Melanie Clarke

Biography

Melanie Clarke is Programme Leader for the MA MFA Dance Leadership and Community Practice, Graduate Certificate in Dance and Graduate Diploma Dance & English. She is also a Module Leader within the BA Contemporary Dance and MA MFA Creative Practice programmes. She teaches Release-based dance technique and Choreological Studies, supervises student research as well as creates original choreographic work on students. She is a Teaching Fellow of Trinity Laban and in recognition of her leadership in Higher Education, she has been awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

As an academic and teacher her aim is to enable understanding through demystification of bodily and artistic processes. This is engendered by her knowledge of anatomy and physiology as well as Rudolf Laban’s praxis and supported by her creative practice. She is the author of the Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques published by Crowood in 2020. Her research encompasses choreographic practice and movement analysis; she recently presented with Lizzi Kew Ross on the material of process at the Craft and Art Symposium in London (Feb 2020). She is a specialist in Labanotation and a fellow of the International Council of Kinetography Laban. She has presented papers at conferences around Laban Praxis and contributed to Preston-Dunlop (2013) Laban Man of Theatre. Dance Books: London. Among others, she has scored Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A (with Jouke Kolff) which she has also reconstructed for educational proposes and also for the MOVE: Choreographing You exhibition at the Hayward Gallery London in 2010.

Her choreographic work includes independent solo and group works and commissions: Presenting 16 original works in Britain and internationally between 1999-2019.

Qualifications and Educational Background

Melanie Clarke is an alum of Trinity Laban graduating with a BA Honours Dance Theatre degree and a MA degree in Dance Studies focusing on Dance in Education, Dance Documentation and Reconstruction, and Choreography. After passing with Distinction Melanie joined the Trinity Laban faculty.

She is an accredited External Examiner (AdvanceHE) and has undertaken this role for Greenwich University and Suffolk University.