Contributor Biographies

Filipa Pereira-Stubbs is a dance artist, teacher, research consultant and creative practitioner with thirty years’ experience in the arts and health. Filipa devises and delivers dance & health programmes in the community, in hospitals & clinical settings, in museums & galleries, schools and outdoors in Nature. Consistently, her projects enable participants to build compassionate and healthier relationships with themselves, their work & communities and with nature. Her work upholds the core values of inclusivity and integration, bridging gaps and prejudices around cultural norms, and societal issues such as economic, health and age differences. She has taught on MA programmes in the Arts Therapies, co-founded Rosetta Life - working in hospice care, is a founding member of the Cambridge charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination, and has devised and delivered many community projects working with children, adults, the community of dementia, and adult education. Her museum work includes Kettles Yard and the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Cambridge University Museums. Her workshops and talks have been held across UK universities and internationally. Filipa is a Churchill fellow (2012) and a masters graduate of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and undergraduate of the London School of Economics.

Read more on Filipa's website (opens in a new tab)

My career has spanned 43 years within the field of nursing, which has offered so many opportunities for learning, some unique experiences working overseas, all with the value of guidance from many skilled mentors.

Recently, this has culminated in an exciting new post as the Dementia Specialist Nurse at CUH.

With the combined expertise and support of my colleagues in the newly formed Dementia Care Team, our goals are to ensure that a high standard of specialised, individualised care for people living with Dementia, their families and carers is provided. An equally important role of mine is to ensure that staff receive appropriate dementia education and training to support our goals of providing expert care.

I am passionate in my role as an advocate, advisor, educator, and mentor, armed with a wealth of knowledge and a desire to improve the hospital journey of people living with Dementia.

Choosing to be a nurse at the age of 18 was possibly the best decision I have ever made.

Lisa is an independent dance artist, researcher and SME, inspired by Contact Improvisation, Instant Composition and Body-Mind Centering ®. She has over 25 years’ experience in facilitating dance practices and performance in diverse contexts and is the Artistic Director of Small Things Dance Collective (STDC).

In 2006 she was invited by at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital (AHCH), Liverpool, to be their first Dance Artist in Residence. This led to a long-term collaboration with Alder Hey in practice development and research and she has worked extensively with children undergoing neuro-rehabilitation and pre and post cardiac surgery. This includes regular one-to-one somatic dance sessions with infants, children and young people; large-scale public to intimate bespoke bedside performance; two research studies exploring the effects of somatics and improvisation for children with acute conditions and pain; the development of a Somatic Dance App as an educational tool for parents and hospital staff, nature-inspired dance films and ‘socially distanced’ dance/music performance with video projection during the Covid-19 pandemic. Small Things most recent project at AHCH includes the launch of 'Shifting Landscapes', a 360° immersive performance experience for VR. As a Senior Lecturer in Dance at Edge Hill University 2007-2015, her teaching centred on the relationships between nature, the body and wellbeing. Lisa recently completed a retrospective PhD by Publication entitled 'Towards a multidisciplinary approach to healthcare: A case for dance improvisation in clinical and care settings' with the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University. Read more about Lisa's work here (opens in a new tab)

Bernie is a children’s nurse who worked clinically within children’s surgery, neonatal intensive care, children’s high dependency and children’s intensive care settings in various hospitals in the North West of England. She continues to have strong ties to Alder Hey Children’s NHSFT. Bernie now works at Edge Hill University where her research focuses on improving the lives of children, young people and their families, particularly in relation to pain. Along with Dr Emma Meehan she set up the AHRC Somatic Practice and Chronic Pain Network and she remains a board member of the network. Her research work is primarily qualitative, participatory, narrative, creative and arts based and she is interested in how people working in different disciplines and practices such as dance and movement can inform thinking and practice within healthcare. Her current work includes undertaking embedded qualitative studies within randomised controlled trials as well as purely qualitative studies. Her work is quite wide ranging and currently includes research addressing: sleep and children with epilepsy; parents managing their babies’ medications when they take their baby home from a neonatal unit; managing breakthrough pain; screening for chemotherapy induced peripheral neuropathy; and evaluating the delivery of an innovative programme delivering enhanced services to children and young people with life limiting conditions.

