Hannah McClure

Dr Hannah McClure


Teaching Fellow in Dance
+44 (0)1483 686237
04 GSA 00

About

Biography

Dr. Hannah McClure received her PhD in Practice-Based Research and Dance at The University of East London where she taught anatomy and nutrition for dancers and stage directing from 2010-2015. Her MA in Dance Anthropology was awarded at Roehampton University in 2009. Her BFA in Choreography and Performance was awarded at SUNY Brockport where she produced her first evening of work Seed Spinning, funded by the city of Rochester with exerpts performed at The Bridge for Dance and Dancespace, NY. She previously taught movement for actors and production modules at Southampton Solent University 2015 and workshops in Butoh and intercultural approaches to knowing at The Judith E. Wilson Drama Studio in Cambridge 2011-2012. Prior to her work in academia Dr. McClure produced 10 seasons of performance with The Prisms Project 2012-14 and Open Air Dance 2002-2011, a company she co-founded with artist Rebecca Drake. Current practice-research stems from her doctoral work on the Mevlevi whirling tradition, contemporary arts practices, and the intersections of these in bodies, spaces and hearts.

Research interests

Ritual, Religion, Sufism, Shamanism, Somatic Awareness, Ways of Knowing (practice-research, embodiment, trance), Processes of Transformation, Sustainability

Teaching

DAN1008 Movement Analysis: Experiential Anatomy and Somatic AwarenessDAN2033 Movement Analysis IV: Deepening Somatics and Theories of EmbodimentDAN2032 Dramaturgy: Devising for Dance, Theatre and Performance

DAN1012/DAN2029 Contemporary Dance Practices - Somatic Education ComponentDAN3026/THE2026 Research Methodologies - Ethnography and Practice-Research contributions

Departmental duties

Senior Professional Placement Tutor

Affiliations

The Centre for Performance Philosophy

The Labanarium

The International Federation for Theatre Research

The UK Polarity Therapy Association

The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program

Selected Productions

McClure, Hannah (Producer/Artistic Director) (2012-14) The Prisms Project. National Tour, UK. An hour long immersive dance work exploring trance,dance and feminine spiritualities.

McClure, Hannah (Producer/Choreographer) (2010-11) Circles of Light. Stratford Circus, London and Cambridge, UK. An evening length immersive work of dance-theatre exploring spiritual initiation.

McClure, Hannah (Producer/Choreographer) (2007) Tres Marias. Durham, NC, USA. An evening length dance work based on the novels of Isabelle Allende.

McClure, Hannah (Producer/Choreographer) (2006) Body Stories. Durham, NC, USA. An evening length work of dance-theatre exploring women's issues.

McClure, Hannah (Producer/Choreographer) (2003) A Celebration of the Elements. State Tour, NC, USA. An adaptable site specific piece.

Selected International Conference Presentations

April 2017, conference performance, The Body as a Site of Ritual Transformation, Sacred Places: Performances, Politics and Ecologies, Liverpool Hope University Creative Campus Research Cluster, Liverpool, UK.

Sep 2016, conference paper, Circles in the Sand: the semazen-artist as crucible, Lines in Sand: Bordders, Conflicts and Transitions, The International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, Glasgow, UK.

June 2015, conference paper, The Whirling Sema Ritual and Performance Practitioners: issues of authenticity, change, and East-West exchange, Athens is Dancing, The Congress on Research in Dance, The Hellenic Cosmos, Athens, Greece.

July 2013, conference paper, The Whirling Dervishes of West London: hybridity and agency in practice and transmission, Re-routing Performance, The International Federation for Theatre Research, Institut de Teatro, Barcelona, Spain.

April 2012, conference paper, Opening the Senses Through Performance: media, presence, practice, Time Tells: Temporal Excavations in Film, Theatre, and Television, JAM Journeys Across Media, Reading, U.K.

Sep 2010, conference paper, The Mevlevi Dervish as Bridge, Attending to the Other: Critical Theory and Spiritual Practice, The International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture, Oxford, UK.

Publications

McClure, Hannah and Njaradi, Dunja (Eds) (2017) Sufism and Arts Practice: Global Journeys of Sufi Whirling [Special Issue], Dance, Movement and Spiritualities, 3(3), [status: forthcoming]

McClure, Hannah (2017) 'Transmodernity and the Heart: the unique position of the semazen-artist' in Sufism and Arts Practice: Global Journeys of Sufi Whirling [Special Issue], Dance, Movement and Spiritualities, 3(3), [status: forthcoming]