Dr Noyale Colin

Biography

Noyale Colin is Senior Lecturer in Dance and Performance at the University of Winchester where she teaches theory and practice across all levels of the undergraduate BA Dance and Performing Arts. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Noyale studied at the Conservatoires of Nantes and Lyon, before training in postmodern dance and presenting work at leading performing spaces in New York City. She subsequently pursued her career by exploring different somatic and performance practices including yoga, Ohashiatsu, physical theatre and Contact Improvisation. In 2008, Noyale graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London with an MA (Distinction) in Performance Making, before undertaking a PhD at Middlesex University which examines the politics of co-working in contemporary performance making. She led the dance department at the University of Suffolk from 2012 2015 and joined the dance department at the University of Winchester in 2016. In 2018, Noyale assumed the role of Convenor of the University's Centre for Performance Practice and Research (CPPR). Since 2019, she leads REF Unit of assessment 33: Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies. 

Noyale is co-editor of the book Collaboration in Performance Practices: Premises, Workings and Failures (2016) published by Palgrave Macmillan. She writes journal articles and produces practical works related to her research around issues of embodied practices and the notion of the collaborative self in performance. 

Her forthcoming co-edited book Ethical Agility in Dance: Rethinking Technique in British Contemporary Dance relies on the idea that dance fosters both singularity and collectivity in artistic education and thereby offers invaluable techniques to operate within the immediate, interconnected and volatile contemporary professional environment. This research gathers the perspectives of over fifty key teachers, choreographers and educators who have been shaping the British Contemporary Dance landscape. It highlights the potential of dance and creative embodied education for developing socially engaged individuals capable of forging ethical human relations for an ever-changing world; and in this sense to frame dance as a fundamental part of human experience.

Her teaching and research practice is also informed by ideas of activism in dance and in the arts. She co-curated the series of panel conversations ‘Performing Solidarity’ in collaboration with the Live Art Development Agency (London) and the university of Middlesex. It brought together artists and representatives from the wider solidarity economy to share their creative and activist approaches. Its aim was to consider current social issues and alternative ways that artistic practices can offer with regard to relating and coexisting. This project culminated in the publication of a special edition on solidarity for the Performance Research Journal (forthcoming).This volume offers eleven research contributions on solidarity and performance from international artists and researchers. 

Noyale has extensive experience organising public engagement events such as book launches, talks and podcasts. She also ran community projects engaging university students with the general public and health practitioners through intergenerational dance projects, inclusive dance workshops, roundtables on neurodiversity in HE and spirituality in dance and performance.

She is regularly invited to present research papers and or workshops to academics and dance students in countries including the UK, France, United States, Malta, Germany, Switzerland, Serbia, Austria, Canada, Italy and Kazakhstan. 

Current writing, curating and network projects:

• Ethical Agility in Dance: Rethinking Technique in British Contemporary Dance, a co-edited book on dance technique (Routledge, forthcoming 2023)
• Dancing, a co-written book on Dance and Health published by Emerald Publisher as part of The Arts and Health Series (Forthcoming 2024);
• The Institute of Place an interdisciplinary platform that seeks to generate, interrogate and reformulate individual and collective relationships to ‘place’ through performance-research related activities. (2020 – current);
• Co-curation of the and a research project ‘Performing Solidarity’ (2019-2023) on solidarity practices in Performance;
• Co-editing a Performance Research Journal special edition on Solidarity

Areas of expertise

• Collaborative Practice
• Embodied Pedagogies
• Dance theories and philosophy,
• Movement Improvisation
• Somatic practices
• Choreography
• Practice as Research

Publications

Books:

• Colin, Noyale and Kathryn Stamp, Dancing, Emerald Publishing (Forthcoming 2024) 
• Colin, Noyale and Catherine Seago (eds), Ethical Agility in Dance: Rethinking Technique in British Contemporary Dance, Routledge (Forthcoming)
• Colin, Noyale and Sachsenmaier, Stefanie (eds.), Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.  