Professor Bernie Carter - Edge Hill University (opens in a new tab)

Paula Har works at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust as a Senior Named Nurse for Safeguarding Adults. Oxford Health provides mental health and community health services across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and Northeast Somerset. Paula trained as a mental health nurse and worked in acute mental health wards before moving across to community health, working in Community Hospitals and specialising in Dementia Care. Paula was Co-founder of a national award-winning project Creating with Care alongside Angela Conlan who won the Community Hospitals Association Award for Innovations in Practice Improving Patient Care 2020. Paula and Angela both teach on MSc Module, Advancing Practice in Dementia Care delivering Non-Pharmacological Interventions for people with Dementia. Paula and Angela have presented at National Conferences Creative Dementia Arts Network and 15th UK Dementia Congress. Additionally, Paula and Angela were invited to present at NHS30 The future leaders of the NHS primary care for 2030.

Angela Conlan is Arts Manager for Oxford Health Arts Partnership (OHAP), Oxford Health NHS (OHNHS) Foundation Trust that runs community hospitals and healthcare in Oxfordshire and mental health services in Buckinghamshire. Angela is an experienced dance artist and a founder member of Dance Creative, a charity providing dance for health and wellbeing. Angela works on projects that span arts in acute and community hospitals enabling them to have a clear view of the value of creative arts and how they complement standard medical care and treatment for older patients including those living with dementia.

Angela was Co-founder of a national award-winning project Creating with Care alongside Paula Har who won the Community Hospitals Association Award for Innovations in Practice Improving Patient Care 2020. Angela and Paula both teach on MSc Module, Advancing Practice in Dementia Care delivering Non-Pharmacological Interventions for people with Dementia. Angela and Paula have presented at National Conferences Creative Dementia Arts Network and 15th UK Dementia Congress. Additionally, Angela and Paula were invited to present at NHS30 The future leaders of the NHS primary care for 2030.

As a professional artist-researcher, founder and Artistic Director of Luminelle, Danielle has two decades experience developing large scale projects and working with multiple partners including regional, national and international dance companies, NHS and health settings, libraries, and arts venues. Danielle believes in the radical act of care in a careless society, and the value of offering truly person centred experiences to people in a genuine and non-commodified way. Her practice aims to do this, and to build a relationship of trust and mutual respect with others. Jones has been a leading contributor to practice and research in dance and health. She has been a leader of programme design in dance for health and inclusive practice, and has worked internationally in dance and Parkinson’s and Dementia. Danielle’s work with Luminelle includes award winning documentary and artistic film, live and digital exhibitions, live performances, publicly accessible reports, and conference presentations. Danielle has an MA in community dance (2016), received the Lisa Ullman Travel Scholarship for Dance for health and Parkinson’s (2014-15) and was awarded Dance UK future leaders in dance (2015).

Read more about Luminelle. (opens in a new tab)

Rachael is the Artistic Director of FRONTLINEdance, a UK based company working mainly in the West Midlands in which she co-founded in 2001 with Michael King. Facilitating dance and movement for learning disabled people and visually impaired children with additional learning or physical disabilities, began whilst she was a student at the Northern School of Contemporary dance. This naturally progressed into making and performing work herself, always within a co-creation model and often with an intergenerational cast of community performers. It progressed to working with older people, many of which had a Stroke, Parkinson’s, MS, Heart Conditions, and people with dual sensory loss, profound and multiple disabilities, brain injury, wheelchair users and those with mental health conditions.

Over the last thirty years, she’s had the joy of dancing in early years settings, in the community, social care, education and health.

