Dr Beatrice Jarvis
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Department of Performing Arts
- School of Arts
- Penrhyn Road
Course Leader for Dance, Senior Lecturer in Dance, ECR Representative
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
Dr Beatrice Jarvis is a choreographer, somatic practitioner, and interdisciplinary researcher whose work operates at the convergence of performance, ecological thought, trauma studies, and spatial theory. She is Course Leader for BA Dance and Senior Lecturer at Kingston School of Art, where she leads curriculum and research development across dance, socially engaged practice, and interdisciplinary arts. Her research explores how embodied movement functions as both a method and epistemology for addressing ecological urgency, spatial justice, and civic repair.
Beatrice holds a practice-based PhD from the University of Ulster (2017), where she examined somatic movement as a response to spatial and social conflict in post-conflict environments. She previously studied Choreography and Visual Arts at Dartington College of Arts (BA Hons), followed by an AHRC-funded MA in Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London (CUCR). Her work draws from these interdisciplinary foundations to develop practice-as-research methodologies that connect choreographic process, environmental humanities, trauma-informed practice, and critical spatial studies.
Her choreographic and site-responsive research has been presented internationally, including at dOCUMENTA (13), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, the Pina Bausch Symposium, Galway Dance Festival, and the American Association of Geographers. Recent projects include The Fog, a choreographic work engaging with border ecologies through fog as material and metaphor, and Damhsa / Rince: Moving Earth, an ongoing inquiry into Irish language, somatic scoring, and ecological citizenship.
Her publications reflect her commitment to critical interdisciplinarity and embodied research. Her chapter in Encountering Environments through the Arts (Routledge, 2024) explores maternal embodiment, Gaelic language, and somatic memory within rural Donegal. Her current writing develops a framework for speculative somatic ecologies, drawing on deep ecology, Object-Oriented Ontology, feminist posthumanism, and polyvagal theory to reimagine the choreographic score as a method for ecological participation and situated knowledge-making.
A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Beatrice supervises practice-led PhDs and contributes to national and cross-sector dialogues on inclusive pedagogy, ethical research environments, and trauma-aware arts education. She is also completing certification as a TRE® (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) practitioner. Across her research, teaching, and facilitation, she positions choreography as a vital practice of attunement, resistance, and co-composition within the more-than-human world.
Qualifications
- MA (Goldsmiths) Sociology and Research Architecture ( AHRC funded)
- BA (Hons) Choreography and Visual Arts Practices: Dartington College of Arts
- FHEA Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- ILM Level 5 Institute of Leadership and Management
Domains
Beatrice’s pedagogical practice is grounded in choreographic teaching as a methodology for intellectual, creative, and interpersonal development. Her approach emphasises the role of interpersonal dialogue and collaborative processes in cultivating trust, responsibility, and shared authorship within learning environments. She specialises in the delivery of site-specific and eco-somatic practices, situating dance within museums, galleries, and outdoor contexts to extend students’ critical engagement with space, ecology, and cultural discourse. Her teaching is informed by a commitment to whole-person development, supporting students to build resilience, reflective capacity, and ethical awareness alongside technical and creative expertise.
Course director
Courses taught
I have a strong track record of choreographic and performance research and practice, maintaining and developing my expertise in devising. My current research is centred on eco-somatics, somatic education, and motherhood, with a particular interest in how embodied practice can function as a methodology for ecological awareness, intergenerational knowledge, and whole-person development. This focus has informed both my practice and publications, including articles in Choreographic Practices and Environment, Space and Place, and chapters for Routledge, Demeter Press, and Autonomedia. I have also undertaken a number of significant research projects, residencies, and commissions with institutions such as dOCUMENTA (13), Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, and Dance Limerick, which explore choreography as a form of situated knowledge-making and civic engagement. Over the past eight years, I have taught contemporary dance, dance research, and somatic embodied practice in universities, community centres, dance schools, prisons, research labs, and studio-based training, consistently emphasising creative exchange and the socio-cultural empowerment of the individual within society.
Specialisms
- Somatics
- Site responsive dance practice
- Embodiment
- Post Conflict research
- Dance and Trauma
- Ecosomatics
- Interdisciplinary research
- Dance and health
I am currently a member of Hub for the Study of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuilding. HCPB is hosted and led by the Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM).
I am currently training to become a Certified TRE® Provider.
Professional and scholarly affiliations
- The Hub for the Study of Hybrid Communication in Peacebuilding.