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Welcome to our Diary page. We have begun a varied year of twice-monthly classes, occasional longer workshops, and performance opportunities. This page will be updated as events are confirmed.

If you are new to our website, you can see previous years' events below, and also take a look at some of our past theatre or site-specific project pages. There are video clips of recent work-in-progress on our YouTube channel, see: Of Wounds and Shadows (2022 version); Virtual Diamond Night: Hidden; Fired Earth

For enquiries and information, please email us. To be kept up-to-date with our news and plans, why not join our mailing list?

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Jan 13 — Class 'The Soul's Unfolding' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Jan 27 — Class 'The Unfamiliar Body' with Ayala Kingsley
Feb 10 — Class 'Body in Transition' with Macarena Ortuzar
Feb 23 — Video Night
Feb 24 — Exploration day 'Body Ecologies'
Mar 9 — Class with Andy Solway
Mar 23 — Class with Helen Edwards
Apr 13 — Diamond Night open platform
Apr 27 — Class with Helen Edwards
Apr 27 — Fen Dance performance
May 11 — Class with Nathalie Descamps
May 25 — Workshop with Marie-Gabrielle Rotie

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Video Night
Friday 23 February 2024 — 6.30 for 7.00pm

An informal get-together to watch some of the Café Reason video archive, plus international butoh 'finds'. For venue information please contact Alexandra. Bring food and drink to share.

Exploration day: Body Ecologies
Saturday 24 February 2024 — 10.30–5.00
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

This workshop will set about discovering together – through guided exercises, improvised movement, and discussion – the scope of our corporeal natures and the stories our bodies have to tell.

We will look at the body – materially, conceptually, and emotionally – through an array of different lenses: in culture (how we fit into and are seen by the society around us); in nature (our connection and interaction with the flow of life), in science/medicine (the body as a biological entity), and in imagination (metamorphosis and transcending the given). But we will also acknowledge the porous nature of those lenses and seek an integrated understanding of what it means to be human.

This investigation will be led by Helen Edwards and Ayala Kingsley and is aimed principally at contemporary dancers with experience of improvised work. Moving on from Café Reason's TORCH-funded online project Breaking Free, our ultimate intention is to develop material towards a future performance.

Cost £35/£30

Please contact Ayala for more information and to book a place.

Diamond Night #22
Saturday 13 April 2024 — 7.30pm (doors open 7.15)
Drama Studio, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, OX3 0FF

The latest in our long-running series of occasional arts evenings, featuring a selection of 'uncut performance gems': dance, music, video, spoken word. The theme for this evening will be 'Body Ecologies'. Please let us know if you would like to contribute a piece.

Diamond Night is an informal platform for sharing new ideas, choreographies, experiments, and collaborations. The Drama Studio at Brookes offers an intimate 'black box' environment for new-minted performances to shine, with seating for a small and appreciative audience.

For more information, see the Diamond Night page of this website.

Workshop: Encounters with the poetics of space/time
Saturday 25 May 2024 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

A chance to work with performer/choreographer and long-time butoh exponent Marie-Gabrielle Rotie.

This workshop will explore the unique approach to space/time in butoh — duration, endurance, limits, surrender, quietness, stillness — and consider this in relation to space: the space between one body part and another, the spaces of inside/outside, the space between ‘you’ and ‘I’, and in so doing we might then find a poetic and spiritual space of form plus disappearance and dissolving. Simple tasks such as walking, rising, falling, standing all become rich with possibility. Cost £55/£50

For more information and to book (limited places available) please contact Ayala.

