About

Dance as Play presents a crucial, accessible and timely response to building and fostering relationships in a post-pandemic society. Campaign to End Loneliness reports that 45% of adults feel occasionally, sometimes or often lonely in England (2021). This is supported by a reported increase in levels of loneliness (Miller, 2020) and isolation (Bu, Steptoe, and Fancourt, 2020) experienced as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The student aims to offer an original contribution to knowledge by developing a specific practice of dance as play for the purpose of social reintegration in a post-pandemic society.

Covid-19 resulted in a predicted rise in global unemployment between 5.3 million and 24.7 million, from a base level of 188 million in 2019 (Stephens, 2020). With this, a shift in economic standing and a renegotiation of work-life balance and domestic responsibilities means that some communities may have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. The East Midlands presents some of the highest levels of loneliness across the UK (ONS, 2021) despite an array of social support organisations. The researcher has identified the following project partners; Three Little Birds, working with men’s mental health, Notts Trans Hub, working with the transgender community, and Dance Action Leeds, which works with mothers. By focussing on the formation of relationships among communities which may have had less opportunity to engage in playful activity, the research directly intersects with priority 4 of the Public Health England 2020-25 Strategy in ‘promoting good mental health and contributing to the prevention of mental illnesses’.

The research will explore Edminston’s (2008) position of play as a collaborative activity in which reality is co-authored by participants, in relation to Leach and Stevens’ (2020) work on relational creativity. In this way, the research aims to reframe dance as Play and deliver an accessible interdisciplinary practice.