At the age of 12, Rachael was diagnosed with paraplegic migraines following hospital tests to what presented as stroke-like symptoms. She manages this long-term health condition with its varying temporary degrees of frequency and symptom intensity, chronic back pain, and a thyroid cancer diagnosis.

Rachael’s son is learning disabled with health conditions that include scoliosis and heart conditions, with stays in hospital. This initiated Rachael to work more closely in hospital settings including co-creating performance work with patients, family members, staff and artists for hospitals.

Happenchance was born in 2014 and was a huge success. Forget me Knot and a company in resident at her local rehabilitation hospital ‘Haywood’ followed with seven hospital partners. At Haywood Hospital she worked closely with the patients and staff on a brain injury / neurology ward, a separate stroke rehabilitation ward, Parkinson’s’ outpatients, and elderly care wards.

Rachael’s lived experience along with the people she dances with, enriches the work she devises and facilitates for FRONTLINEdance.

Rachael is about to embark on a co-creation performance project with those who have been effected by Cancer.

Learn more about Rachael's work. (opens in a new tab)

Cai Tomos is Independent Dance artist, Art Psychotherapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. He has worked both nationally and internationally as a dancer and maker.He lives in Rural Mid Wales. His practice spans from dancing and making, to facilitating arts and health work with adults both in hospitals and in theatre settings. He runs an Elders Performance Company in Wales and offers workshops in the UK and abroad. He works as an artist in Chelsea and Westminster hospital and for Entelechy arts as an independent artist. Improvisational practices are at the heart of his work supporting people to develop and discover their own movement language and vocabulary.

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Miranda Tufnell is a dance artist, writer and teacher in movement and imagination. I studied English at University College London before training as a dancer at the London School of Contemporary Dance.

For over forty years I have been pursuing a profound interest in the body, environment and the language of movement. My work has evolved through ongoing collaborations and research in performance and teaching alongside working as a body therapist/ movement educator (both independently and within the NHS). My work has followed a passion to listen more deeply to the body's subtleties of movement, and to explore the human need to find a language for what is beneath our words.

I have been making performance in galleries and theatres in the UK and abroad since 1976. With Chris Crickmay we co-authored two handbooks on sourcing creative work entitled Body Space Image (1990) and A Widening Field (2004). From 1990 I worked part time within the NHS for a GP surgery. In 2000 this expanded into an arts and health collaboration with choreographer Tim Rubidge and psychotherapist Brenda Mallon This became known as the Breath of Fresh Air project. We worked in close dialogue with the health service to engage people isolated through chronic poor health with a creative arts practice across GP surgeries in Cumbria and Northumberland. A recent book When I Open My Eyes dance health imagination (2017) gives an account of this and also includes the work of many artists working in the field of dance and health.

I was Visiting Tutor at UCLAN (University of Central Lancashire) on their MA Dance and Somatic Wellbeing and Visiting Professor in performance at Coventry University. Over the years I have collaborated with Lucinda Jarrett and Rosettalifeon several projects including a performance Redefining Beauty for the Victoria and Albert Museum with 12 elders in response to their Julia Cameron exhibition.

Read more about Miranda's work here. (opens in a new tab)

Lucinda is the Artistic Director of Rosetta Life, where she currently leads a four-year practice research project, Stroke Odysseys, exploring song making and movement and performance in neurorehabilitation contexts. She is currently implementing a programme of movement song making and performance in five communities across five regions of the UK. She is also researching professional performance practice for communities living with the challenges of neurodiversity and hopes to develop a professional performance company for people living with the effects of stroke and brain injury that will have a lasting impact on professional performance and on the framework of healthcare.

Lucinda also leads Dream a Difference, a poetry and song making project building awareness of social justice and peace across ten countries where children are facing humanitarian crisis.

She is passionate about social justice and socio-economic health inequalities, and believes that the arts are fundamental to the meaning of our lives and that all communities should be able to find themselves represented on our public and community stages.

Read more about Lucinda's work. (opens in a new tab)