Jan 14 — Workshop with Cinthia Patiño
Jan 28 — Class 'Transition & Paradox' with Ayala Kingsley
Jan 28 — Park People pop-up performance
Feb 11 — Class with Bob Lyness
Feb 25 — Class 'Spring Emergence' with Helen Edwards
Mar 11 — Class with Andy Solway
Mar 12 — Workshop with Vangeline
Mar 25 — Class 'Anchoring' with Lizzy Spight
Apr 15 — Class with Fabrizia Verecchia
Apr 22 — Diamond Night open platform
Apr 29 — Class with Macarena Ortuzar
May 11 — Class with Nathalie Descamps
May 27 — Class 'Mapping the Body' with Cath Blackfeather
Jun 10 — Class 'Mass & Space' with Ayala Kingsley
Jun 24 — Class 'Ikebana & Focus' with Bob Lyness
Jul 1 — Landscape workshop with Helen Edwards
Jul 8 — Class with Helen Edwards
Jul 16 — Fen Dance performance [POSTPONED]
Aug 12 — Class 'Mapping the Body' with Cath Blackfeather
Aug 26 — Class 'Transition & Paradox' with Ayala Kingsley
Aug 26 — Park People promenade performance
Sep 9 — Class 'Decay & Renewal' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Sep 23 — Class 'Moving & Being Moved' with Juliet Henderson
Oct 14 — Class with Bob Lyness
Oct 28 — Workshop 'The Power of Words' with Helen Smith
Nov 11 — Class with Lizzy Spight
Nov 25 — Class with Andy Solway
Dec 9 — Class with Helen Edwards

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The Authentic Expression of Being
Saturday 14 January 2023 — 10.00am-5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

This workshop explores the meeting point between theatre and dance – the sacred rite of the stage act – in its authentic human expression, from a deep state of non-ordinary consciousness and truth, where the being remains connected with its physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional realities. It is the personal dance that allows us to expand the energy of the body in movement, to express and sublimate from within the being through dance. Using personal talismans, significant garments, childhood photographs and song memories, the process will involve awakening non-reactive impulses, guided improvisation and body drama, giving rise to organic movement and the authentic expression of each being. Cost £50/45/40

Cinthia Patiño is an actor, dancer, and stage creator based in Mexico, who has been practicing and teaching butoh in Mexico City and beyond for over 15 years.

For more information and to book (limited places available) please contact Ayala.

Park People
Saturday 28 January 2023 — 3.00pm
St Mary and St Nicholas Church, Littlemore, OX4 4PB

Meetings, interactions, and transformations at a park bench. An improvised performance, with live music from Malcolm Atkins, to accompany an exhibition of paintings by Juliet Henderson, originally inspired by pandemic walks in Florence Park.

To download a flyer about the exhibition, look here.

Tea and biscuits provided. Donations to St Mary and St Nicholas church for the wonderful work it does in its community warmly accepted.

Vangeline workshop
Sunday 12 March 2023 — 10.00am–5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

This one-day workshop is a rare opportunity to work with renowned butoh artist Vangeline France. Vangeline is artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute. She specialises in trauma-informed butoh and the nervous system, while her socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. You can find out more here.

The workshop will be based around Vangeline's critically acclaimed book, Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. Butoh, she writes, "cultivates a special relationship between gravity, consciousness, and our experience of time."

For more information please contact Ayala.

NOW FULLY BOOKED

Vangeline will also be performing Eternity 123 at the Old Fire Station on Saturday 11 March. It is the third instalment of a feminist dance triptych that traces the symbolic journey of women’s liberation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and 'cabaret'.

Diamond Night #21
Saturday 22 April 2023 — 7.30pm (doors open 7.15)
Drama Studio, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, OX3 0FF

The latest in our long-running series of occasional arts evenings, featuring a selection of 'uncut performance gems': dance, music, video, spoken word.

Diamond Night is an informal platform for sharing new ideas, choreographies, experiments, and collaborations. The Drama Studio at Brookes offers an intimate 'black box' environment for new-minted performances to shine, with seating for a small and appreciative audience.

As there is only limited space, please book in advance through Eventbrite. Tickets are free, but we are grateful for any donations on the night, as this enables us to pay something to the people that help us.

Please be on time as latecomers can only be admitted during breaks in the performance.

For more information, see the Diamond Night page of this website.

