Dr Jane Munro

BA, MA, PhD
Job title
Lecturer, Movement
Jane Munro
PDF Version

Profile

I am a choreographer/performer/maker and dance academic and hold a practice research PhD on Contemporary Dance in the 21st Century. My work focuses on participatory dance and auto-biographic performance. I teach yoga and somatic-based improvisation for performers and performance making as well as practice research at Central. I have taught Dance at the University of Northampton and in 2015/16, I was also a part-time teaching fellow in dance at the University of Surrey, contributing to modules in choreography, site sensitive practice and contemporary dance practices. Recently, I was external examiner for the MA in Dance and Choreography at the University of Bedford (2017-2020), and have previously acted as an external examiner for BA Dance at The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance. 

My recent research looks at privilege, borders and participation in dance in an article published in Choreographic Practices in April 2021.  I have also developed my movement practice to offer dance with detainees in immigration removal centres. In 2019 I undertook the community dance project: Dance in Detention with Music in Detention (Hear Me Out), working with facilitating dance with detainees and with patients in a psychiatric hospital. Our intentions to share this at Tate Exchange in 2020 with Flourishing Lives were put on hold through COVID-19 but will be re-scheduled in Autumn. In 2020, I collaborated further with Music in Detention creating the De-Stress through Movement Activity Pack for detainees held in their cells for most of the day in lockdown. I am currently writing an analysis of the problematics and possibilities of this project for the journal Critical Stages/Scenes Critiques.

Alongside choreographing, I perform both in dance and performance pieces, including with Domestic Word of Warning (2020), a live-streamed show performed with my daughter from my kitchen. I have also performed in the improvised dance /music project Murmurists (2015/16). In 2016 and 2017, I created the participatory Rope Piece in a range of venues including at FiliA Art, Oxford House, at the Dialogues for Dance Conference at Coventry University and at Greenwich Dance Agency as part of a Counterpoint Arts 2018 event.

Areas of Expertise

  • Autobiographic dance and performance  

  • Somatic-based movement for performers  

  • Practice research  

  • Dance, theatre and participation  

  • Dance practice with Immigration Detainees  

  • Community Dance  

  • Dance, privilege and borders  

  • Movement and well-being in performance 

PhD Supervision

To date, I have supervised one PhD thesis to completion as lead supervisor and supervised two others as second supervisor. I have externally examined two doctorates: in 2019 and 2021. My supervision areas include: dance and improvisation, movement in and for performance, dance and participation.

Key Publications

Spring 2021. ‘Crossing Over: Choreographing the Audience over Borders: forms and problematics’. Choreographic Practices, 11.2 1-19 

External Practice

2020. (Performer/Maker) Four Feet and Kitchen, Word of Warning: Domestic season live-stream. 

2020. (Dance artist) De-stress through movement, Music in Detention.  

2019. (Dance artist) Dance in Detention, Music in Detention 

2017. (Dance artist) Rope Piece FiliArt. 

Register of Interest

Nothing to declare.

A low angle view of legs and feet walking around a piece of rope
Rope Piece – Dialogues on Dance: Coventry University. Photo: Saolo Silveira.
A low angle view of legs and feet, with rope on the ground
Rope Piece – Counterpoint Arts, Greenwich Dance Agency 2018. Photo: Counterpoint Arts.
A group of adults standing around a woman hugging a child, while someone is curled up on the floor
Rope Piece – FiliArt 2017 Oxford House, London. Photo: Nohar Lazarovich.
A white woman and a black man dancing in a gymnasium
Dance Works for Music in Detention. Duet ‘H’ Patten and Jane Munro – 2019. Photo: Gini Simpson.
A drawing of a figure doing a side-stretch
De-stress Through Movement Activity Pack. Drawing: Lucy Algar.
A line drawing of a group of figures and bodies
Dance Works for Music in Detention. Detainees dancing 2019. Drawing: Simon Crabb.
A low angle view of legs and feet walking around a piece of rope
A low angle view of legs and feet, with rope on the ground
A group of adults standing around a woman hugging a child, while someone is curled up on the floor
A white woman and a black man dancing in a gymnasium
A drawing of a figure doing a side-stretch
A line drawing of a group of figures and bodies

Timecode: 29.18 - 34.09