located in a network of practitioner and researchers working in ‘inclusive’ and ‘marginalised’ dance practices and supports services (e.g. NHS, Save the Children, EU-Commission) to explore the potential of arts and culture in their services.
Anita Wadsworth
With an MA [Distinction] in Choreography from TrinityLaban, I create performances for a wide range of contexts, from poetry and storytelling to one-to-one interactions, with an interest in “choreographing care”.
In 2013, I co-created SLiDE Dance to create accessible dance events and performances in Croydon. I currently work as an Academic Tutor at Bird College, as Faculty for bbodance teaching qualifications and as a facilitator for dance and creative workshops for organisations and communities in London.
I recently completed Arts Council funded research to explore methods of practice and collaboration that support neurodivergence and mental health. This work has led me to the intersection of dance and the visual arts, exploring installation work where choreography is repetitive movement, caring action, and echoes of the absent, resting or ill body.
Dr Kirsty Russell (she/her)
Dr Kirsty Russell is a Senior Lecturer in Dance and Director of Teaching and Learning for the School of Creative Arts at the University of Lincoln. Her research specialises in immersive technologies and dance making practices, specifically 360° video and improvisation. Her research disrupts an established fixity of singular notions of bodily presence by producing an ever-evolving subjectivity and decentres accepted spatial configurations through 360° immersive space. Her work lends to both choreographic practice and dance pedagogy, her investigations extend to the integration of immersive technologies in dance technique feedback processes. Her projects tend to be student-centred and are designed to enhance student learning and development.
Dr Jane Munro – Membership Secretary
Bio coming soon
Lucia Camacho Acevedo – Newsletter Editor
Lucía Camacho Acevedo is a musicologist and musician whose work often intersects with the world of dance. She has recently completed a PhD in Music at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is currently working on developing her thesis into a book project, provisionally titled Performing Texture. During her PhD, she was an IPS Fellow at the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.) and a Research Fellow at the Residencia de Estudiantes (Madrid, Spain). She has a BA in Music from the University of Oxford and an MMus in Advanced Musical Studies from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Karen Robinson – Administrator (she/her)
Karen is an experienced professional in the field of dance producing and management with a portfolio career encompassing producing, management, mentoring and business development. Karen is currently the Partnership Manager for Royal Ballet and Opera, where she fosters collaborations that enhance the arts activity and engagement. As a producer and lecturer at London Studio Centre she produced and managed IMAGES Ballet Company, INTOTO Dance Company, Jazz Co., and SEEDTIME alongside teaching on the MA in Dance Producing and Management and the FdA Theatre Dance. In her capacity as a coach and mentor, Karen supports artists and trainee teachers, guiding them toward sustainable and fulfilling careers in the arts. She holds a BA (Hons) in Dance Theatre and an MA in Dance Producing and Management.