Nina Atkinson – Dance Artist: Founder and Artistic Director of Loop Dance Company, Lecturer at Canterbury Christchurch University (pt0.8) and Honorary Fellow at University of Roehampton.
Nina completed her undergraduate and MA training at Trinity Laban and founded Loop Dance Company in 1993. Nina has worked with many well know choreographers, created multiple works for Loop including site-specific, site-sensitive, installation and film-based work with both professional and community performers and has led and overseen many community, youth and educational dance projects.
In 2004 Nina returned from a two-year sabbatical in New York studying Limón technique on the Professional Studies Program at the Limón Dance Foundation. During her time in the US Nina also taught and studied at Peridance Center and studied Low Flying Trapeze with Fly-By-Night Dance Theatre. In 2008 Nina returned to New York to study on the first Limón Teachers Program.
Nina is currently studying for her Ph.D. at The Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University. Her research interests are creating artwork for unusual spaces, from large-scale site-specific work to intimate installation experiences. The work is reflective of her dance perspective, emotive and human in its interaction with the viewer. Many of these works have been created in collaboration with artists from different genres bringing creative souls together in a meaningful partnership has become an expertise.
Exploring Somatic Sensation – what do we feel when we encounter intimate dance performance?
Excerpt from Hanging Heavy by Loop Dance Company
Choreography Nina Atkinson
Dancers Effie Mcguire-Ward, Daisy Farris, Harriet Parker-Joy and Clarisse Roud
Music Sabio Janiak
Lighting Design Dr Andy Hurst
Kinaesthetic empathy involves the internal ‘simulation’ of observed movement in the brain of the observer; this simulation of others’ actions contributes to action understanding and empathy. For example, when we see someone expressing an emotion, the emotion is embodied through our neural and physiological response. It is not known whether this response is dependent on sight, or can be experienced in a more direct ‘somatic’ manner.
The immersive dance performance piece ‘Hanging Heavy’ is the result of the 5 year project ‘Exploring Somatic Sensation (ESS)’. This immersive performance project investigates kinaesthetic empathy focusing on intimate work that immerses the audience in the work in collaboration with cognitive neuro-scientists from BEAMlab (University of Manchester). The project builds on the pilot project which questioned if vision stimulates kinaesthetic empathy by testing audience reactions. We carried out tests to investigate by measuring things such as spontaneous movement & arousal. Interestingly, we discovered that audiences were reacting to the work physically, heart rates were elevated & were synchronizing with the dancer’s. The Encounters Tour 2023 is the 4th and final phase of ESS and involves refined data collection informed by the previous stages.
We will show a short excerpt of the work and the choreographer Nina Atkinson will offer a provocation for discussion.
Roundtable: Measuring The Impact
Other panelists include Nancy Hirst and Wendy Daws.