Sara Houston: Dancing with Parkinson's

Will and Charles speak to Sara Houston, Professor of Dance and Director for the Centre for Research in Arts and Creative Exchange at the University of Roehampton’s School of Arts. Since the late 2000s, Sara’s research has focused on the benefits of dance for people with Parkinson’s, starting from a small project with the English National Ballet, then growing into a decades-long project, culminating in her 2019 Book, Dancing with Parkinson’s.  Sara’s own PhD was at Roehampton, we discuss her personal route to it, what has changed, and what has stayed the same. She is also co-director of the Consortium for Researching Inclusive Culture and Arts (CRICA,) a research programme in partnership with the London School of Economics – which amongst other things offers funded PhD studentships... 😉  Chapters 00:08 Introduction 01:04 Dancing with Parkinson’s: the origin story 02:58 The role of the English National Ballet 04:31 The current landscape 05:15 Different methods for different evidence 09:46 Sara’s own PhD at Roehampton 11:21 Dance as an academic discipline 12:37 The PhD, then and now 14:56 CRICA: the Consortium for Researching Inclusive Culture and Arts 16:12 Do you have to be a dancer to research Dance? 17:00 Sara’s tips for grad students   The Roey Grad Podcast is a presentation of the University of Roehampton’s Graduate School.  Our theme music is by DiamondTunes  Our hosts are two PhD students at Roehampton, Charles Miller and Will Berard, who also edits and mixes the podcast. It was produced by Aaliyah Hassan. Comments, questions, want to appear on the show? Get in touch at [email protected]