Dr Helen Kindred

Biography

Helen Kindred, PhD. is a dance-artist and scholar, co-Artistic Director of DancingStrong Movement Lab with Adesola Akinleye and Director of Dance and Professional Practice Programmes at Middlesex University. Helen has toured internationally as a performer and presented choreographic work at venues, festivals and conferences over the past twenty eight years. Her work engages with people and places, creating improvisations of touch, text, sound, and image and has been presented as part of the InsideOut Festival, London (2015), 4^th International Festival of Theatre and Dance, Wałbryzch, Poland (2016), estancias coreograficas symposium, Oviedo, Spain (2017), Light Moves Festival of ScreenDance, Limerick, Ireland (2018), Inshadow Festival of ScreenDance, Lisbon, Portugal (2018), Seya Festival of ScreenDance, Tehran, Iran (2019), The Place, London (2020) and as part of Global Water Dances, London (2021), Park Picnic Festival, Croatia (2023), DSML schools tour, London (2023).9^th International Festival of Theatre and Dance, Wałbryzch, Poland (2023),. Publications include ‘In-the-Between-ness: Decolonising and re-inhabiting our dancing’, co-authored chapter with Dr Adesola Akinleye in Narratives in Black British Dance Embodied Perspectives (Akinleye, A. (ed. 2018), KnowingUnknowing, co-authored DVD published by Farpoint Recordings (2019), ‘Improvisation and Change’ article in Animated (Summer 2020), ‘Moving Meditations: embodying Bartenieff Fundamentals through sensorial awareness of breath, bones, and gravity’, Journal of Dance, Movement and Spiritualities (2022). Forthcoming publications for 2024 include; The ‘Female’ Dancer: a soma-scientific approach (co-edited with Claire Farmer), Routledge Taylor Francis Group and Scores of the City, Scores of the Shore; materials, eco-somatics, dance and Place-making, (co-authored with Dr Adesola Akinleye), Intellect Publishers. 

Teaching

Teaching areas include somatic practices (Bartenieff Fundamentals/Embodied Fundamentals), improvisation and choreographic practice, lectures/seminar facilitation in practice as/is research, research design and methodologies, ethics. 

PGR supervision, Yoana Stoeva -  Somatics, mental health and dance education (2023-2026)