The Breathing of Life
Saturday 1 July 2023 — 11.00am-5.00pm
Heath Farm, Swerford, Chipping Norton, OX7 4BN

A free-movement workshop with Helen Edwards

Becoming aware of the sensuous and the sentient, of the breathing of life in the cradle of the body. Bringing attention to the breathing of the earth and the cradle of the sky to recognise the reciprocity of our dance with the elements. Working on land and by water, bridging the worlds of inner imagery and outer, physical reality.

For more information, please contact Helen. To book, please contact Ayala.

Cost £30/25

The Transformative Power of Words
Helen Smith
Saturday 28 October — 10.00am–5.00pm
Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

This workshop will explore how language can capture images and inspire movement to create choreographic scores. It draws on Tatsumi Hijikata’s unique method of notation — butoh-fu — to explore some of butoh’s core priniciples, including empty body, being moved, and transformation. Participants will learn both visible and invisible techniques to enhance their participation in and observation of butoh performance.

Helen's teaching draws on years of concentrated study in Japan with several butoh masters, as well as on her work as a physical theatre performer and drama teacher. Helen's Masters thesis focused on the practice and performance of butoh and she is currently writing a book on the teaching of butoh.

Cost: £55/50/45 as you can afford. Please contact Ayala to book (places limited).

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Jan 8th — Class 'Interbeing' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Jan 21st — Video Night 'Hidden Dance' with Bob Lyness
Jan 22th — Class 'Conversation' with Cath Blackfeather
Feb 12th — Class 'Hidden Dance' with Bob Lyness
Feb 29th — Class 'Hidden Things' with Ayala Kingsley
Mar 5th — Virtual Diamond Night 'Hidden'
Mar 12th — Class 'Small Dances' with Andy Solway
Mar 26th — Class 'The Between' with Helen Edwards
April 9th — Class with Lizzy Spight
April 23rd — Workshop with Yumino Seki
May 14th — Class 'Breathing Earth' with Helen Edwards
May 28th — Class with Helen Edwards
May 29th — Fired Earth performance
June 11 — Class with Bob Lyness
June 25 — Sound/body workshop with Anne L. Ryan
July 9 — Class 'Walking with Shadows' with Ayala Kingsley
July 9 — Of Wounds & Shadows performance
July 23 — Class 'The Space Between' with Lizzy Spight
August 6 — Remembering Nagasaki performance
August 13 — Class 'Form and Flow' with Fabrizia Verrecchia
August 27 — Class 'Sculpting Earth' with Helen Edwards
August 29 — Fen Dance performance
Sep 10 — Class 'Starting from Zero' with Ayala Kingsley
Sep 24 — Class 'Becoming Dance' with Karen Goonewardene
Oct 8 — Class with Bob Lyness
Oct 22 — Class 'Breathing Earth' with Helen Edwards
Nov 12 — Class 'Stories and Memory' with Andy Solway
Nov 26 — Class 'Threshold and Transition' with Ayala Kingsley
Dec 10 — Class with Lizzy Spight

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Jun 12th — Class with Cath Blackfeather
Jun 26th — Class with Bob Lyness
Jul 10th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Jul 10th — Of Wounds and Shadows workshop
Jul 24th — Class with Bob Lyness
Jul 30th — Mycelium outdoor workshop with Helen Edwards
Aug 14th — Class with Fabrizia Verrecchia
Aug 28th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Aug 29th — Of Wounds and Shadows — POSTPONED
Sep 11th — Sound/body workshop with Anne L. Ryan
Sep 25th — Contact class 'Connections' with Andy Solway
Oct 9th — Class 'Mass and Space' with Ayala Kingsley
Oct 23rd — Class 'Beyond Form' with Helen Edwards
Nov 6th — Body of Water workshop: Marie-Gabrielle Rotie
Nov 13th — Class with Lizzy Spight
Nov 27th — Class 'Inner State' with Cath Blackfeather
Dec 11th — Class 'Hidden in the Dance' with Bob Lyness
Dec 18th — Class 'Starting from Zero' with Ayala Kingsley

