As artists, how do we create the conditions for real exchange between people, and how do our practices grow through encountering and engaging with difference?
Approached through the lens of Kate Marsh’s expertise on dance, disability and leadership, this conversation between Kate, Annie Hanauer and Susanna Recchia revolves around ideas and questions which have surfaced during their Artistry & Access Lab during the week, aiming to share specific practices and experiences with a wider audience. This exchange was an open invitation to anyone interested in how dance practices can continue evolving and expanding.
This talk is part of dance it, dance it, Independent Dance’s year-long programme conceived by Heni Hale and Nikki Tomlinson which aims to foreground disabled, neurodivergent and d/Deaf artists as leaders and to widen dissemination of inclusive dance practices. Partner organisations on different strands of the programme include Candoco Dance Company, Sadler’s Wells, The Work Room, Dance Umbrella and Team London Bridge. This programme is supported through public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Kate Marsh is a disabled dance artist with over 20 years of experience in performing, teaching and making. Her interests are centred around perceptions of the body in the arts and notions of corporeal aesthetics. Specifically, she is interested in each of our lived experiences of our bodies, and how this does (or doesn’t) inform our artistic practice. Her PhD research focussed on leadership in the context of dance and disability and draws strongly on the voices of artists to interrogate questions around notions of leadership, perceptions and the body.
Annie Hanauer is an internationally-renowned disabled dancer, choreographer, and teacher. Annie is passionate about the power, wisdom, and creativity of disabled people, and discovering different ways into full-bodied dancing.
Annie’s work A space for all our tomorrows, looking at utopia through a disability lens, is touring Europe. She has choreographed for Mobius Dance, Zurich University of the Arts, University of Minnesota, Ramped, and Candoco Dance Company. She has performed with Rachid Ouramdane since 2013, and in projects with Paris Chamber Orchestra, Emanuel Gat Dance, Lea Anderson, Nic Conibere, Boris Charmatz, and with Candoco between 2008-2014. She regularly leads inclusive workshops and professional classes internationally.
Susanna Recchia is a dance artist and somatic educator. As a performer, teacher, mentor, rehearsal director, project and tour manager, choreographic advisor and maker Susanna has worked and toured internationally for the past 20 years. Her teaching methodology and artistic work is based on somatic work, improvisation and on supporting creativity through moving. Inclusivity, dialogue, movement, collaboration, freedom of expression and imagination are the core forces of Recchia’s work as an artist and facilitator.
Bios as published in 2023
