Biography

I am a choreographer, digital installation artist, and dance writer, and currently Reader in Digital Performance in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Chichester, UK.

The focus of my artistic work lies in the dialogue between choreographic concepts and new technologies. I have a particular interest in interactive  work and have made several installations in collaboration with other artists, some of which involve a performance element, some of which focus on audience-directed interactivity, some of which combine the two.

Co-founder of the Bristol Community Dance Centre in the early 1980s, I later worked for several years as a dance artist in education with Britain's top contemporary dance artists (including Richard Alston, Siobhan Davies, Shobana Jeyasingh, Ian Spink), helping to make their challenging works accessible to a wider audience. At the same time I was developing my own choreographic work.

I have worked extensively with artists from other disciplines (composers, visual artists, digital artists and theatre practitioners) both as an educator and a choreographer. My choreographic work is generated in close collaboration with other artists and covers a variety of genres. Pieces have included dance works, music-theatre works,  mixed media performance and digital installations.  My work has been presented in The New Territories Festival, Glasgow; The Redcat Theatre, in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, USA; The Place Theatre, Bonnie Bird Theatre; and as part of Dance Umbrella at The South Bank Centre in London;The Barber Institute, Birmingham; The Fabrica Gallery, Brighton; Arizona State University, Phoenix, USA; The National Theatre, Uganda, the Brisbane International Festival, Australia and other venues. I continue to lecture and conduct workshops for dance artists and other arts practitioners in both nationally and internationally.

My main academic interest currently lies in the development of an active dialogue between philosophical discourses and choreographic practice.  My research activity comprises an integrated dialogue between theory and practice.  The theme of my current research is focused on interactive installations, the theoretical focus being on the philosophical issues which arise from this form of artistic practice. I  also have an active interest  in notions of cultural identity as articulated through the contemporary art works created by artists whose work has emerged from traditional art forms.