Talk by Katy Dymoke: Working with touch and movement in arts and health

As part of UCC’s Perforum Autumn 2018 series of talks ‘Inclusivity and the Performing Arts’, Katy Dymoke will present on ‘Working with touch and movement in arts and health’ on 18 October at the Theatre Development Centre, Triskel Arts Centre in Cork.

Katy Dymoke is a UK-based teacher and practitioner in Body-Mind Centering, Programme Director of Embody Move, a body oriented psychotherapist and Director of Touchdown dance theatre company.

Touch and Movement underlie our learning from childhood and are the baseline senses for relating and communicating with others and the world around us. With this in mind, touch and movement methods are effective for all levels of ability to access arts practice in diverse contexts. Katy will share this in an experiential way and offer theoretical underpinning. Over the past three decades, Katy has been developing touch and movement methods from the legacy of Steve Paxton (and Touchdown Dance) and as the programme director of the Body-Mind Centering training programme in the UK. BMC provides useful tools for inclusive practice and touch is an essential aspect requiring careful and considered practice. Through her talk, Katy will integrate these methods in performance contexts and in arts in the community, education and health projects.

Katy Dymoke has been teaching BMC in the UK since 1997 and on other European programmes. She integrated BMC into her practice as a Dance Movement Psychotherapist in the NHS where she was a specialist in touch and non-verbal methods in adult learning disability services for nine years. She currently works with children and adults in education and health settings and in private practice. Katy established the Body-Mind Centering certification programmes in the UK and Poland; she believes in the innate intelligence of the body, and the application of BMC in therapeutic contexts and research. As a professional dancer and director of Touchdown Dance, Katy creates dance theatre and film. Touchdown Dance is unique for integrating blind and sighted dancers in a professional touring and workshop company based in Contact Improvisation. Collaborating with musicians, actors and dancers for 30 years, she has been an advocate for integrated arts practice.

Event Details 
Date: Thursday 18 October 2018
Time: 6-7.45 PM
Venue: Theatre Development Centre, Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street, Cork
Perforum events are open to the public and admission is free.

Presented by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Theatre and Performance Practices and Drama and Theatre Studies, School of Music and Theatre, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork.