Dance Studies

Project

This project examines how somatic practices and/or therapeutic dance approaches facilitate wellness in creative practice, community settings, and/or clinical settings.

Applicants should be coming from a dance-related undergraduate degree, and will be required to conduct research including the appropriate research design, data collection, analysis/interpretation, and production of a final product (whether it be practice-based or fully written).

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students.

Project

This project explores choreographic, performance and creative practice. Choreographic exploration, tasking, analysis, discussion, and expanded creative methodologies will be utilised.

This project is ideal for students coming from a dance undergraduate degree who are curious about developing a rigorous practice embracing creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking, as well as exploring new avenues for dance-making and creative practice.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

The dance studio context encompasses a multitude of complex relationships and modes of thinking and doing. Many factors can influence experiences of community, citizenship, and identity in dance-making and learning.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

This research aims to examine diverse dance education practices and theory in formal and informal contexts. A specific focus will be in relation to how dance pedagogies attend to UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Skills required: Dance education experience.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students.

Project

This project explores how meanings, functions and values of dance are poised to shift within an unpredictable future.

Applicants should be coming from a dance-related undergraduate degree, and will be required to engage in field work gathering, interpreting and presenting understandings of dance, exploring new trends for dance knowledge in creative, educational and social contexts.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

This project explores artistic practices of dance making, documentation, and studio methods.

Applicants should be coming from a dance related undergraduate degree, and will be required to explore choreographic knowing and forms of writing that emerge from the site of creative process, in relation to current literature framing artistic research and experimental documentation.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

This project will involve the investigation of Māori Contemporary Dance archives. Applicants will explore historical meanings, functions and values of dance that are distinct to tangata whenua creative and performing arts.

Applicants should be coming from a dance-related undergraduate degree, and will be required to engage in field work gathering, interpreting and presenting understandings of dance, and the organisation of archival materials for analysis.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

This choreographic performance and production project centres on an innovative, creative, and community-minded live performance context, and seeks to develop future-ready creative, collaborative, and entrepreneurial skills through practice-led choreographic research.

By fostering and expanding choreographic research practices relevant to postgraduate study, the creative output of this summer scholarship project will be a collaborative choreographic performance work.

To conduct the project, up to 3 students can be co-supervised by Sarah Foster-Sproull and Sarah Knox. 

Project

This project will allow the student to carry out their own research in choreographic and/or other creative arts practices from a range of perspectives of their choosing. Examples of this can include but are not limited to Western contemporary dance practices, choreography in the expanded field, conceptual practices, live art and performance art, video and digital practices, perspectives in decolonisation as Tangata Whenua, collaboration, visual arts performance, social justice and performance, ecological perspectives and transdisciplinarity.

To conduct the project, the supervisor will select up to 2 students. 

Project

This project explores the future of interacting with AI – full-body interaction with AI agents within an immersive environment where users experience responsive audio-visual feedback based on real-time body tracking. The student will integrate AI agents into a Unity code base for a participative installation. The research goal is to understand how the AI agents and effects impact sensory perception, embodiment, and subjective experiences.

Over the summer, we will work with dance experts to iteratively develop the AI agents and interaction. This summer research project will contribute to an installation that will be made public. It is related to a larger project that is likely to lead to topics of masters and PhD studies and to collaborations with other researchers in universities abroad.

Apply for this project in the Faculty of Science application form.