In this episode of Dancing Class, Laura Griffiths and Rachel Krische invite artist and researcher Kate Marsh to discuss her journey from growing up in Peterborough to becoming a dance professional and academic.
Kate reflects on childhood encounters with movement, the impact of supportive teachers, and how class, disability, and identity continue to inform her relationship with dance. Kate discusses key mentors in her career, barriers to access, and the role of confidence and community in navigating dance and academia.
The conversation highlights dance as both precarious a catalyst for empowerment and social mobility.
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Kate Marsh
Disabled dance artist, performer and teacher
Kate Marsh (she/her)
Disabled dance artist, performer and teacher
Peterborough (UK)
Kate Marsh is a disabled dance artist with over 20 years of experience in performing, teaching and making.
Her interests are centred around perceptions of the body in the arts and notions of corporeal aesthetics. Specifically, she is interested in each of our lived experiences of our bodies, and how this does (or doesn’t) inform our artistic practice. Her practice-research focusses on leadership in the context of dance and disability and draws strongly on the voices of artists to interrogate questions around notions of leadership, perceptions and the body.
Kate’s work is strongly fed by co-design and co-facilitation, where we all arrive into our practice from our own place and pace and this informs the ways we work together. Privileging all experiences and ways of being in, prioritising a playful, accessible and generative environment.
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Dr Rachel Krische
Performer & Academic Researcher
Credit Lizzie Coombes
Dr Rachel Krische (she/her)
Performer & Academic Researcher
Leeds (UK)
With a performance career spanning over 33 years, Rachel has performed, made work, movement directed, conducted research and taught extensively in diverse, international contexts.
She has collaborated with over 30 different artists/companies such as Deborah Hay, La Ribot, Akram Khan, & Siobhan Davies. Within academic research, Rachel investigates embodied knowledge, embodied cognition, body as archive and social class in dance within art practice and education. She mentors artists and post-graduate students and is a member of advisory panels within the professional sector. Occasionally she still busts a few moves … in front of an audience.
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Dr Laura Griffiths
Senior Lecturer in Dance
Credit Lizzie Coombes
Dr Laura Griffiths (she/her)
Senior Lecturer in Dance
Leeds (UK)
Laura is Senior Lecturer in Dance at Leeds Beckett University. Her research interests cohere around the relationship between dance and archives including the role of oral narrative in documenting the past.
Recent research has investigated the role of dance content on social media as modes of social connection and as an archival method. Laura is active in advocacy for the best practice in dance teaching, access and inclusivity in Higher Education within her role as Vice Chair of Dance HE, the national representative body for academics and practitioners in Higher Education Dance Departments.
Part of Dancing Class
Blending personal narrative with bi-neural sound and creative documentation, Dancing Class is a thought-provoking podcast which places dance centre stage in the conversation around class, opportunity and cultural value.
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Credits +
Date of recording: 21 February 2025
- Dr Laura Taylor
Sound Recordist - Charlotte Ryan
Sound Recordist - Igor Mieczkowski
Sound Recordist - Dr Laura Taylor
Editing - Amelie Thomas
Editing - Dr Jess Blaise Ward
Audio Accompaniment - Michael Ward
Audio Accompaniment Mastering
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