Helen Kindred
dancer | choreographer | movement practitioner
photo: Cheniece Warner | 2022
FORTH-COMING NEW BOOK
WITH Claire Farmer and Routledge Taylor and Francis Group publishers.
The ‘female’ dancer: a soma-scientific approach
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS IS OPEN!!!
We invite written submissions in the form of reflective writing, poetic moments from practice, case studies, collaborative projects and academic research in all fields of dance medicine and science.
The ‘female’ dancer: a soma-scientific approach
This book aims to question dancers’ relationship with ‘female’ through biological, anatomical, scientific and self-social identity. Recognising the complexities of a fixed-ness of ‘female’ (as much as a fixed-ness of ‘male’), we seek through the contributory voices of scientists, dance and somatic scholars, and movement practitioners to discuss and unpack some of the identities, assumptions, and perceptions of female dancing bodies.
We recognise ‘female’ as both a gendered and biological term and encourage contributions that consider how ‘female’ relates to lived experiences and bodily knowledge through social, political, cultural contexts and those that relate to ‘female’ as attributed to biological sex and topics that reflect this in terms of physiology and anatomy, and how multiple lenses to the ‘female’ offer a rich and complex understanding of dancers’ health, training, and well-being.
This book draws together somatic experiences of the ‘female’ dancer, that are socially, politically and culturally informed, alongside evidence based scientific information relating to the physiological, biomechanical, psychological and sociological experiences of ‘female’ within the dancer sector. Spanning five central areas of training and performance; Body Image, Strength, Musculature and Female Fragility, Life Cycles: negotiating balance and change, Transgender Dancers, Empowering Women in Dance, the editors encourage readers to meet at the intersections of dance science and somatics, in a holistic consideration the ‘female’ dancer.
Interested parties are invited to submit a 500 – 800 word submission of interest relating to one or more of the following themes;
Themes / areas of Interest include:
1.Body Image (eating disorders/disordered eating, body dysmorphia, male gaze, maturation, dance attire)
2.Strength, Musculature and Female Fragility (strength training, dancer as athlete, historical perceptions of feminine-fragile)
3.Life Cycles: negotiating balance and change (pregnancy and post-partum experiences, menopause, peri-menopause, menstrual cycles, loss, societal, career impacts)
4.Transgender Dancers (queering the female dancer, trans experiences, physiological, social, cultural)
5. Empowering Women in dance (embodying being female, women’s circle dances, absent voices in practice and choreography, belonging, ritual, somatic shared experiences)
Submissions are invited at https://tinyurl.com/Thefemaledancer by Jan 12th, 2023
SPLASH!
new work for young audiences by Adesola Akinleye and Helen Kindred and DancingStrong Movement Lab Associate Artists.
R&D phase 2021-22 with artists Andrew Hinton and Mary Rodrigues, photographer Cheniece Warner, and dancers Maga Judd, Aisha Sanyang-Meek and Jamie Baker.
Workshops and Performance installations Autumn 2022 - Spring 2023
Nov 25, 2022, Moonshot Community Centre, London
Funded by Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant
with generous support from IRIE Dance Theatre
photo: Cheniece Warner | 2021
photo: Cheniece Warner | 2020
new work by Adesola Akinleye and Helen Kindred
dancers | Adesola Akinleye, Ofelia Balogun, Charlie Ford, Maga Judd, Helen Kindred, June Ting, Cheniece Warner
musical composition | Jake Alaxander
film | Anton Califano
artists | Andrew Hinton and Mary Rodrigues
chasing stillness...in motion
stillness in the city...surrendered to the shore
Oct 11, 2020, Whitstable Beach, Kent
Dec 5, 2020, Deptford Riverside, London
June 12, 2021, Deptford Riverside, and Fordham Park, London
as part of Global Water Dances
https://www.concretewaterflesh.com
earth-ing
improvisations of natural environments
meeting, moving, birthing, sharing, women reconnecting with the earth
Artists - Helen Kindred and Maga Judd
Locations across UK and Poland
Photo | Alex Judd | 2021
with Maga Judd.
A project exploring the rich possibilities of a vibrant shared language between the movement practices of Bartenieff Fundamentals and Contact Improvisation with a belief that this may offer a unique platform for dancers to develop their own movement vocabulary and awareness of the moving-sensing-body-environment.
Photo | Cheniece Warner | 2020