Amy Voris is a contemporary dance-maker based in Manchester.  Her practice is process-oriented and collaborative, driven by the desire to develop enduring relationships with people, with places and with movement material.  The outcome of the work is contingent on hunches and interactions that occur during the process and varies widely.  Examples of current projects include a site-responsive project (enter & inhabit), a collaboration with a jewellery maker (flockOmania) and a collaboration exploring artist-led curation for experimental performance practices (Accumulations). In 2012, Amy completed training in Integrative Bodywork and Movement Therapy with Linda Hartley, a therapeutic approach to the body which deeply informs her holistic and enquiring attitude toward dancing and collaborating.  With choreographer Ruth Segalis and performer Natasha Gilmore, Amy was a founding member of Rose’s Thoughts Dance Company in London (1996-2003).

Alongside her artistic practice, Amy has worked in higher education since 1999, delivering a range of contemporary dance related subjects on BA and MA programmes in universities and conservatoires in the UK.  Her approach to facilitating studio practices is based in movement research — that is, encouraging a holistic approach to movement accompanied by contextual study and reflective learning in order to support an embodied and critical perspective on practice. Through her facilitation practice, she is interested in exploring the overlap and inseparability of technique, improvisation and choreography (which are sometimes traditionally separated) within contemporary dance education and training.

More recently, her facilitation practice has become focused around the delivery of experiential anatomy, authentic movement and contemporary dance improvisation within postgraduate and professional development settings. Current teaching engagements include workshop delivery on the MA/MFA in Creative Practice at Independent Dance/Trinity Laban (London), on postgraduate/MA programmes at London Contemporary Dance School, at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and for Barrowland Ballet (Glascow) and Dance North (Findhorn, Scotland).  She is also a core faculty member of Janet Kaylo’s Laban/Barteneiff Somatic Studies International (Toronto, Canada and Pasadena, California).