The UK’s First Professor of Dance Education

Do you like dancing? Do we dance enough? Or maybe the question is, why don’t we dance more? Dr. Angela Pickard is the UK’s first Professor of Dance Education. She has worked with talented dancers and choreographers across a multitude of theatres and sites in the UK and internationally. From toddlers to The Royal Ballet School, Angela has a wealth of knowledge and she is now the Director of the Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health, here in the UK. The Centre makes an internationally leading contribution to critical scholarship, research, and practice in the field of arts and health. She is interested in the relationship between dance and psychological, social and artistic outcomes and responding to barriers of exclusion. Who is and isn’t included in dance, even in contemporary forms that we might assume are much more accessible? Who participates in dance is problematic, there’s a ring of elitism around it. Different generations may have memories of the traditional Friday night dance at the village hall, the school disco, the glamorous prom, the explosion of street-dance or maybe at weddings only. Have you ever been to a 'Daybreaker,' a morning dance rave to feel energized and well? Are you a fan of the hit TV series, Strictly Come Dancing? Whatever is happening, it seems our relationship with dance is fragmented, yet it has brought us joy, forms of protest and phenomenal social change. So, let’s get curious about dance and who better to ask than the UK’s first Professor of Dance Education?

Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

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Discover Dr. Angela Pickard, Director of the Sydney de Haan Centre www.canterbury.ac.uk/research/research-centres/sidney-de-haan-research-centre-for-arts-and-health