SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Biography

Alessandra is currently Reader in Dance and Visual Culture at the University of Roehampton. She is a SOAS graduate and also holds a PhD from SOAS in Art and Archaeology, with a thesis on dance iconography, temple art and Indian influence in ancient Southeast Asia, following which she worked on an embodied reconstruction of dance movements from sculptural representation with a number of Indian and Indonesian choreographers.  This initial interest in archaeological approaches to dance performance (archaeochoreology) led her to explore dance and performance heritage and its construction, mediatization and representation, as also dance and performance documentation, the interface of visual arts and dance making and photography of performance, especially dance.
She participated in and co-led the research projects of the erstwhile AHRC Research Centre for Music and Dance Performance (Roehampton, SOAS and University of Surrey) from 2002 to 2007, with several outcomes, including two films on Indonesian performance practices which she conceived and directed.
In 2009 she curated a photographic exhibition, accompanied by a colloquium, at the Brunei Gallery SOAS, Asian Dance Theatre: performance through the lens http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/asiandance/index.html.
Since 2010 Alessandra has developed an interest in cross-cultural healing dance and movement practices, therapeutic dance broadly defined and somatic practices and, more recently, she has been exploring dance and psychoanalysis, in particular, psychoanalysis of Lacanian orientation as also the work of French/Bulgarian literary critic and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva and the application of her theories to dance and performance.
Alessandra maintains a research relationship with SOAS, having been Research Associate of the Centre for Media and Film Studies since 2004 and  is currently involved in the screening of Indonesian films at SOAS through Indofilm, a project by Wadah, the Indonesian Community Association of the UK, dedicated to the promotion of Indonesian cinema in the UK http://www.indofilm.co.uk/about-us/ with the support of the Indonesian Embassy.
For 2012-13 Alessandra, in conjuction with Indofilm, is planning to curate a series of talks at SOAS by film directors and Indonesian film experts.

PhD Affiliations

• Reader in Dance and Visual Culture,  University of Roehampton, London; member of the Humanities Lab, a Stanford University based research collaboratory http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/ArchaeologyPerformance/58
• Member of The Kristeva Circle http://www.kristevacircle.org