LASER Talks Cambridge UK: Rhythm, Health, and Wellbeing

Chaired by Satinder Gill and Chrysi Nanou

EVENT INFO

When: Thursday July 6th , 18:00-20:00 BST, Find your timezone here

Where: This is an online event. Register via ZOOM

The third in our series on rhythmicity will focus on health and wellbeing.

Recent pandemic years have seen us become increasingly dependent on communications technologies and social media, impacting how we connect as social and empathic animals. Stress and feeling overwhelmed also places such pressure on us, for example, for those working in the care and therapeutic services where being empathic is vital for care.

Research from music and science and the experiences of artists working with communities, reveal that when we are able to move our bodies and voices in rhythm together, we feel better about ourselves and those around us, even boosting our immune system, and enabling us to engage empathically with the differences between us.

In this LASER discussion we bring together a neuroscientist and three very different artists who use their skills in professional clown technique, in dance, and in sound and media art, to engage with communities through participatory and collaborative art processes that involve play, bodily movement, and sound. In doing so, they contribute to a broader pattern of social priorities as they provide spaces that foster a positive experience of oneself and of other, enable acts of creation and self-realisation and shape inclusive dialogue.

PROGRAMME AND SPEAKER BIOS

Satinder P Gill - Introduction by LASER Chair Cambridge UK

Filipa Pereiras is a Cambridge based dance artist, dance teacher, and creative practitioner with thirty years experience in dance & health and in community arts. Her current core projects, including ‘Dance for Health’ at Cambridge University Hospitals, and ‘Dance at the Museum’ (Fitzwilliam Museum). She bridges subjective, phenomenological perspectives of the body, and naturalist and normative approaches to medicine, health and wellbeing. http://www.fpereirastubbs.co.uk/

Amanda Kelleher describes herself as Performer, Clown, Shape Thrower, Music Magpie, overall loud mouth. She is Artistic Director/CEO of Good Mood Creative, a new performing arts charity that delivers dynamic performing arts projects in the community and will be carrying out research with academics and scientists on groundbreaking approaches to arts and health interventions in the community. She is also a contemporary theatre fellow at Birkbeck University, London. www.goodmoodcreative.com, https://www.amandakelleher.co.uk/

Jorg Fachner Co-director of CIMTR (Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research) and Cambridge-PI of the EPSRC funded project Radio Me. He uses brain research and music technology for analysing and evaluating music therapy processes and outcomes, and has been involved in music therapy driven social neuroscience research projects funded with EU and national grants in Germany, Austria, Finland and the UK. 

Stephanie Loveless is the Director of The Center for Deep Listening, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA. She is a sound and media artist whose research centers on listening and vocal embodiment. Her recent projects include a mobile web-app for geo-located listening, and sound works that channel the voices of plants, animals, and musical divas. http://stephanieloveless.ca/HTML/bio.html & https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/

SPONSORS:

The Leonardo/ISAST LASERs are a program of international gatherings that bring artists, scientists, humanists and technologists together for informal presentations, performances and conversations with the wider public. The mission of the LASERs is to encourage contribution to the cultural environment of a region by fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and opportunities for community building to over 50 cities around the world. To learn more about how our LASER Hosts and to visit a LASER near you please visit our website. @lasertalks