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      Prof Vida Midgelow

      MA Dance Studies, Ph.D.
      ROLE: Professor in Dance
      DEPARTMENT: Performing Arts
      EMAIL: V.Midgelow@mdx.ac.uk
      1. Biography &
        Qualifications
      2. Learning &
        Teaching Interests
      3. Research Outputs &
        Interests
      4. Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects
      5. Engagement &
        Impact

      • Biography &
        Qualifications

        Dance Artist/Academic, Vida L Midgelow, joined Middlesex University as Professor in Dance and Choreographic Practices in 2012. Prior to this position, she was Professor and Director of Research at the University of Northampton where, over many years, she established the taught programmes in dance and performance studies and developed the postgraduate research provision  She has over 20 years experience facilitating and lecturing in performance and completed her doctoral research at Surrey University.

        Her movement and video work has been shown internationally and she publishes her research in professional, online and academic journals. As a movement artist her work currently focuses upon somatic approaches to dance training, improvisation and articulating choreographic processes. Recent works include: Home (a retracing); Skript; ScreenBody; Voice (a retracing) and Threshold : Fleshfold.

        Her book Reworking the ballet: Counter Narratives and Alternative Bodies was published by Routledge in 2007. In the same year the poetic and playful, TRACE: Improvisation in a box was published. For these projects she received funding from AHRC and Arts Council England. Recent essays include: Improvisation as paradigm for Phenomenology (forthcoming, 2017); Creative Articulations Process (CAP) (co-written with with J. Bacon, 2015); Nomadism and Ethics in/as Improvised Movement Practices (Critical Studies in Improvisation, 2012) and Sensualities: dancing/writing/experiencing, (New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, 2013). She is currently editing an extensive volume on Dance Improvisation (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

        She is the director of the Erasmus Plus funded 'Artistic Doctorates in Europe Project' and the 'Transdisciplinary Improvisation Network' (a research cluster based at Middelesex) and a member of the Choreography research cluster (https://www.mdx.ac.uk/our-research/research-groups/choreography-cluster).

        Professor Midgelow also undertakes mentoring, dramaturgical, curatorial and consultancy roles for artists and organisations. These facilitative activities combine with her own research within the framework of the Choreographic Lab, of which she is co-director (with Professor Jane Bacon). The Choreographic Lab, based at Dance4, Nottingham, has sought to provide platforms for sharing choreographic practices and critical inquiry (www.choreographiclab.org). Extending these interests she conceptualized and is co-editor of the hybrid peer reviewed journal, Choreographic Practices, published with Intellect (http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=170/).

        Professor Midgelow was Chair of 'The Standing Conference on Dance in Higher Education (DanceHE, UK)(www.DanceHE.org.uk) ' (2010-13), served on the boards of 'The Society of Dance History Scholars (USA) for over 10 years (www.sdhs.org) and is currently vice-chair of the board at Dance4 (www.Dance4.co.uk). In addition, she is a regular peer reviewer for several funding bodies (inc. Leverhulme, British Academy and Austrian Science Foundation) and for publishers/journals (inc. Routledge, Palgrave, Oxford University Press, Dance Research Journal and Theatre, Dance and Performance Training).

        www.choreographiclab.org

        http://danceimprovisationpractice.blogspot.co.uk

        http://writing-dancing.blogspot.co.uk

        http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=170/

        Languages spoken


        Languages Spoken

      • Learning &
        Teaching Interests

        Vida Midgelow is Director of Research Degrees for Media and Performing Arts and is a committed educator. Her teaching interests encompass: research methods, choreographic and practice as research methodologies, release and somatically based movement practices, dance making and improvisation, dance writing, critical approaches to contemporary performance and dance analysis/writing.

        Midgelow is an experienced Ph.D. supervisor and she invites potential research degree students to discuss proposals for study in areas related to her research interests.

        She specialises in supporting Ph.D.'s by Practice as Research and her current supervisions include:

        Sarah Black: Mother as Curator: Sited performance practices

        Stina Sommerlade: Dance ecologies and funding policy

        Stephen Fossey: Activating social space and performative practices

        Victor Fung: Dance4 and the Centre for Advanced Training (co-funded Ph.D. with Dance4)

        Jamieson Dryburgh: Dance technique and creative pedagogy

        Alexandra Baybutt: Dance Festivals across Europe

        Helen Kindred: Improvisation Practices

        Pete Gomes: Improvised Cinema

        Funke Oyebanjo: Script writing for the Web

        Heashin Park: Dance education and policy for deaf students

        Amy Voris: Authentic Movement and choreography (University of Chichester)

        Lotti Nichol: Screen/Body performance practices

        Completed projects:

        Susanne Martin: Dance Improvisation and Aging

        Sara Giddens: Still Small Acts (AHRC funded Collaborative Ph.D. with Dance4)

        Rosanna Irvine: Towards a non-representational poetics of choreography (AHRC funded Collaborative Ph.D. with Dance4)

        I-Ying Wu: Improvisation and Daoism (External Supervisor, University of Northampton)

        Jonathan Chapman: Painting and intertextuality (Ph.D. by publication/portfolio, University of Northampton)

        Luis Stoleo: Mapping and performance (Ph.D. inc. Practice, University of Northampton)

        Rachel Durden: Genital sensation (University of Northampton)

        Hilary Elliot: Vision and Improvisation (External supervisor, University of Huddersfield)

      • Research Outputs &
        Interests

        Midgelow has sought to provide platforms for sharing choreographic practices, critical inquiry and debate. As a movement artist / scholar her work focuses on somatic approaches to dance training, improvised practices, and articulating choreographic processes.

