Dr Ruth Pethybridge is a Dance Artist, Researcher, and Senior Lecturer in dance at Falmouth University, she has also worked extensively as a practitioner in the Community Dance sector. Her research interests centre on the body as a form of cultural knowledge and the politics of participation in dance. Ruth is passionately curious about the ways in which dance can operate to support the causes of social justice as well as creating structures that enable more people to participate in the art form she loves. Most recently she has worked as a senior research investigator exploring creative dance with young people who have had adverse childhood experiences as part of the ATTUNE project (Oxford University/Falmouth University).
She regularly publishes and presents her work internationally: Recent publications include ‘Dancing through the hard stuff’: Repetition, Resilience and Female Solidarity in the landscape - Rosemary Lee’s Passage for Par (Routledge 2019) and ‘From Direct Action to Being There: The Ambiguous Politics of Community Dance and the Occupy movement (a historiography)’ (Dance Books, 2020).
The emergence of this MA course is timely and necessary and I am so excited to be part of this important development both in education, but also in terms of changing the way that dance can be seen as a catalyst for positive and sustainable change in a world that needs so much repair. I can’t wait to see what graduates from this MA will do.
Dr Ruth Pethybridge