Dear Colleagues,

 

Please share with your networks and potential applicants:

 

The Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University is offering 3 fully-funded PhD Studentships (fees and stipend), beginning January 2021, which focus on how the UK dance sector is responding to the COVID crisis.

 

C-DaRE is a world leading research Centre that conducts research into a wide range of dance activities, many in collaboration with professional dance artists and organisations and much of it in partnership with other disciplines including, for example, cognitive psychologists, anthropologists, law experts, cultural heritage experts and programmers. The Centre’s strength lies in promoting the importance of understanding the world and our place in it as embodied whether this is in the analysis of dance, the transformation of dance and performance through digital technologies, dance’s culture and history, dance pedagogies and research-informed teaching, practice-as-research, tangible and intangible cultural heritage, or inclusive dance practices and pedagogies.

 

Coventry University has a highly supportive provision through the Doctoral College, with skills training and research sharing opportunities such as research methods, presentation skills, and academic writing.

 

Eligibility: UK/EU graduates with the required entry requirements

Funding details: Bursary plus tuition fees (UK/EU)

Duration: Full-Time – between three and three and a half years fixed term

Application deadline: 16 October 2020

Interview dates: Will be confirmed to shortlisted candidates

Start date: January 2021

 

We welcome applications from all sectors of the community and particularly those currently under-represented in the Centre. 

More information, and details about how to apply: https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-opportunities/research-students/research-studentships/?var2=964

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Community dance in the UK: recovery and ‘re-socialisation’ for participation and engagement in dance in a post-pandemic era

 

This project will focus on the impact of COVID-19 on the Community Dance sector in the UK, and specifically examine how Community Dance practitioners have adapted their practice and developed new ways to deliver sessions and maintain connections with their participants during lockdown.

Community Dance is primarily participatory and is largely dependent on social interaction, often involving physical contact, through partner and group dancing. The impact of COVID-19 and social distancing has led to Community Dance leaders and practitioners having to adapt their practice to find remote ways to maintain contact.

 

This project will investigate this impact through three interrelated enquiries:

case studies to explore how Community Dance practitioners have adapted and transformed their practice;

a related broader survey of the Community Dance sector in the period of social distancing to contextualise the case studies;

the devising of a roadmap of strategies, methods and procedures to support the recovery of Community Dance that envisages new modes of connection during social distancing and into a post-pandemic era.

 

Candidates should have a good working knowledge of Community Dance in the UK.

To find out more about the project, please contact Sarah Whatley: [log in to unmask]

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Mindful Changes - Achieving Mental Health through dance during and post COVID-19 Pandemic

 

Mindful Changes investigates how dance, particularly hip hop, can transform individuals who suffer with mental health and the role digital platforms have played in facilitating change. The studentship also aims to explore what digital platforms are used by dance practitioners to help support individuals with mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

This project seeks to ask what are the core skills and knowledge required by dance practitioners and organisations to co-design and deliver suitable and effective programmes for individuals with mental health illness. With a focus on a hip hop dance company who has and is currently running classes for people with mental illness, the studentship will explore how the company is a lens through which to study the broader questions. Mindful Changes also aims to generate evidence that is underpinned by Communicative Methodology which is inclusive of all participants involved in the research.

 

Mindful Changes seeks out links with the hip hop dance community and local and national organisations that work directly with vulnerable and marginalised communities, as well as bring forward “lesser known” voices that are hidden because of mental illness. The collaborative nature of the studentship resides with the Street Factory hip hop dance company (Plymouth, UK). Street Factory have agreed to partner and host the candidate. The company and Director of Studies have an extensive network that will be involved via supporting the data collection process. Community involvement through the participatory driven methodology and co-collaboration is central to the studentship.

 

The candidate should have:

Background in performing arts, hip hop, and cultural studies

Interest in collaborative working and working with an arts organisation

Capacity to be in commuting distance from Coventry and/travel to Plymouth (UK)

Background in working with BAME community

To find out more about the project, please contact Rosa Cisneros: [log in to unmask]

  

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An Investigation into resistance and representation: Freelance dance artists and the cultural ecology

 

Project details

Independent dance artists, those that work on a freelance basis, permeate through our cultural landscape. Their work consists of performing, teaching in different contexts (e.g. public schools, private dance studios, publicly funded organisations), project management, networking and applying for funding. The work is varied and with different stakeholders. Therefore, collective working, flexibility and adaptability due to the necessity to adhere to different venues and organisations’ policies and procedures are key skills of this community.

This project will explore the collective engagement and the representation of this community in changes to cultural policy. The research will include an exploration of the impact of COVID-19 on this community and how it will affect working practices and the broader dance ecology. Using social science research methods, the candidate will gather material from the dance artist community, advocacy organisations and others to inform their project. The project will be hosted at C-DaRE and be co-supervised at the Centre for Culture and Media Policy Studies, University of Warwick.

 

The candidate should have:

Background in performing arts and cultural studies

Interest in collaborative working and working with arts organisations

Capacity to be in commuting distance from Coventry

Background in working with the independent sector and varied communities

To find out more about the project, please contact [log in to unmask].

 

 

 

 

 

Lily Hayward-Smith 

Research Assistant| Centre for Dance Research

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University, Institute for Creative Enterprise (ICE), Parkside, Coventry, CV1 2NE

T: +44 (0)24 76158364 |  E: [log in to unmask] |  W: www.coventry.ac.uk

Working hours: Tues -  Fri  09:00 – 17:00

 

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