Book chapters:

• Colin, Noyale, Ethical Agility in British Contemporary Dance in Colin, Noyale, Catherine Seago, Kathryn Stamp, Ethical Agility in Contemporary British Dance, Routledge, (Forthcoming 2023) 
• Colin, Noyale and Sachsenmaier, Stefanie, ‘Collaborative Performance-Making in Context’ in: Colin, N and Sachsenmaier, S (eds.), Collaboration in Performance Practice: Premises, Workings and Failures, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.1-26. *
• Colin, Noyale, ‘Collaboration as a Mode of Labour’ in: Colin, N and Sachsenmaier, S (eds.), Collaboration in Performance Practice Premises, Workings and Failures, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.108-132. *

Journal articles:

• Colin, Noyale, ‘Performing Solidarity’, Performance Research Journal (Forthcoming Summer 2023)

• Colin, Noyale (2021), ‘The Politics of Unity in Dance’, Central Asia Journal of Art Studies, 6:4, 10–27.

• Colin, Noyale (2018) ‘The critical potential of Somatic Collectivity under Post-Fordism’, Journal for Dance and Somatic Practices, Intellect (forthcoming 2018)
• Colin, Noyale (2018), ‘The potentiality of collaboration at Dartington College of Arts and the future of performance training’, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training (TDPT), Routledge, 9:3. 445-456.  

• Colin, Noyale, 'Becoming Plural: The Distributed Self in Collaborative Performance Research', Choreographic Practices Journal, 2015.

• Colin, Noyale & Woodford-Smith, Rebecca, 'Bodies in Motion: Working through Plurality', Skepsi peer-reviewed online journal, University of Kent. 2012. 20-36.

• Colin, Noyale, 'Choreographic Presence: Time, Memory, and Affects'. Symposium proceedings Performance Studies International (Psi) 2012.

Book reviews:

• Susanne Foellmer, Margaret Lünenborg, Christoph Raetzsch (eds.), Media Practices, Social Movements and Performativity: Transdisciplinary approaches, International Journal of Cultural Politics, Intellect (forthcoming, 2018).

Conference/ Research Events Organisation

• 2021: Co-organiser Webinar - Performances in Public Space: Responses to Uncertainty in a Time of Pandemic. University of Winchester HEIF fund.
  
• 2020: The Institute of Place Launch
• 2020: Artist Residency Sheila Ghelani
• 2019 - 2020: In Conversation Series
• 2018: Co-organiser: Dance Technique and Performance Training. Roundtable and working group. University of Winchester
• 2016: Co-organiser: Collaboration Research Network International roundtable. Middlesex University
• 2013: Co-organiser: symposium II. On Collaboration. Middlesex University
• 2012: Co-organiser: symposium I. On Collaboration. Middlesex University

Conference Papers

• 21/03/2015 Distributed Performers’ Self in Composition: An Insight into Interdisciplinary Structured Improvisation’, Performance and Interdisciplinary, University of Malta.
• 18/07/2014 ‘Stepping Besides: Distributing the Self in Collaborative Performance Research’, Questioning the Contemporary in 21st Century British Dance Practices, Leeds Metropolitan University.
• 25/06/2014 ‘Politics of Collaboration in Artistic Practices’, University Suffolk Campus Research Colloquium, Ipswich Suffolk.
• 18/05/2013 ’Collaboration as a Mode of Labour: A Post-Marxist Perspective’, On Collaboration symposium II, Middlesex University, London.
• 25/02/2012, ‘Tout fait: Bergson, time, and choreographic being-made’, international conference, title of panel: ‘Restaging the Readymade’, USA, 100th Annual Conference and Centennial Celebration, College Art Association, Los Angeles, USA.
• 14/04/2012, ‘Choreographic Presence: time, memory and affect’, PSi London group, International Conference: How Performance Thinks’, London.
• 22/05/2012, 'Choreographic presence through time: a performative assessment of the legacy of the Judson Dance Theatre Group', Conference Paper, Postgraduate Conference: Transform@work, University of Surrey, Guildford.
• 13/06/2012, ‘Collaboration in Crisis? A mixed-practice inquiry into collaborative processes in performance practice’, Practice-led research presentation, forum convened by Dr Susan Lock, Art and Design Research Institute, London
• 03/06/2011, 'Choreographic presence through time: a performative assessment of the legacy of the Judson Dance Theatre Group', A mixed- mode presentation including 15 minutes performance and 15 minutes paper. Symposium title: ‘La transmission du geste en question: processus, expérience, figure', Université de Nice, France