ResDance Series 11: Episode 5: The practice of response: Reflections from the Student cohort of the MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism Programme
In this episode, students from the MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism programme explore how dance and embodied practices can become ways of responding to the world around us. Through discussions on queer methodologies, improvisation, somatic practice, and collective action, the conversation considers how movement can foster new relationships between people, places, communities, and more-than-human worlds.
Exploring response as an alternative to control, the episode reflects on how embodied practices can support care, collaboration, activism, and more sustainable forms of resistance in times of uncertainty and change. The conversation highlights how new possibilities can emerge through attention, connection, and lived experience, inviting listeners to reflect on their own relationships with others, their environments, and the ways they might participate in social change.
Contributors: Avni Sethi, Eve Young, Sujeong Seok, Becca Townsley, Manal Tass, Iona Hannagan Lewis, Rhiannon Colvin, Jo Parkes, Ruth Pethybridge.
Profiles of the staff and students in conversation can be found here: https://theplace.org.uk/lcds-courses/madancepca
MA Dance Participation, Communities, Activism
This MA Programme is for students who want to develop a socially engaged dance practice which addresses the urgencies of our times. You will join a global community of artists and researchers working at the intersection of community dance and arts activism. You may have an emerging community, participatory or activist movement practice which you want to develop, or you may be an established maker who wants to interrogate and develop your practice in the light of the shifting discourses and challenges of the moment.
Artwork by Moe Nakagawa (2026)
For more information please visit: https://theplace.org.uk/lcds-courses/madancepca
Instagram: @ma_dance_pca
Please share this episode with students, educators, practitioners, performers, and interdisciplinary researchers curious to learn more about dance research inaction.
