Miss Fernanda Prata

I am an interdisciplinary artist, who has worked across contexts of theatre and dance for over 20 years. I have worked in collaboration with companies such as Punchdrunk, Vincent Dance Theatre, Protein, Stan Won’t Dance and Jasmin Vardimon. Other collaborations include working with the director Lucy Bailey as assistant choreographer for productions at The Globe Theatre and Regents Park Theatre, Tom Morris for London National Theatre, Dan Allum for the Romany Theatre Company and Sarah Dowling for the Royal Opera House.

Selected Choreographic works include: ‘The Drowned Man’ for Punchdrunk Company, ‘Nos’ commissioned by Horniman Museum and Gardens, ‘Midsummers Night Dream’ for Karamel Club Theatre in London, ‘I will do all that I can’ commissioned by London Contemporary Dance School, ‘No Contact’ commissioned by The Place, ‘An Open Book’ commissioned by NSCD.
 
As a Lecturer I have worked in dance conservatoires and universities in the UK such as Trinity Laban, London Contemporary Dance School, London Studio Centre, St.Mary’s University, Westminster College and Millikin University (USA). Currently I am the MA Course Leader on the Dance and Creative Enterprise programme at Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and also a Lecturer in performance, choreography and contextual studies for their BA Programme.
 
I was awarded a PhD scholarship by De Montfort University,  to investigate cross-disciplinary dance and theatre processes, via practice-based research, with a particular focus on psychophysical training and actioning technique. My thesis, which is entitled A Transpractice Methodology: The Dancer Training Within an Integrative Approach, proposes a new methodology for contemporary dancers that focuses on an integrative approach towards creating practice.

Institute of Drama, Dance and Performance Studies

Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary, Performance practices, Autobiographical works, Dance and Narrative, Immersive theatre and sensorial experiences, Performance Art and Audience participation.

Performance and Contextual studies. MA Programme Leader course Dance and creative Enterprise at Northern School of Contemporary Dance.

Master of Arts in Contemporary Dance

PhD title

A Transpractice Methodology in Dance Conservatoire - The Dancer training within an integrative approach

Abstract

This practice-based research seeks to develop a new integrative training methodology that can be utilized by UK dance conservatoires, which will significantly enhance contemporary dancers’ training experience and open new possibilities within movement creation in contemporary dance. Drawing from existing ideas on interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity discussed by Experience Bryon and Basarab Nicolescu, this integrative training methodology will combine dance and theatre, drawing and building on concepts and practices of psychophysical training and physical actions. The latter has been well documented and most clearly articulated in the recently revised translations of Stanislavski’s texts (Benedetti, 2008). Stanislavski’s later training approaches were concerned with physical movement motivated by intention, emotion and purpose. Extensive work has been carried out, experimenting with this work with physical actions, within the context of psychophysical and body-based performer training (see, for example, Grotowski 1968, Barba 1991, Richards 1993, Zarrilli 2009). Grotowski, in particular, dynamically built on Stanislavski’s work by ‘using the body to express psychic impulses directly in physical metaphors’ (Auslander 2002, p.23). Despite the ways in which this psychophysical emphasis could clearly be fruitfully deployed in dance contexts, UK contemporary dance training has made barely any attempt to rigorously investigate, either artistically or academically, the possibilities of applying Stanislavski’s approaches to choreography that isn’t focused on narrative, storytelling or character development.

Dr Funmi Adewole, Dr Kelly Jordan, Dr Alissa Clarke