Vincent’s PhD

This PhD is a critical examination of Vincent’s influences, principles, processes and methods that underpin her 30 years of artistic and socially engaged practice. It examines, as a critical commentary, in the context of theory and literature, reflections on how Vincent brings together professional performers and often marginalised, non-professional participants to create and craft collaborative performance work. These methods of making are investigated through analysis of Vincent’s extensive creative and research work with ‘at risk’ groups, from which she identifies individuals whose voices are captured and recorded in order to thread through the production work, translated into dance theatre and text-based ‘material’ or used within soundtracks for her work on stage and on film. Set against and within the physical, abstract and poetic elements of her work, these ‘messy narratives’ are given a much wider public platform.

Vincent has built an original, inclusive, skilled and ‘risk tolerant’ practice that reaps results for both professional and non-professional collaborators, participants and audiences alike. Published works as original dance theatre constitute a contribution to knowledge at the forefront of dance theatre. The development of artist and artistry as process and performance are particularly analysed through a Case Study of Vincent’s work Art of Attachment. The work examines Attachment Theory and how trauma impacts on everyday lives, pushing dance theatre work into a purposeful realm and developing a practice based on equality of opportunity and the inclusion of a diversity of voices. The work engages audiences and performers alike as therapy/not therapy. Vincent’s PhD suggests how VDT’s work can be distributed and applied in both arts and non-arts contexts, such as social care, youth services, sociology, social work, law, psychotherapy and integrative therapeutic arts.