Dr Beatrice Jarvis

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.

• 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