Output details

Practice-as-Research Portfolio: Invisible Duets

This two-phase project (Invisible Duets; mixed-method study) explores approaches to improvised somatic dance (ISD) in paediatric healthcare.

Research questions:

• How do artists generate appropriate research models in health contexts?

• What documentation methodologies enable understanding of inherent processes and benefits of ephemeral practice by health and arts practitioners alike?

• How may results - creative artefacts; data – speak credibly to Arts and Health practitioners?

1: Creation of films capturing Dowler’s ongoing research at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital (AHCH) Neuromedical. Paralleling Small Things Dance Collective’s (STDC) creative process, the camera responded to individual children, and participants and caregivers approved editing and dissemination processes.

2: Collaborators: Small Things Dance Collective; AHCH: Research Department, Pain/Sedation Service, Hospital Play Specialists sought evidence of ISD capacity for acute pain relief. Validated pain assessment tools administered before and after ISD; participants’ responses to experiences, in writing/images, indicate pain reduction in 92% of participants.

Invisible Duets documents clinical applications of ISD processes: claims of benefits and significance of ISD in paediatric healthcare are evidenced by narratives and statistical data.

Evidence Portfolio:

Performance Installations (2012)

Dowler, L., et al., Invisible Duets, Belfast, Chichester, AHCH

Dowler, Interview (BBC1, June)

Conference Presentations, Dowler

‘Embodied Adventures in Medicine: Exploring the effects of improvisation for children and young people with acute pain in a clinical setting’ (Falmouth University)

With Hawkins, C., Culture, Health and Wellbeing (Bristol, 2013)

1. Poster: ‘The Effects of Somatic Dance for Children and Young People with acute pain in Paediatric Healthcare’

2. ‘Provocation: Embodied Adventures in Medicine: Exploring improvisation in paediatric healthcare’

Dowler, Keynote: The Significance of Improvisation in Paediatric Healthcare: The Alder Hey Model (Llanelli, 2013)

With Hawkins, The Significance of Improvisation in Paediatric Healthcare (Symposium, EHU, 2013)

Article, Dowler: Invisible Duets: Multiple Modes of Documenting the significance of dance to health, Animated (2013)