Movement ecologies

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Movement ecologies: dancing with the ‘more than human’ to co-create new understandings of sustainability in rural Cornwall

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

This project asks, how might we move ‘for’ and ‘with’ the natural environment in Cornwall to generate new ways of understanding what sustainability means in a changing rural experience. Rural poverty is affecting many of Cornwall’s communities – in particular younger generations and the elderly (2025 Pretty Poverty Report). Through engaging in practice based research, we invite movement artists to support communities in uncovering new ways to relate to their changing rural environments and, through dance, to experience embodied agency which may have been diminished due to the loss of certain industries and practices that used to be the heart of rural communities in Cornwall.  

The practice of adapting and evolving that is central to ecology is also integral to the field of eco-somatics and site responsive performance. Dance can bring social, economic and cultural dynamics into dialogue and this brief builds on a long history of attending to social justice in the Community Dance sector in the UK. Movement, as lived experience, has much to offer the field of ecology in interrogating and embodying the interconnectedness between people and the places in which they live. This research moves towards compassionate futures to enable a less extractive relationship to the natural environment whilst supporting communities to make sense of evolving rurality. 

As the polycrisis deepens, the many ways that artists can respond include awareness raising art, activism, or issue based participatory projects within affected communities. This project might do any of these things through engaging in a methodology that intersects between somatic education as a pathway to understanding and taking responsibility for the self, and outdoor education as a pathway to understanding and taking responsibility for the world around us. This research asks what happens when these two things intersect to connect humans to the ‘more than human’ in such a way that both are better able to sustain themselves, breathing new life into the concept of sustainability? 

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.