Human Animal - a dancing series

Human Animal - A Dance Series

A series of four dance workshops with experienced facilitators, exploring ideas of animalism through movement, embodiment and composition.

How might a shared bodily vulnerability and our ecological connection to the non-human world inhabit our dancing? How might we practice being more animal? Or simply be inspired by the patterns, rhythms and movements of the natural world?

Through embodied experience, collective tuning and compositional propositions, we will explore our animalistic forms together — welcoming the gifts of physicality and state, while grappling with the possibilities of both solo and collective movement.

The sessions are for those who want the moving body to inform their creative practice — dance or otherwise. For those wanting to unfurl their tissues through physicality and creativity, drop into the now, explore a project that’s bubbling away, or simply meet the blank page.

Some movement, studio or creative experience is recommended as a prerequisite. This series is not suitable for beginners.

The Sessions

• 9 October - Harriet Roberts
• 16 October - Theo Clinkard
• 23 October - Ruth Pethybridge
• 30 October - All three 

Each teacher will propose their own ways into moving and thinking with the theme of Human Animal. In the final session, we will come together to weave the different approaches into a shared practice.

10am–1pm
Studio 12, Buckfastleigh

Investment

• £100 — standard price
• £120 — supporting price, helping others to take part
• £80 — concession

Please carefully consider which price best suits your situation.

Who are we?

The Open Movement School is a project founded in 2024, offering durational dance groups in Devon for those wishing to dive a little deeper than the drop-in class.

Centred around Contact Improvisation, somatics, contemporary dance and composition, we create spaces for sustained physical enquiry, creative practice and connection.

Harriet Roberts 

With over a decade of experience in the dancing world, Harriet is dedicated to curating regular local groups as well as seasonal events in the South West for people to dive into the world of somatics, contact improvisation and the magic of the moving body. She believes that dance can bring us into a deeper understanding of self, one another and the environment we inhabit. Her practices are almost always relational, heavily based in the wisdom of touch, tactility, co-creation and fun. 

After training in contemporary dance, Harriet travelled extensively, primarily in search of Contact Improvisation communities, residencies and somatic teachers. In 2023 she founded SOMA CI alongside David Basak, producing successful CI events including the Winter Warmer Festival. She has most recently collaborated with Hugh Stanier and Charlie Morrissey commencing the annual Dragon Orchard Jam. She has run The Open Movement School since 2024 and facilitated movement practice for almost as long as she has danced. Harriet also works as a hands-on therapist, and is trained as a doula. 

harrietroberts.co.uk

This will be Harriet's final teaching before going on maternity leave.

Theo Clinkard 

Theo Clinkard (he/him) is a Cornish born, Devon based queer dance artist with a practice that centres a dialogue between choreography and design. From installations in unconventional spaces, dance in galleries and museums, moving outdoors to working traditional theatres, his work responds to a wide range of contexts, spaces and collaborations. Oscillating between design/materials led and movement led approaches, he is driven by close observations that invite us to consider the act of looking and the position from which we see the world. Choreographically, Theo works from the senses and the imagination, crafting the performer and the audiences attention, developing how we perceive ourselves in action and actively transforming how we are read by others. Theo seeks to create performances that enables us to see ourselves anew, deepen our sense of empathy and that stay with us long after we have left the space.

Increasingly, Theo is focused on platforming the queer rural experience though events such as BENTWOOD, a queer-led mini folk fest in Ashburton that he runs with his boyfriend Fionn Cox-Davies, co-developing Rural Pride near Dartington and co-curating HARK, Totnes Pride’s main music night at St. Marks Church in Totnes.

Following 18 years dancing for many celebrated choreographers, Theo launched his own dance company in 2012. Past productions include ‘Ordinary Courage’, ‘Chalk’, ‘Of Land & Tongue’ and ‘This Bright Field’, 'The Elsewhen Series' (collab. with Leah Marojević) and the forthcoming 'A Spilling' for The Box, Plymouth. Theo's company have toured to Chile, Ireland, Switzerland, and Germany. Commissioned works include creations for Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, Candoco and National Dance Company Wales among others.

Theo is an Associate Artist at Brighton Dome & Festival and an Honorary Fellow at Plymouth University. 

www.theoclinkard.com

Ruth Pethybridge 

Ruth Pethybridge is a mother, maker and dance artist. She is a dance researcher and writer, Senior Lecturer in dance at Falmouth University, and a Unit Leader on the MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism at London Contemporary Dance School. Ruth has also worked extensively as a practitioner in the community dance sector. Using improvisation, imagery and release based techniques to  support dancers to enjoy their moving bodies at different life stages, creating unique choreographies for different community contexts. Ruth is invested in dance spaces that involve collective care and inclusion as well as dancing. Her research interests centre on the politics of participation in dance informed by feminist theories and post-structural philosophy. Recent publications include Embodying Care: Community Dance and Trauma Informed Practice (Journal of Arts and Health, 2023), What does a Dancer have to offer this broken world? (People Dancing, 2024), and Moving into Action: Change Making Through Dance Activism, with Jo Parkes (in Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader, Routledge, 2025). You can often find her having a kitchen disco in Cornwall with her two daughters.