Dr Clare Parfitt

Dr 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.

In her previous role as Heritage Project Co-ordinator at IRIE! dance theatre, Clare developed co-curated activities and events to activate IRIE!’s performance archive and increase knowledge and participation in African and Caribbean dance and drumming.

As Reader in Popular Dance at University of Chichester, Clare developed the Research Degrees programmes for Dance, Theatre, Music and Fine Art, leading to a tripling in the number of registered students and expanded supervisory capacity. From 2014-2016, she 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).

Clare co-founded PoP Moves, an international popular dance research network. She served as International Chair from 2019-2024, expanding PoP Moves internationally across nodes in the Americas, Australasia and the Francophone world, and registering the organisation as a Community Interest Company. She is a mentor on the PoP Moves UK Mentorship Programme.

Clare advocates for sustaining a healthy dance research ecosystem through consultancy, mentorship and peer review. 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.

I am currently working on the following projects:

  • Developing research on dance as heritage practice and reparative justice. Currently exploring how individuals, communities and institutions dance with our ancestors - shared on Instagram @DancingWithOurAncestors
  • Co-leading 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
  • Completing a monograph titled The Kinetics of Memory: Popular dance between France and the Atlantic World (Oxford University Press)

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

Supervised PhD and MPhil projects

  • María Faidi (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)
  • 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: SoYou Think You Can Dance, Popular Screen Dance and Modes of Affective Engagement’, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne

Publications or practice outputs: