Projects per year
Personal profile
Research Interests
Dance analysis; Dance and disability; Dance and digital technologies, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Dance and somatic practices
Biography
Sarah Whatley is Director, Centre for Dance Research. Her research focuses on the interface between dance and new technologies, dance analysis, somatic dance practice and pedagogy, and inclusive dance. The AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust and the European Union fund her current and previous research, which is broadly focused on the impact of digital technologies on tangible and intangible cultural heritage. She led the AHRC-funded Siobhan Davies digital archive project, RePlay, and has since partnered with a number of other leading artist organisations. She was founding Principal Editor of the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices (JDSP) and now sits on the Journal's Board as well as several other Journals.
Sarah was a panel member in REF 2014 (Panel D35) and in 2021 (Panel D33) and is a Strategic Reviewer and member of the AHRC Peer Review College. She is also an Evaluator for the European Commission.
Vision Statement
My research is inspired by my deep interest in how dance artists document and publish their choreographic thinking in different modes, and how audiences become co-creators in art making practices. The collaborations that I have with researchers and artists, arts companies and organisations, both in the UK and overseas, are very important to me because it stimulates productive dialogues and leads to new insights about dance as a creative cultural practice.
Research Interests
Research Projects and Grants awarded
2017 Social Choreography – AHRC Network project (Co-I)
2016 Resilience and Inclusion: Dancers as Agents of Change- AHRC (PI)
2016 Identity and Governance of Bodily Extensions: The Case of Prosthetics and Avatars – Wellcome Seed Award in Humanities and Social Science (partner)
2016 People Dancing: changing perceptions through inclusion and interventions – AHRC CDA (PI)
2015 Error Network: AHRC (Co-I)
2015 Whole-Body Interaction Learning for Dance Education (WhoLoDance); EU (partner)
2014 In the Dancer’s Mind; Creativity, Novelty and the Imagination; Leverhulme (Co-I)
2014 Civic Epistemologies – Development of a Roadmap for Citizen Researchers in the age of Digital Culture; FP7 Capacities Programme (partner)
2013 EuropeanaSpace; FP7 CIP-ICT-PSP-2013-7 (project lead)
2013 Renewal, Innovation and Change: Heritage and European Society (RICHES) FP7 Cooperation Theme 8 Socio-Economic Sciences & Humanities SSH.2013.5.2-2 Transmitting and benefiting from cultural heritage in Europe (STREP) – (Researcher – Coventry leading).
2012 Enhancing Choreographic Objects (EChO); AHRC (Researcher)
2012 Labo21; European Commission – Culture Europe (partner)
2012 In-visible Difference: Dance, disability and law, AHRC (PI)
2011 The Library of Processes; Collaborative doctoral award, AHRC
2010 D-TRACES (Dance Teaching Resources and Collaborative Engagement Spaces): JISC (PI)
2010 Capturing Stillness; visualization techniques and motion capture: AHRC Creative Fellowship – Ruth Gibson
2010 Digital Dance Archives: AHRC DEDEFI scheme (Co-I)
2009 Screen Dance Network; AHRC (Co-I)
2009 Transformations; Cultural Olympiad; People Dancing (lead researcher)
2008 Choreographic Objects; traces and artefacts of physical intelligence; AHRC – Beyond Text (Co-I)
2007 Moving Matters; HEA PALATINE Development Award
2007 Establishing movement standards and injury reduction for dancers; Leverhulme (Co-I)
2006 CURVE- learning objects for dance; JISC (Work Package leader)
2006 Siobhan Davies Dance Online; AHRC (PI)
2005 Fracture; Dance and the Moving Image; Arts Council England (project lead)
2004 Body Realities: strategies for inclusion in dance in HE; Coventry University research fund (PI)
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Embodied trust in TAS: robots, dance, different bodies (UKRI via University of Southampton)
1/04/23 → 31/07/24
Project: Research
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Music, Medicine and Dance – exploring what it means to perform
Kneebon, R. & Whatley, S.
25/05/22 → 24/11/23
Project: Research
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AHRC CResCa Strand 1: ICC Lab: Expanding practice-led capability in the creative arts
3/01/23 → 31/03/23
Project: Research
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EU-Funded: WEAVE: AWARD: Widen European Access to cultural communities Via Europeana
Cisneros, R. K., Whatley, S. & Crawley, M.
1/04/21 → 30/12/22
Project: Research
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Innovatory Methods in Policymaking: The Use of Verbatim Theatre
Ingram, C., Henry, N., Whatley, S. & Foellmer, S.
1/01/21 → 31/03/21
Project: Internally funded project
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Beyond Skin Deep: Generative Co-Design for Aesthetic Prosthetics
Whatley, S., Marsh, K., Benford, S., Zhou, F., Tennant, P., Ascroft, I., O'Brien, W. & Erhart, T., 19 Apr 2023, CHI'23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Schmidt, A., Väänänen, K., Goyal, T., Kristensson, P. O., Peters, A., Mueller, S., Williamson, J. R. & Wilson, M. L. (eds.). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 128. (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference proceeding › peer-review
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Personalising prosthetics: digital interventions in disability and dance
Whatley, S., Benford, S., Marsh, K., Zhou, F., Ashcroft, I., Tennant, P., O'Brien, W. & Erhart, T., 5 Jun 2023, (E-pub ahead of print) In: International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. (In-Press), p. (In-Press) 16 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
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Approaches to Dance (4): Moving, Teaching, Thinking, Writing: A Minor Excavation
Whatley, S., 16 Apr 2022, In: Dance Research. 40, 1, p. 1-10 10 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile64 Downloads (Pure) -
Editorial: Dance and Disability
Quinten, S., Bläsing, B. & Whatley, S., 16 Mar 2022, In: Frontiers in Psychology. 13, 2 p., 878253.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › peer-review
Open AccessFile26 Downloads (Pure) -
Embodied cultural property; contemporary and traditional dance practices
Whatley, S., 20 Dec 2022, In: International Journal of Cultural Property. 29, 2, p. 171-181 11 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open AccessFile79 Downloads (Pure)
Activities
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Columbia University
Sarah Whatley (Visiting researcher)
10 Oct 2022 → 17 Oct 2022Activity: Visiting an external institution › Visiting an external academic institution
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Inclusion through dance and why dancing matters.
Sarah Whatley (Speaker)
13 Oct 2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Personalising prosthetics: digital interventions in disability and dance
Sarah Whatley (Speaker), Kate Marsh (Speaker), Steven Benford (Speaker) & Feng Zhou (Speaker)
6 Sept 2022Activity: Talk or presentation › Oral presentation
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How could performing arts look in the future?
Sarah Whatley (Speaker)
1 Feb 2021Activity: Talk or presentation › Invited talk
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Prizes
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CREATE
Whatley, Sarah (Recipient), Delahunta, Scott (Recipient) & Bisig, Daniel (Recipient), 2019
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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Culture Moves
Whatley, Sarah (Recipient), Cisneros, Rosamaria Kostic (Recipient) & Crawley, Marie-Louise (Recipient), 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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E2-CREATE
Delahunta, Scott (Recipient), Whatley, Sarah (Recipient) & Bisig, Daniel (Recipient), 2019
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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Identity and Governance of Bodily Extensions: The Case of Prosthetics and Avatars
Whatley, Sarah (Recipient) & Popat, Sita (Recipient), 2016
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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International Travel Grant
Whatley, Sarah (Recipient), 2014
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)