Senior Lecturer in Dance

I am a recognised yoga elder/senior teacher. I registered Yoga Clinic Bedford as a yoga teacher training school.

For the past 10 years, my yoga teachers have been Petri Raisanen and Juha Javanainen, who have also mentored me in becoming a skilled Mysore class teacher. Under Petri, I have trained extensively in the Finnish Energy Healing techniques, which he has given me permission to offer to others. I often assist my teachers and continue to learn with them. In these years, I have also practiced with Manju Jois, Sharath, Eddie Stern and Monica Gauci, who have all greatly inspired my practice.

I have created over forty five choreographic works and projects, which range from a month long performance of the Pennine Way National Trail with fellow artist Simone Kenyon, to touring repertory work. I have enjoyed collaborations with artists such as Janis Claxton, Nala Walla, Tim Rubidge, Fiona Wright and Adrienne Clancy. My practice has been strongly influenced by the teachings of Nancy Stark Smith, Nina Martin, Andrew Harwood, Anna Halprin, Janis Claxton, Penelope Hanstein and Mark Taylor. I was the artistic director of arts council supported dance digital for five years during which time I created and commissioned a wide range of dance works for public spaces and environmental interventions.

I am interested in practice as research as a mode of engagement in the university and in the value of oral traditions, embodied knowledge and in person engagements as modes of learning, knowledge transmission and transformation in the performing arts. I am active in writing about practice, supporting research students in this mode, and in bringing attention to the value of the practitioner in contemporary society. I have written for Contact Quarterly, Choreographic Research Journal and the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, which I have also guest edited, and currently serve on the editorial board. I have also published artist books on my practice and on practitioners in the field, most recently, The Mapping Lineage Book project, that documents lineages of dance improvisation artists in New York and beyond.

I have practiced the form of contact improvisation since 1996, and have integrated this with studies in BMC, developmental movement and somatics. Somatics and yoga are core elements of my practice. I have the Camyoga Teaching Diploma and I currently teach beginners yoga, yoga for dancers, ashtanga yoga and restorative yoga.

I bring my dance, movement and yoga background to a creative approach to human development that values experiential learning, creativity, voice, partnering, drawing, writing and dialogue. I find that the varied practices of improvisation and mindful approaches to movement, and the techniques of yoga, such as chanting, meditation, asana, and mindful approaches to life found in the yoga teachings, offer possibilities to both channel and release creativity.

As well as my professional experience and qualifications, I earned a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography and a PhD in Dance, in which I looked at ecological perspectives on choreography in the context of environmental change.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) Dance – Roehampton Institute, London
• MFA Choreography, Texas Woman's University
• PhD Dance, Texas Woman's University
• Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Camyoga Yoga Teaching Diploma (RYT200)
• Recognised Yoga Elder (Yoga Teachers Together)

Teaching Expertise

• Choreography; site-sensitive, durational and environmental performance
• Improvisation; contact improvisation and improvisation in performance
• Creative Health, Yoga and Mindfulness
• Inclusive Practice, Critical Pedagogy and Engaged Practices in Dance, Yoga and allied disciplines

Research Interests

• Improvisation and Ecological Perception in Performance
• Dance and Environmental Change
• Creative Health, Somatics and Yoga in community settings
• Developing movement tools through digital technology to support well being

PhD Supervision

I supervise projects in practice as research in choreography, community dance practice, somatic practice, dance and ecology/environment, yoga pedagogy, intersectional research in spiritual dimensions of movement practices, inclusive practices, influences of indigenous healing in modern bodywork and Somatics, experimental research and interdisciplinary research. Current students are researching:

• Tacit knowledge in the independent dance sector
• Reiki, energy healing and creativity in dance and somatic practices
• The benefits of dance practice for young people on the autistic spectrum
• 21st century pedagogy in a Sri Lankan Gurukulum
• Energy healing through sound and movement improvisation

If you have a project idea, get in touch!

Yoga teacher development and CPD

I lead yoga teacher training and CPD courses for yoga teachers hosted at the University, under the name Yoga Clinic Bedford.

Contact Details

E: tamara.ashley@beds.ac.uk