        Current areas of research include:

        *Dance Improvisation – expanding discourses, framing ontologies and evolving new practices of 'real time' dance composition

        *Articulating Dance – developing creative 'languaging' and documentation strategies to enable processes to be revealed to both makers and viewers

        *Practice as Research  – exploring notions of 'knowing' and the implications of PaR.

        *Somatically based movement practices

        *Intimate and immersive video installation practices

        She is the director of the Transdisciplinary Improvisation Network (a research cluster based at Middelesex) and a member of the Choreography research cluster (https://www.mdx.ac.uk/our-research/research-groups/choreography-cluster).

        She also co-directs/ co-edits:

        Choreographic Lab (founded 1996 and funded by Arts Council England) www.choreographiclab.org

        Choreographic Practices (international peer reviewed journal).www.intellect.co.uk

        Selected / recent outputs:

        Skript: a micro-installation, NottDance13 (2013)

        Sensualities: dancing/writing/experiencing (2013) New Writing, Routledge.

        Nomad and ethics in/as Dance Improvisation (2012), Critical Studies in Improvisation at http://www.criticalimprov.com

        Voice (a retracing): An emerging lexicon (2012), Journal of Artistic Research at http://jar-online.net

        Dear Practice…: the experience of improvising (2011), Choreographic Practices, Intellect.

        Articulating choreographic practices, locating the field: An introduction (2011), Choreographic Practices, Intellect.

        Sensualities: Movement/Screen/Experience Exhibition (2011), The Beetroot Tree Gallery and Avenue Gallery.

        Dance Improvisation Practices Project (2010 – on-going) at http://danceimprovisationpractice.blogspot.co.uk.

        Voice (a re-tracing), video/sonic work (2008)

        Reworking the ballet: counter-narratives and alternative bodies (2007), Routledge.  Trace: playing with/out memory (2007), solo video and dance production

        Trace (improvisation in a Box) (2007), Artfully Bound

        Midgelow is an experienced Ph.D. supervisor and she invites potential research degree students to discuss proposals for study in areas related to her research interests.

        Publication Feed

      • Funded Research &
        Knowledge Exchange Projects

        Prof V L Midgelow is director and lead researcher for:

        Artistic Doctorates in Europe: Third cycle provision in Dance and Performance (ADiE)


        Artistic Doctorates in Europe (ADiE) is a three-year research project that will investigate the experience and practice of doctorate candidates in the field of dance and movement-based performance and the impact of these projects at the interface with the profession.

        ADiE is Erasmus+ funded and its principal aim is to develop productive and meaningful provisions for Practice as Research Doctorates that are suitable to the fluid, increasingly interdisciplinary and global, creative industry/research environments with which they intersect. Addressing the needs of research candidates, supervisors, universities and the creative industry the resources and guidelines seek to enable the rising number of artists entering into, and being nurtured by, university environments to receive the best possible support for their artistic/scholarly endeavors and for doctorate candidates to be well prepared to become our future leaders in the arts.

        ADiE asks:

        What are the expectations, perceptions and experiences of the Artistic Doctorate?

        What are the methodological tools and other training needs of artistic researchers in Dance and Performance?

        How are doctoral 'thesis' in artistic research best supervised and supported?

        How do doctoral studies through artistic research respond to, and prepare candidates for, the future?

        How might universities and creative partners better support artistic research doctorates and reflect the future needs of creative industry and higher education environments?


        Led by Prof Vida L Midgelow at Middlesex University, this is a collaboration across four research/teaching institutions - Middlesex and Chichester Universities (United Kingdom),  Stockholm University of the Arts (Sweden) and University of the Arts, Helsinki (Finland), in partnership with four leading professional arts organisations - Dance4 (United Kingdom),  Kiasma Theatre - Museum of Contemporary Arts and Zodiak Centre for New Dance (Finland) and WELD (Sweden).

        For more details contact v.midgelow@mdx.ac.uk

      • Engagement &
        Impact

        Professor Midgelow was Chair of 'The Standing Conference on Dance in Higher Education (DanceHE, UK)(www.DanceHE.org.uk) (2010-13), served on the editorial board of 'The Society of Dance History Scholars (USA) (www.sdhs.org) for 10 years, and is vice chair of the executive board member for Dance4 (www.Dance4.co.uk).

        In addition, she is a regular peer reviewer for several funding bodies (inc. Leverhulme, British Academy and Austrian Science Foundation) and for publishers/journals (inc. Routledge, Palgrave, Oxford University Press, Dance Research Journal and Theatre, Dance and Performance Training).

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