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Jan 4th — Class
Jan 11th & 12th — Tipping Point performance
Jan 25th — Class with Cath Blackfeather
Feb 8th — Class with Andy Solway
Feb 22nd — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Mar 14th — Class with Macarena Ortuzar
May 18th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Sound Fields score
Jun 1st — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): The Green Fuse score
Jun 13th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Half a Duet score
Jun 27th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Breath, Pulse, Wave score
Jul 11th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Break-dance score
Jul 25th — Bite-size butoh (Zoom): Mindful Moon Magic score
Aug 8th — August outdoors Unboxed
Aug 16th — August outdoors Landscape workshop
Aug 30th —August outdoors Presence & absence
Sep 12th — Class with Ayala Kingsley
Sep 26th — Class with Adam Koan
Oct 10th — Class with Lizzy Spight
Oct 24th — Class with Ayala Kingsley

Al Jaber Auditorium, Corpus Christi College, Merton Street, OX1 4JF

With the clock ticking for action on climate change, Café Reason presents its topical and urgent new show. This eclectic and provocative performance features original live music, projection, bizarre costume, and found objects, and offers a creative, challenging response to the threats facing our fragile planet. For more information see the Tipping Point page.

Tickets (£12) are on sale through EventBrite. Click here to buy. Discounts for groups of 10+ are available: contact Ayala to arrange.

Jan 5th — Exploration Day
Mar 30th — Diamond Night #19
Apr 24th — Oxford Dance Forum Scratch Night
May 16th — Tipping Point performance
Jun 1st — Gemma Peramiquel workshop
June 22nd — Outdoor workshop with Macarena Ortuzar
July 12th — Trio De Femmes performance
July 13th — Trio De Femmes workshop
Aug 24th — Cycles of Life workshop
Sep 14th & 28th — Classes
Oct 12th & 26th — Classes
Nov 9th & 23rd — Classes
Dec 14th — Class

Eynsham Baptist Church Hall

This workshop is aimed at experienced contemporary dancers, who are invited to join Café Reason for the day. Through guided exercises and improvisation we will conduct an investigation into the theme of climate change, to find our own emotional and movement responses to the threats that face our fragile planet. Our ultimate intention is to develop a new work for performance.

Please contact Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.

Saturday 30th March 2019 — 8.00 pm

Diamond Night #19

(See the main Diamond Night page for general information about these events.)

The nineteenth in our series of arts evenings, bringing 'uncut performance gems' (ours and others') into the spotlight.

Oxford Brookes University Drama Studio
Headington Hill Campus
Headington Hill, Oxford
Cost: FREE (Donations very welcome.)
Time: 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm start

Directions... map
...from central Oxford, follow High Street over the river to the roundabout at The Plain, take the first exit (St Clements) and continue past traffic lights and straight on up Headington Hill, past the park, and then take the first driveway to the LEFT near the top of the hill, into the Brookes University Headington Hill Campus. Go past the gatehouse and take the 2nd turning on the right. The Drama Studio is a smallish, squarish building with railings outside the door, set back from the main driveway. It is usually possible to park there on Saturday evenings.

...from London, buses go every ten minutes at peak times and run all night. Catch either the Oxford Tube, or the X90, and ask for the'Gyspy Lane' or 'Brookes University'stop. Get off the bus and CROSS THE ROAD. There are two campuses, and the one you want is the less obvious one, a few metres further down the hill towards Oxford city centre and on the right hand side of the road.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE ENTRANCE DOOR OPENS DIRECTLY ONTO THE STAGE. IF YOU ARE SO LATE THAT THE PROGRAMME HAS ALREADY BEGUN, THERE IS NO WAY TO LET YOU IN WITHOUT DISRUPTING THE PERFORMANCE. IF THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY BETWEEN PIECES THE DOOR WILL BE OPENED TO CHECK FOR LATECOMERS, BUT PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK UNLESS AN INTERVAL IS CLEARLY IN PROGRESS!

