Clare Parfitt is an interdisciplinary dance scholar of indentured Portuguese-Guyanese and British heritage. Her research has traversed the Atlantic, exploring popular dance as cultural memory and heritage across Francophone and Anglophone worlds. She weaves expertise in ethnography, archival research and community co-research into her projects, and is adept at working between academia and grassroots dance communities.

Clare is passionate about nurturing popular dance researchers, students, artists, and communities. In her previous roles as Reader in Popular Dance at University of Chichester and International Chair of PoP Moves, she fostered communities of collective care and expanded PoP Moves into a decentred, international network.

As a child of Portuguese indentureship in the Caribbean, Clare develops collaborative research that supports Caribbean dance communities. In her previous role as Heritage Project Co-ordinator at IRIE! dance theatre, she developed co-curated activities and events to activate IRIE!’s performance archive and increase knowledge and participation in African and Caribbean dance and drumming. She currently co-leads a collaborative research project, ‘Mapping Atlantic (Im)mobilities: Caribbean dance communities in London and their diasporic connections’, supported by Kingston University and the Society for Dance Research. As a performer, she is an active member of the Guyana (UK) Kwe Kwe Group, which received the GUSDA John David Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution in promoting Guyanese culture in the UK in 2025.

From 2014-2016 Clare was Principal Investigator on the AHRC Leadership Fellowship project Dancing with Memory, which was described as a “paradigm-shifting research programme” by Professor Rachael Fensham (2019). Her edited volume, Cultural Memory and Popular Dance: Dancing to remember, dancing to forget (Palgrave, 2021) was shortlisted for the TaPRA Edited Collection Prize 2022 and her forthcoming monograph is provisionally titled The Kinetics of Memory: Popular dance between France and the Atlantic World (Oxford University Press). Future research will explore dance as heritage practice and reparative justice.

Clare advocates for sustaining a healthy dance research ecosystem through consultancy, mentorship and peer review. As a mentor, coach and facilitator, she nurtures dance research cultures both in her role at The Place and through the PoP Moves UK Mentorship Programme. Her membership of the AHRC Dance Research Matters Advisory Group and of the AHRC Peer Review College has enabled her to develop strategic dialogues with funders and envisage future infrastructures for dance research.

Supervised PhD and MPhil projects

María Faidi (forthcoming 2025) ‘Bellydance in Egyptian Golden Era Cinema: an affective pedagogy of colonial modernity’, PhD thesis (Director of Studies)

Lilly Krijtova (2021) ‘Burlesque and Body Image’, MPhil thesis (Director of Studies - cross-supervised with Psychology)

Flaviana Sampaio (2020) ‘Light Never Escapes: Procedures for dancing with shadows’, Practice-based PhD (Amendments Supervisor)

Celena Monteiro (2020) ‘Bruk Out Feminism in the Intercultural Dancehall Queen Scene’, PhD thesis (Director of Studies)

Paul Sadot (2019) ‘Unsteady State: hip hop dance artists in the space(s) of UK dance theatre’, Practice-based PhD (Director of Studies)

Jane Turner (2012) ‘Emergent Dance: a choreographic exploration’, Practice-based PhD (Co-Supervisor)

Teresita Marsden (2010) ‘The Quadrille: Eurocentrism manifest within the Afro-Caribbean Limonese community of Costa Rica’, MPhil thesis (Co-Supervisor)

Examined PhD projects

Dara Milovanović (2018) ‘The Fosse Woman: Analysis of femininity, aesthetics, and corporeality’, PhD thesis, Kingston University

Kristine Sommerlade (2018) ‘Identity, Knowledge and Ownership: Contemporary Theatre Dance Artists in the UK’s Creative Economy, PhD thesis, Middlesex University

Elena Benthaus (2015) ‘So You Think You Can Wow: So You Think You Can Dance, Popular Screen Dance and Modes of Affective Engagement’, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne

I am interested in research collaborations and PhD proposals in the following areas:

Dance as heritage practice

Decoloniality, migration and performances of diasporic memory

Transcolonial Atlantic worlds

Popular dance and cultural memory