Robert Hylton

My research focus is on street and hip hop dance, and its relationship with the African diaspora as archive, practice and a site for cultural transmission, as explored through my PhD on Black British Popping through film, and the concept I call haptic editing as a tool to develop theory-based creative work around the theme of cultural exchange, memory, experience and innovation.

ABK Research:

My main research is popping improvisation as a somatic process, explored as time-based consciousness and interior sensation in my thesis, based on the concept I call Active Bodily Knowledge (ABK), and ABK Research as a practice-based approach to examine the temporal interrelation between consciousness and interior sensation in popping improvisation. In turn, I define what I call the bit before as part of the pre 'active' temporality of Active Bodily Knowledge in dance improvisation.

Related Interests:

Black British cultural expression

British social dance

UK Jazzdance, social dance, hip hop & streetdance

Migration, otherness, embodied identity & place

Film theory & performance

Cultural transmission, archive & writing

Aim:

Researching the presence of African diasporan street dance in both the UK and the US to enable a broader access and understanding of an often hidden or unspoken representation of Black performance and dance over the past 300+ years in Britain. With the aim to enhance and promote the visibility and presence of African diasporan street dance through a British perspective pre and post UK Jazzdance and hip hop dance in education, academia, performance and research.