Arts at the Old Fire Station, 40 George St, Oxford OX1 2AQ

Ayala Kingsley will perform 'Wrap': a semi-improvised performance that while exploring the possibilities of one of the more ubiquitous household materials, also enters the darker experiences of entanglement and constraint. With Cath Blackfeather and Karen Goonewardene.

Tickets £5. Visit the Old Fire Station to book.

The Forum, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB

In a commission by the University of Hertfordshire, Café Reason presents its latest large-scale show 'Tipping Point'. With just 12 years for the world to act on climate change, this eclectic new work features original live music, projection, bizarre costume, and found objects, and offers a creative, challenging, multimedia response to the threats facing our fragile planet.For more information about the show see the Tipping Point page.

To book tickets visit UH Arts.

Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

Contemporary dancer/teacher/choregrapher Gemma Peramiquel (also performing at the OFS on 24 April) will lead a movement workshop, using somatic techniques to strengthen the relationship between the mind-body balance and the space it holds.

Cost: £15 (by 25/05) then £20.

Please contact Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.

Wytham Woods

A one-day outdoor workshop that offers a diversity of movement explorations aimed at attuning the body to itself as well as to the natural environment, first addressing the concrete elements of the body: muscles, bones, and connective tissue, and from there working in ever-widening circles of subtle energetics and sensitivities to our own internal landscapes and the landscape around us. See also the workshop flyer.

Cost: £60

Please contact Macarena for more information and to book a place.

Burton Taylor Studio, Gloucester St, Oxford OX1 2BN

A rare opportunity to see a performance by members of Seattle-based group DAIPAN, on tour as Trio De Femmes.

A feel-good show with heart, soul and disco-ball sparkle. Trio De Femmes’ anarchic concoction of Butoh, song, storytelling and clowning, generate a dynamic narrative on modern life and loving in the #MeToo era; sharing shadows, secrets and real life experiences growing up in an unpredictable and complex age.

Tickets: £10, available soon from the Oxford Playhouse.

Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

A wonderful chance to work with the 'Trio De Femmes' Sheri Brown, Lela Besom, and Marina White Raven of the DAIPANbutoh Collective.

This transformational butoh-inspired workshop will feature explorative dance, meditation, visual art and self-enquiry. Sheri, Lela, and Marina will create a progressive journey into and beyond self, each taking the lead at a specific part of the process, connecting with our subtle elemental body, dancing through matter, image, personal stories, and ancestral pasts into new unknown territories.

Cost: £45 (by 15/06) then £55.

Please contact Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place (places limited).

Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

An immersive day of creative exploration and opportunity to return to the wellspring of our connection with the earth. As autumn approaches we will find our new beginnings, and as the planet moves towards the Equinox, of balance between light and dark. Through guided exercises and improvisation, we will explore the eternal themes of life and death, creation and destruction, loss and grief, regeneration and hope.

Shared between the three session leaders, this workshop will use a variety of simple butoh techniques and visualisations, props, sound, and other stimuli, to facilitate deep connection and authentic movement in a day of discovery, grounding, and inspiration.

Cost: only £20!

Please contact Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place (places limited).

July 1st — Piece of You
Aug 25th — Yael Karavan workshop
Sep 22nd — Diamond Night #18
Oct 10th — Ana's Time
Oct 13th — Random Variable

SS Mary & John Church, 271 Cowley Road

This specially devised, 15-minute group piece, choreographed by Michelle Azdajic, is presented as part of the Marhaba event at the Cowley Road Carnival. Woven into the movement and expressed in the colourful paper flowers are some of the things we remember about the late Ana Barbour and her unique and lighthearted presence and movement.

Marhaba at the Cowley Carnival.This free event, which runs from 12.00 — 6.00 pm, comprises an exciting and varied programme of music, poetry, dance and visual art, featuring:

2.00*: Dabke workshop by a visiting group from Ramallah, supported by music from Confluence.
2.45*: Rumi for One More — work of the poet Rumi expressed through dance, music, and various languages.
4.00*: The Littlemore Oratorio — a new work reflecting the past, present and future of the whole community.

