ResDance

ResDance Series 11: Episode 4: The Language of Pain: Stories, Bodies and the Knowledge of Experience with Rebecca Stancliffe, Ruth Barber and Jo Young

In this episode, Rebecca, Ruth and Jo share their experiences of The Language of Pain — a research project that placespeople living with pain at the heart of creativity, research and community. They explore how arts-based and co-creative approaches can open up new ways of expressing experiences that are often difficult to put into words. Moving beyond medicalised understandings of pain, the project uses creativity, somatic practices and shared exploration to recognise strength, identity and the many ways people live alongside pain. From finding new language and forms ofexpression to building connection, care and community, this conversation explores how changing the way we talk about pain can transform how we understand and support those living with chronic conditions.

About our research
The Language of Pain is an arts and health research project that gives ‘voice’ to the invisible and often denied experience of chronic illness and pain. Through various arts-based methods, underpinned by somatic practice, the project interrogates understandings and orientations toward chronic pain. By listening to pain rather than seeking to cure it, the project emphasises chronic illness as a socially situated and embodied phenomenon. Resisting the deficit model of ill-health, we focus on what it means to live well with chronic illness. The research is co-constructed, centres lived experience, and is grounded in shared leadership and collective decision-making. We adopt an ethics of care where the body comes first, we show up as we are, and resist performing wellness. Our creative research takes place solely online to accommodate our health and comfort needs, addressing the need for and importance of remote practice for public engagement. 

Contributor Bibliography: Rebecca Stancliffe 
Rebecca Stancliffe is a Research Fellow at Trinity Laban where her research focuses on arts and health and digital practice. Rebecca's current project The Language of Pain (2023-present) explores co-production in research, the expression of pain narratives through arts-based methods, and online environments for community practice. 

Contributor Bibliography: Ruth Barber
Ruth Barber is a yoga teacher and mum who has lived with pain for 20 years. She loves walking and music she can dance to. Ruth enjoys calm and peace, and often find this by being in or near water. Breathing and moving with kindness help her live with pain. Ruth loves growing vegetables with her family and watching the deer and hares that leap about in my wee village near Glasgow. She has usually got a cup of tea in one hand and a library book in the other!

Contributor Bibliography: Jo Young
Jo Young is a beach love / spoonie warrior who loves tortoises, e-bikes, art, music and tai chi. I'm on a healing creativejourney. One wobbly step at a time. Jo has been a co-researcher on The Language of Pain creative research project since 2023.

Also, with thanks to the following project co-researchers:
Charlotte Mackie; Dominique Rivoal; Emma Saunders; Mira Hirtz; Rob Miller; Peter Nagle; Tefnut Huntress Asante; Tim Atkinson

Contact details
Email: R.Stancliffe@trinitylaban.ac.uk 
Instagram: rebeccajstancliffe
Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-stancliffe-phd-38609a4a

Other social media handles
Instagram: @thelanguageofpainarts
Instagram: @trinitylaban
Blog: https://medium.com/@thelanguageofpain2025

Resources of interest
Eventbrite page for September event: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-language-of-pain-centring-lived-experience-and-experiential-knowledge-tickets-1990783736747?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true
 Resources and materials relating to the project: https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/research-and-knowledge-exchange/our-research/the-language-of-pain/

