Professor Christopher Bannerman had a distinguished international career as a performer and choreographer principally with the National Ballet of Canada and London Contemporary Dance Theatre.
He became Head of Dance at Middlesex University and achieved one of the first practice-research PhDs and professorial conferment. He founded ResCen Research Centre at Middlesex University, an innovative, multi-disciplinary, artist-driven research initiative designed to be a bridge between academia and the practices of professional performing artists (www.rescen.net). In 2006 he led the publication of Navigating the unknown: The creative process in contemporary performing arts and in 2009 co-founded ArtsCross, an intercultural choreographic research initiative with Beijing Dance Academy, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and University of Taipei.
He has contributed to policy as Chair of Dance UK, Arts Council England’s Dance Panel and through membership of the Dance Forum of the UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and two Research Assessment Exercises, which preceded the current Research Excellence Framework. He is London Contemporary Dance School’s first Visiting Professor and also serves in this role at Beijing Dance Academy. He has received several research grants, most recently an AHRC award for Future Ecologies: Producing Dance Network. He is Chair of the Board for Feng Ling Productions led by Farooq Chaudhry, co-founder of the Akram Khan Company and served as Chair of Judges for Sadler’s Wells’ inaugural Rose Prize Awards for Dance. He is an occasional performer, dancing with the Sadler’s Wells Elixir Ensemble and has worked with choreographers including Jonathan Burrows/Matteo Fargion, Annie-B Parson, Theo Clinkard and Robert Cohan.
I am currently working on:
- Research cohering around processes, practices and contexts of performance as it is conceived, created, presented and made available through and in the arts marketplace
- Making Dance Happen: producing dance in and between the UK and China as a creative practice linking artists, funders, audiences and wider societal concerns
I welcome PhD proposals and research collaborations in the following areas:
- Making dance happen, producing dance and cultural operators
- Dance performance and choreography
- Inter/transcultural practices and performance
Supervised PhD projects:
Kate March (2024) ‘The Journey Towards Netherness: Exploring Endometriosis Experiences in and through an Improvisational Creative Praxis’, PhD, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London (Supervisor).
Zhibo Zhao (2023) ‘Establishing and developing an improvisational dance course associated with Chinese dance and dancers’, PhD thesis, Middlesex University (Director of Studies).
Athina Vahla (2021) ‘Activating Agon in performance’, PhD thesis, Middlesex University (Director of Studies).
Examined PhD projects:
Siyuan Gong (2025) ‘Watching Ballet in China: A Socio-cultural Study of Ballet Fans in Contemporary China’, PhD, University of Roehampton.
Giridhar Raghunathan (2024) ‘The Queer Male Bharatanatyam Dancer: Negotiating Gender and Sexuality in Performance’, PhD, University of Roehampton.
Jamieson Dryburgh (2020) ‘Re-envisioning dance technique pedagogy’, PhD, Middlesex University.
Russell Maliphant (2020) 'Thinking Through the Body: An examination of the embodied artist and choreographic process', Practice-based PhD, Canterbury Christ Church University.
Publications:
Bannerman, C. (2013) ‘On Curation: The development of Danscross and walking with Zhuangzi’, ResCen, https://rescen.net/artscross/on-curation/.
Bannerman, C. (2008) ‘Proximity, wisdom and creativity,’ in Craft, A., Gardner, H. and Claxton, G. (eds.) Creativity,wisdom and trusteeship: exploring the role of education. California: Corwin Press, pp. 23-37.
Bannerman, C., Sofaer, J., and Watt, J. (eds.) (2006) Navigating the Unknown: The creative process in contemporary performing arts, London: Middlesex University Press, ResCen Publications.