The School of Music and Fine Art would like to welcome a new member of staff to our Sound-Image-Space Research Centre SISRC. Dr Freya Vass-Rhee.
Dr Freya Vass-Rhee, also a new member of staff, lecturing in Drama and Theatre for The School of Arts in Canterbury, joins SISRC to bring a new area of research into the Centre.
Dr Vass-Rhee’s primary focus is Visuo-Sonic analysis of dance and theatre performance from cognitive interdisciplinary perspectives and is also a member of the Centre for Cognition, Kinesthetics & Performance, based at Canterbury, where she is in the process of organising a visit in later this spring by Kate Stevens (MARCS Auditory Labs, U. Western Sydney), who is a specialist in music and cognition with an avid interest in dance and sound.
Dr Freya Vass-Rhee Profile:
Freya studied Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the University of California, Los Angeles before completing a PhD in Dance History and Theory in 2011 from the University of California, Riverside with the dissertation “Audio-Visual Stress: Cognitive Approaches to the Perceptual Performativity of William Forsythe and Ensemble.” From 2011 to 2013, Freya was an Associate Researcher with the Dance Engaging Science workgroup of the Motion Bank project (The Forsythe Company, Frankfurt). Her research has appeared in Dance Chronicle and in edited volumes on dance dramaturgy and the work of William Forsythe.
Prior to her academic career, Freya worked as a professional dancer, ballet mistress, teacher, and choreographer with companies in Europe and the U.S. Her training includes classical/neoclassical ballet, contemporary and modern dance, period styles of musical theater dance, jazz, and tap dance.
From 2006-13, Freya served as dramaturg and production assistant to choreographer William Forsythe. She has also freelanced as dramaturg for choreographers including David Dawson.