*Timings are approximate.

Throughout the day there will be tributes in dance and music to Ana. As well as Café Reason's new piece, there will be work by Mue, Nini Sakhri and Lizzy Spight, Catherine Rush, Peter Jones, and others.

Mortimer Hall, Old Marston, OX3 0PH

This workshop will explore transformation and metamorphosis, dance through imagery, presence, embodiment, awareness, and the tension between opposites. The aim is to free the body from its mundane domestication and habitual gestures and movements, and thus allow access to a deeper and more authentic essence of movement and archetypal expression. It is suitable for all levels of experience.

Cost: £40 (by 28/07) /£45 (by 18/08) /£50 (after 18/08).

Yael Karavan is an award winning performer, dancer and Artistic Director of the Karavan Ensemble. In her dance research she travelled across Japan and Europe searching for a physical language of expression which bridges East and West, dance and theatre. She studied and worked with butoh masters such as Kazuo Ohno, Tadashi Endo, Carlotta Ikeda, Yumiko Yoshioka, Akiko Motofuji, Ko Morobushi and Katsura Kan.

Please contact Ayala Kingsley for more information and to book a place.

Saturday 22nd September 2018 — 8.00 pm

Diamond Night #18

(See the main Diamond Night page for general information about these events.)

The eighteenth in our series of arts evenings, bringing 'uncut performance gems' (ours and others') into the spotlight.

Oxford Brookes University Drama Studio
Headington Hill Campus
Headington Hill, Oxford
Cost: FREE (Donations very welcome.)
Time: 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm start

Directions... map
...from central Oxford, follow High Street over the river to the roundabout at The Plain, take the first exit (St Clements) and continue past traffic lights and straight on up Headington Hill, past the park, and then take the first driveway to the LEFT near the top of the hill, into the Brookes University Headington Hill Campus. Go past the gatehouse and take the 2nd turning on the right. The Drama Studio is a smallish, squarish building with railings outside the door, set back from the main driveway. It is usually possible to park there on Saturday evenings.

...from London, buses go every ten minutes at peak times and run all night. Catch either the Oxford Tube, or the X90, and ask for the'Gyspy Lane' or 'Brookes University'stop. Get off the bus and CROSS THE ROAD. There are two campuses, and the one you want is the less obvious one, a few metres further down the hill towards Oxford city centre and on the right hand side of the road.

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE ENTRANCE DOOR OPENS DIRECTLY ONTO THE STAGE. IF YOU ARE SO LATE THAT THE PROGRAMME HAS ALREADY BEGUN, THERE IS NO WAY TO LET YOU IN WITHOUT DISRUPTING THE PERFORMANCE. IF THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY BETWEEN PIECES THE DOOR WILL BE OPENED TO CHECK FOR LATECOMERS, BUT PLEASE DO NOT KNOCK UNLESS AN INTERVAL IS CLEARLY IN PROGRESS!

Film Oxford, 54 Catherine Street, OX4 3AH

A film show in memory of Ana Barbour, who died last year, including many of her remarkable dance films. The evening has been organised by Dariusz Dziala and Malcolm Atkins, who collaborated with Ana on both films and live work. This free event is supported by Film Oxford, who also worked with Ana. There will also be poetry by Ayala Kingsley and live music accompaniment by Bruno Guastalla to a specially prepared film by Dariusz about Ana.

Long Room, Oxford Town Hall, St. Aldates

This semi-improvised performance will take place as part of the Oxford 'IF' Science & Ideas Festival. It will support a presentation by Juliet Henderson: 'Breaking the Rules in Research Writing (and Dance)' and will explore the ways established patterns and conventions can be disrupted and transformed. We are delighted to have the involvement of other Oxford contemporary dancers in the development and performance of this piece.

Cost: Free to book, then PWYD (Pay What You Decide). Tickets are now available from Eventbrite.

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