Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Alain Berthoz is a distinguished neurophysiologist. His main fields of research are the physiology of sensori-motor functions and more specifically the oculo-motor system, the vestibular system, balance control, and movement perception.

He established and coordinates the Neurosensory Physiology Laboratory of CNRS (1981-1993) and since 1993 he has been professor at the Collège de France and director of the joint research centre of CNRS and Collège de France "Physiology of perception and action".  He is a member of the French Academy of Science and of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and has made major discoveries about the vestibular system and the perception of movement. He also participated in the first scientific experiments on spaceships to study the effects of weightlessness on sensori-motor functions.

Susan Leigh Foster, choreographer and scholar, is Professor in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA.  She is the author of Reading Dancing, Choreography and Narrative, Dances that Describe Themselves, and editor of Choreographing History, Corporealities, and Worlding Dance.  She is currently working on a genealogy of the terms choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy.

Christian Keysers graduated in psychology and biology in 1997 and obtained a PhD in neuroscience in 2000 from the University of St Andrews (Scotland). He was a leading investigator in Parma from 2000 till 2004 in the research group that made the original discovery of mirror neurons. He joined the University of Groningen in 2004 where is now full professor for the Social Brain and the Scientific Director of the NeuroImaging Center. He will be moving to the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience of the KNAW in Amsterdam in 2010. He is an associate editor of ‘Social Neuroscience’ and ‘Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience’, and his papers, including publications in Science, Neuron, Current Biology, have been cited over 1900 times.

Invited Speakers

Rachel Davies' background is in fine art, animation (RCA) and MTV. She was Associate Artist at The Place in 2001. She has collaborated on numerous works for stage, television and film, working with choreographers such as Robert Cohan, Ersatz Dance, H2 Dance, Mavin Khoo, Protein Dance and Akram Khan. In 2005 she won the IMZ Dance Screen Grand Prix for her film Gold. In 2007 she presented an installation The Assembly at Cornerhouse for Manchester International Festival and Sadlers Wells, now distributed as a short film. She teaches at Kingston University and her current research is in audience physical response to projection.

Chris Nash is a London based photographer specialising in Dance with a reputation built from over 60 one man exhibitions worldwide. Over the last 3 decades he has collaborated with most of the leading British choreographers to produce a wide range of contemporary dance imagery, as well as using dance as a starting point for his own work. He has taught workshops throughout Europe and the Far East as well as giving regular lectures on photography at undergraduate level.

Alex Reuben is a dance filmmaker with a background as a DJ and in art and design. His films are influenced by painting and politics. He calls them ‘choreogeography’. Reuben’s road movie Routes, a film with no words, is set in the Deep South during Hurricane Katrina. Commissioned for Arts Council England’s Capture, it is on international cinema release. Reuben received a Sadlers Wells research award in 2008, was a British Council and ACE artist in residence in Brazil, 2008-9 and will be artist in residence at the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 2010.

During Kinesthetic Empathy, he will show outcomes from his recent research and development of choreogeography, which was supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation.