Dancing Otherwise Exploring Pluriversal Practices Educator Focus Group

AHRC Project led by Professor Victoria Hunter, University of Chichester/ Bath Spa University. The 'Dancing Otherwise' network brings dance makers, researchers, producers, dance educators and participants (public and professional) together in practical workshops and shared dialogue sessions to explore how ideas and models from ecosystems thinking, eco-literacy and radical ecology (Kothari 2019) might be put in motion to help shape the dance pluriverse. It champions and embraces the complexities of difference alongside acknowledging what we have in common, leading us to consider how a future, pluriversal dance ecosystem might be envisioned, shaped by the co-existence and cross-fertilization of divergent practices, voices and worldviews. It brings together dance researchers, makers, educators and producers from Scotland, Yorkshire, the Southwest, London, the Northeast, and Sussex alongside scholars from diverse fields such as the environmental humanities, social justice and critical race studies, performance philosophy, sociology and behavioural change. Inspiration will also be drawn from dance artists, and producers working internationally in Chile, Canada, and Austria, alongside scholars in related fields from the UK, India, Australia, and India/USA.

The network activities will facilitate conversations beyond the academy with dance artists and producers, dance educators and their students, social and environmental scholars, agents of change and related cultural organisations. It will develop discovery research leading to new knowledge and insights into how interstitial and diverse dance practices are defined and operationalised and what they include and exclude. The research methods are framed through a drive to explore what kinds of alignments and confederations between dance artists, choreographers, producers, academics and social agents are required to ensure equitable and intersectional partnerships and coalitions and to promote new ways of thinking and doing.