Ailsa Richardson

Profile Information:

What I do:

performer, dancer, teacher, researcher

A little more about me:

I have a background as a visual artist and public artist alongside a training in groupwork and community development.
I discovered site specific, multidisciplinary and collaborative performance making in 1995 and have been engaged with this in variety of forms since then, as performer, director and choreographer of my own work and that of others (for example: Ghostnets II, Kneehigh; The Last Supper, Centre for Performance Research; Embrace, an immodest green, De Quincey Company ). Over the years I came to specialise in two performance training and making practices: BodyWeather and the work of Goat Island Performance Group, which inform my teaching (in Universities and workshops) and making. Since 2006 I have been more engaged with teaching, researching and writing and have recently begun to develop some new ideas for performances. I am particularly interested now in the ‘performance as workshop’ and the involvement of the audience as participants in experiences that shift their awareness and perception of their environment and others (a ‘synaesethetic laboratory’ perhaps). Integral questions that inform my work: How do we 'perform' new models of community? How does experimental and sometimes radical and resistant artistic practice contribute to this?
I teach a systemic healing and ecstatic dance practice a called Movement Medicine I'm also a bit of a musician (I have taken this role in a number of performances) and closet DJ.

Location:

Mountain Ash

Projects I’m working on:

A couple of new performance collaborations - very early stages, currently named '7 preparations' and 'the taste of a breaking wave' and returning to material from a couple of old ones 'the still point of a turning world' and 're-member 3'.
A solo performance 'home landing' made in collaboration with film maker Inga Burrows, exploring national identity, belonging and a contemporary folk dance in the kitchen
Developing a series of workshops in Wales and Europe exploring the intersections between bodies and environments entitled 'hinterlands'.
PhD: 'Performing the art of community. Community as the art of performance.'

Personal Website/CV:

http://www.ailsarichardson.com

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