AHRC Funded Dance Research Matters Network Series: Episode 8: Reflections on the South Asian Dance Equity (SADE) network with Prarthana Purkayastha, Royona Mitra & Anusha Kedhar
In this episode, we explore the South Asian Dance Equity (SADE) project, a research collaboration examiningequity, inclusion and representation within British South Asian dance. In addition to asking how South Asian dance is marginalised by the wider arts sector in the UK, the project turns its attention inward, asking whose voices, practices and histories are centred—and whose remain overlooked. Theepisode explores how issues of caste, faith, gender, sexuality, disability and geography shape opportunities, visibility and belonging within the dance ecology. Reflecting on collaborative research and the challenges of navigating difficult conversations, Prarthana, Royona and Anusha discusswhat it means to approach equity as an ongoing practice of listening, care and critical reflection. This episode offers an insightful look at how research can create space for dialogue, challenge established narratives and imagine more inclusive futures for British South Asian dance.
South Asian Dance Equity (SADE)
SADE examines systemic inequities within British South Asian dance, focusing on five key areas of minoritisation: the dominance of Indian/Hindu dance forms and artists;LGBTQI+ artists; caste-oppressed artists; disabled artists; and folk and Adivasi (indigenous) arts and artists. The network aims to build a more equitable dance sector through exchanges between artists and scholars from South Asia and the UK.
Website: https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/research-and-education/subjects/drama-and-theatre/research/sade/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southasiandanceequity/
Contributor biography: Anusha Kedhar
Anusha Kedhar is an Associate Professor of CriticalDance Studies at the University of California Riverside. Her teaching interests include South Asian dance and diaspora, caste and performance, global political economy, and critical dance ethnography.  She is the author of Flexible Bodies: British South Asian Dancers in an Age of Neoliberalism (2020). She is also the convener of the Caste and Corporeality conference, chair of the DSA South Asian Dance Studies Working Group, and a founding member of the University of California Collective for Caste Abolition. 
Email: anusha.kedhar@ucr.edu  
Contributor biography: Royona Mitra
Royona Mitra is Professor of Dance and Performance Cultures at Brunel University of London. She is the author of UnmakingContact: Choreographing South Asian Touch (2025, OUP) and Akram Khan: Dancing New Interculturalism (2015, Palgrave).  Her research examines systems of oppression in dance and performance cultures at the intersections of bodies, social power regimes, and choreography asresistance. Royona was Co-Investigator on the AHRC funded #DanceResearchMatters “South Asian Dance Equity” project (2023-2025) alongside Drs Prarthana Purkayastha (PI, RHUL) and Anusha Kedhar (Co-I, UC Riverside).  
Email: Royona.Mitra@brunel.ac.uk
Contributor biography: Prarthana Purkayastha  
Prarthana Purkayastha is Reader (Associate Professor) in Dance and Performance Studies in the Department of Music, Drama and Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of London. She is the author of Indian Modern Dance, Feminism and Transnationalism (2014, Palgrave Macmillan) which won the 2015 de la Torre Bueno Prize and the 2015 Outstanding Publication Award from Dance Studies Association. Her second monograph is The Archives and Afterlives of Nautch Dancers in India (2025, Cambridge University Press) and she is co-editor with Anurima Banerji of the Oxford Handbook of Indian Dance (2026, OUP-New York).
Email: prarthana.purkayastha@rhul.ac.uk

AHRC-funded Dance Research Matters Networks
For more information, please visit:⁠danceresearchmatters.coventry.ac.uk⁠
Instagram and Twitter: ⁠@danceresearchmatters

