Introducing our new MA cohort
We are thrilled to introduce our cohort of students on our MA in Dance Research for Professional Practitioners. Designed to embrace a wide range of interests, our postgraduate course offers bespoke learning and professional opportunities based on students’ individual practice. The course takes place over two years, allowing for the gradual deepening of dance-related practices. You can find out more about the course here.
Each of our students who embark upon this course bring a unique background, and set of experiences, and we’re excited to see their research develop over the next two years. Explore the profiles below to learn more about their background, goals, and the impact they hope to make in their studies and beyond.
Jonny Hibbs
Tell us about yourself?
I was born on Dartmoor National Park in a worker’s cottage of an old gunpowder factory, squeezed into the two-up/two-down with my parents and my sister who have no background in dance. The rurality of Dartmoor isn’t quaint or postcard-ready, it’s quite bleak and moody. Sometimes I feel like I’m rebelling against my rural background with my dance, especially when it involves queer narratives or questions traditions and sometimes it feels like Dartmoor and my upbringing is at the heart of what I do.
Can you tell us a bit about your practice?
I first trained as a classical violinist at Chetham’s School of Music, leaving music to pursue drama and acting as a child, working in commercials and short films before eventually training in Contemporary Dance at London Studio Centre where I was taught ballet and traditional contemporary techniques such as Cunningham, Graham and Release. After graduating, I’ve created work in each of these disciplines, composing, writing and choreographing, and also created work that strings the disciplines together. I’m interested in how an audience can feel something when watching someone dance, the intentions of dancers on stage and how choreographer’s can use movement to absorb an audience into a world or a moment. Sometimes this means creating coherent narrative work and at other times it’s been about creating work that is much more ambiguous. I’m still finding and exploring my choreographic style, I’ve not settled much yet.
What inspired you to pursue this MA in Dance Research
I’ve always been struck by how embedded the MA is into our practice. It’s a course that understands how much academic value there can be when working practically, and then helps you navigate how to share what you have learnt by putting it into words, to establish it for others to understand your process but also as a tool for yourself that you can refer back to. I think that’s incredibly useful as a choreographer, it’s like a very thorough journal of where your work is, where it has been and where it can go.
What do you want to take away from the MA?
I want to learn something that I don’t know is possible to learn yet, and I think I’ll enjoy watching my colleagues in my cohort find their way through the discoveries of their research too.
Mary Kate Sheehan
Tell us about yourself?
Hi! I’m Mary Kate, dance artist and teacher from San Diego, California, now living in Greece.
Can you tell us a bit about your practice?
I’ve been a freelance dancer and teacher for my whole career. A big part of my work has been prioritizing international collaboration opportunities. I love combining travel and cultural exchange with dance. The recent years I’ve been mostly focused on teaching at a university level, but I am always hunting for performance opportunities. I love working for other people and bringing their vision to life.
What inspired you to pursue this MA in Dance Research
I feel a bit stuck as a performer and improvisor. I also feel that my (learned) expectations for what it means to be a dancer align less and less with what choreographers are looking for/expecting in auditions and creative processes. I was searching for some mentorship to re-evaluate myself as an artist and see how I can move forward into a new phase …
What do you want to take away from the MA?
A deeper understanding of myself as an artist and how I would like to focus my work and my interactions with the larger dance world.
Aishani Ghosh
Tell us about yourself?
I am a Contemporary movement artist whose practice is rooted in Bharatanatyam and Uday Shankar Style. I am born and raised in Birmingham and originally from Kolkata. Growing up I learnt the many folk dances from my region in India and loved movement so much I started my training in Bharatanatyam and Uday Shankar Style, which later continued into Ballet and Contemporary. I am a freelance performer, creator and facilitator who graduated from London Contemporary Dance School. Since graduating I have performed in works for Seeta Patel Dance, Shobanna Jeyasingh, Alexander Whitley and many others. This process has refined my own personal artistic taste within choreography. I have recently joined Seeta Patel Dance as a Company Artist and Social Media Content Creator with the aim to greater the accessibility of Bharatanatyam in the Western world. I am a practitioner for the Royal Academy of Dance and the Lead Artist for Akademi’s Reach out and Reveal programme: teaching dance to children with SEND.
Can you tell us a bit about your practice?
In my practice I draw from Hindu mythology and philosophy that is underpinned by science. I create from innate movement which comes from intrigue of my culture and ancestry – and then see how that can present itself in a professionally trained body. With a love for poetry, writing, music, patterns, architecture and visual art I love exploring the intersectionality between dance and other mediums.
What inspired you to pursue this MA in Dance Research
I wanted to delve further into how to choreograph within such an ancient and classical style, while still honouring the technique, culture and rich history it comes with. During this process I realised there is minimal research done about the impacts of migration, colonisation and society have impacted my culture which so deeply interweaves arts into it’s daily life
What do you want to take away from the MA?
I hope to continue to be excited and determined to better the research in my niche field in dance, but to also be able to give back to my community through my research
Wayne Walker-Allen
Tell us about yourself?
I’m a musician, composer, sound designer and dance accompanist. I’ve been making music professionally since 1998 and before that spent ten years touring and recording across the UK and Europe. I enjoy cooking, interesting films, interesting theatre, tinkering withy motorbike when it isn’t too cold or wet and have developed a slight obsession with coffee making. I think I’ve always been destined to work in the arts. Music was a big part of my extended family life growing up, with family gatherings always ending up in a sing along around the Wurlitzer organ or with guitars on laps. At school I always wanted to be a visual artist or illustrator so I went to art collage where I met my future band mates and the journey into sound began. I still dabble with paint and pencil but only for fun.
Can you tell us a bit about your practice?
As a dance accompanist I’ve been “in the corner” for 25 years, playing for contemporary, African, ballet, improvisation, release and jazz classes. I worked regularly for ten years at London Contemporary Dance School and here at The Rambert School until moving to Derbyshire to focus on composing. I’ve worked at the East Midlands CAT since 2010 as their accompanist and helped deliver outreach and recruitment across the midlands. I’ve played for many major dance companies over the years including, New Adventures, Richard Alston Dance Company and Rambert Dance Company. I have recently rejoined the family at The Rambert School as an accompanist. As a composer and sound designer, I’ve spent much of the last fifteen years working alongside theatre directors, bringing the aural aspect of a show to life with a mix of electronic and acoustic instruments. More recently I’ve become interested in audio installations and interactive audio design and well as three dimensional sound design.
What inspired you to pursue this MA in Dance Research
In 2020, I secured DYCP funding and spent a year working with a mentor to examine and expand my working practice. This was a great experience and started to open my mind to new and exciting ways of working and thinking. However, I finished it with many more questions than answers and started to look for a way of taking this research journey forward. I came across the MA in dance research at Rambert School and knew this was where I needed to be. I’m not a dancer, or even really a mover, so it might seem strange that I’m undertaking a “dance research MA”. But given my long term background in the dance world and my historical connection to the school it just seemed to be a perfect fit.
What do you want to take away from the MA?
I’d love to end the MA with a deeper vision and understanding of my own practice and creative process. I’d love to take that vision and understanding and use it to step into a bigger world of artistic expression. I have no doubt that I will still have more questions than answers at the end of it. I have never seen myself as “academic”. The last piece of formal writing or study I undertook was in the mid 90’s, so at the very least it’d be really satisfying to have a formal qualification to underpin and give weight to my embodied artistic voice, whether that is in the recording studio, the rehearsal room or “in the corner” of a dance class.