My research focus is philosophy of dance, drawing particularly on analytic philosophical aesthetics. I am now a senior honorary research fellow, having taught at undergraduate and postgraduate levels from 1997 to 2021. I continue to supervise PhD students and do freelance teaching.

My publications and conference papers in both dance and philosophy contexts have addressed various topics, including the epistemology of practice-as-research, the mind-body problem, phenomenology and dance, the problem of 'lost' dance works and practices of re-enactment. In 2020, I published a monograph called Choreography Invisible: The Disappearing Work of Dance (with Oxford University Press) on the ontology of dance works. The book explores - historically and philosophically - what dance works are, what can happen to them and how artists and audiences interact with them. 

I joined University of Roehampton in 2003, after five years teaching at what is now called Trinity-Laban, where I also completed my PhD. My thesis explored the impact of public funding on contemporary dance in Britain and France, examining how the political and economic environment shapes choreographic approaches and spectator response. The thesis also included an extended philosophical discussion of method and methodological issues in dance studies generally, and it was here that my interest in philosophy of dance began to take root. Prior to this, I trained in contemporary dance at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, France, and studied English and French at Balliol College, Oxford.

I have sustained my interested in languages, working as a French to English translator. I am a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Institute for Translating and Interpreting. I translated Frédéric Pouillaude's book Le desoeuvrement chorégraphique (in English, Unworking Choreography), published in English by Oxford University Press.

MA (Oxon), PhD, DipTransCIoL

Recent work has centred on the ontology of dances and choreographic works. I am interested in the historical development of the dance work concept, and in how an undertanding of that development affects metaphysical enquiry. My monograph project has piqued my curiosity about, Western theatre dance history and its conceptual basis. I have also explored philosophical issues raised those recent contemporary dance practices sometimes referred to as "conceptual choreography". I am interested in how far they challenge definitions of dance and the ontology of dance works I develop in my monograph.

A developing interest - also born out of my work towards Choreography Invisible - is the metaphysics of fictional objects and world-building. With colleagues Heike Salzer and Deborah Williams, I was a member of a team working on the role of movement and embodiment in games design and other AI applications, which was part of the LINK-masters network (coordinated by the Stiftung Niedersachsen and Volkswagen Stiftung), 2021-2. 

In the past, I have published on the mind/body problem in relation to dance, and I remain interested in philosophy of mind and embodiment, including the relevance of cognitive science to dance practice. In addition, I have worked on the phenomenology of dance and the epistemology of dance practice as research (or artistic research, as it is sometimes known). I retain an interest in the issues and dance practices explored in my PhD, namely British and French contemporary dance of the 1980s and early 1990s, dance politics and funding, and contemporary dance spectatorship.

Member of the British Society of Aesthetics (and on the programme committee for the annual meetings in 2016 and 2017)

Member of the American Society for Aesthetics (and co-chair of the Pacific Division in 2014 and 2015)

Member of the Society for Dance Research

Member of the AHRC Peer Review College

Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists

Formerly Associate Editor and founding editorial board member for Research in Dance Education

Philosophy of dance, especially analytic philosophical aesthetics

Dance analysis

Dance history

View my website