ResDance Series 11: Episode 3: Dancing Together: The Transformative Power of Community Dance with Natalie How
In this episode, Natalie shares insight into her socially engaged dance practice, exploring how accessibility, participation, and joy create spaces for connection, expression, and belonging. Drawing on her Master’s research and experience across diverse communities, she reflects onhow dance can build confidence, encourage dialogue, and inspire social change. The conversation explores the role of language, equity, and reflective practice in creating inclusive dance environments, as well as Natalie’s hopes for futurework with intergenerational groups and adults with learning disabilities. This episode highlights the power of community dance to bring people together and transform experiences through movement.
Biography
Natalie is a Community Dance Practitioner who believes in movement that does good and feels good. She recently graduated with Distinction and received theHighest Achievement Award for her Master’s degree in Dance Leadership and Community Practice from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Natalie graduated from Royal Holloway University in 2020 with a First-Class degree inDance. Originally trained in Ballroom and Latin, she has since explored a wide range of movement practices including Contemporary, Jazz, Commercial, Hip-Hop, and Somatic Practice. With many years’ experience as a dance teaching artist, Natalie has facilitated creative movement experiences for participants aged 4–80 across diverse communities and dance styles. She is passionate about making dance accessible to everyone and creates spaces where movement can support physical and mental wellbeing, connection, and self-expression. Natalie believes in the transformative power of dance as a tool for positive social change. Her practice centres individual experiences and personal stories, usingperformance art, film, installation, and movement to explore identity, challenge social norms, and create opportunities for care, empowerment, and collective connection.
Contact details
Email: nataliehow19@gmail.com
Website: www.reflectiontoaction.co.uk/about-2-1
Social Media
Insta: @_nataliemoves_
Resources of interest
https://arestlessart.com/co-creation/
https://www.communitydance.org.uk/DB/animated-library/what-do-we-do-now-the-deconstruction-of-four-decades-of-dance-development-i
https://www.campaignforthearts.org/the-state-of-the-arts-one-year-on/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere%20is%20a%20very%20real,Service%20year%2Don%2Dyear
Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 11: Episode 2: Finding Home in The Body: Intuition, Belonging & Butoh Dance with Dominique Savitri Bonarjee
In this episode, Dominique shares her journey into Butohand reflects on how her heritage, travels, and lived experiences have shaped her creative practice. We explore the body as a site of memory and belonging, and how movement has become a way of finding an internal sense of home. Dominique discusses her intuitive, site-responsive approach to making work, revealing how she listens to and collaborates with the spaces she inhabits. She shares insights into her Collapse series, her interdisciplinary practice, and her interest in creating conditions where movement can emergethrough both doing and non-doing. We also talk about her recently published monograph, the role of collaboration, the relationship between body, space, and audience, and the value of working with uncertainty. It's a thoughtfulconversation about embodiment, creativity, and the transformative potential of movement.
Biography
Dominique Savitri Bonarjee is an Indian-French artist, dancer, and researcher working across choreography, sound, electronic instruments, and visual art. For her, dance is a"rebellion of the body" and a practice of "(more-than-) humanrehabilitation." Drawing on postwar Butoh, ritual practices, and contemplative traditions, her work explores the body as a site of continual transformation amid ecological, technological, and social change. Her monograph Butoh, as Heard by a Dancer (Routledge, 2024) documents encounters with seminal Japanese performance artists, while herdoctoral project Space of the Nameless (Goldsmiths, 2024)developed an embodied research methodology transmitted through artistic scores for exploring nondual attention in creative practice.
Alongside performances and pedagogical projects, Dominique creates site-responsive installations and participatory works presented in galleries, festivals, and research contexts internationally. Her decade-long performance action COLLAPSE is a poetic choreography of exhaustion and rest in the context of acceleration, burnout, and polycrisis, while her ongoing project Butoh Mutations reimagines Butoh's radical postwar legacy for contemporary bodies and conditions. Dominique’s enduring fascination with intuition and the transformative potential of the unknown is deeply informed by Taoist martial arts practices and Sufi dance.
 Contact details
 Website: Spaceofthenameless.art 
Website: Butoh.co.uk
Social Media
@spaceofthenameless
@butoh_mutations  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominique-savitri-bonarjee/
Resources of interest
https://www.routledge.com/Butoh-as-Heard-by-a-Dancer/Bonarjee/p/book/9780367631192#
Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.

ResDance Series 11: Episode 1: Artist-led co-commissioning for dance and heritage with Katie Green
In this episode, Katie shares her experience as a choreographer creating dance, music and storytelling projects across museums, heritage sites, libraries, galleries and other unique spaces. We explore the developing Imagination Museum network, which supports artists and communities to connect through the stories held within heritage spaces. Katie reflects on the importance of collaboration, care and supporting artists, as well as therole dance can play in building belonging, empathy and connection. She discusses the growing recognition of dance and heritage work, the need for greater visibility and advocacy, and encourages listeners to explore the placesaround them and discover the stories waiting to be uncovered.
Katie Green is a choreographer specialising in working with dance, music and story-telling in museums, heritage sites, libraries, galleries and other extraordinary spaces. As well asdirecting her company, Made By Katie Green, she manages the developing Imagination Museum dance/heritagenetwork and works extensively in primary schools developing curriculum-linked programmes that engage young people and transform their experience through the arts. All of herprojects are developed collaboratively with a broad range of partners -particularly those who may not have worked with dance before. Through those projects she aims to build a stronger sense of belonging and courage within communities, providing connection with the environment and the world around us, celebrating every part of who we are, and shifting mindsets about what dancecan do.
Contact details
 
Email: katie@madebykatiegreen.co.uk
Website: www.madebykatiegreen.co.uk 
Social Media
@madebykg (Insta)
@madebykatiegreen (FB)
@imaginationmuseum (Insta)
@TheImaginationMuseum (FB)
Resources of interest
Case Studies and Resources from The ImaginationMuseum dance/heritage network: www.imaginationmuseum.co.uk
Article about the co-commission process from TheImagination Museum:
https://imaginationmuseum.co.uk/getting-started-with-co-commissioning/
Essential Read about getting started with dance inmuseums here: - https://imaginationmuseum.co.uk/resource/first-steps-for-working-with-dance-in-museums-and-heritage-sites/

Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research in action.