Dr Alys Longley is an interdisciplinary artist. Through methods of choreographic experimentation, documentation and reflection she investigates dance as professional performance, creative expression, community practice and education.
Alys has been involved in performance all her life and currently works as a choreographer, poet, author, performer, community art facilitator and teacher. Formerly trained as a theatre director and creative writer, Alys has been working on projects with fashion designers, composers, visual artists, film makers and writers in NZ, Australia and Europe for over two decades.
Passionate about community engagement, Longley creates work addressing the wellness of young people, healthy societies, the importance of creative arts in education and environmental issues.
Alys’s research interests include practice-led research, interdisciplinary projects, ethnography, somatic practices, ecology and inclusive dance education. Alys has recently led the project 18 Horas Entre Nosotros/ 18 Hours Between Us – a series of performances and public research events in Santiago, Chile and Auckland, New Zealand. In 2019 this project presented the work Mapeo de Bordes Porosos/ Mapping Porous Borders in Chicago. Between 2014-2016 she led the project fluid city, an art-science-education project on water-sustainability. Her book The Foreign Language of Motion was published in 2014 with Winchester University Press’s Preface Series and her book Radio Strainer was published in 2016. Her edited books include Undisciplining Dance in Nine Movements and Eight Stumbles (2018, Cambridge Scholars Press, with Carol Brown) and Artistic Approaches to Cultural Mapping, Activating Imaginaries and Means of Knowing (2018, Routledge, with Nancy Duxbury and Will Garrett Petts).
Alys Longley is an Associate Professor in the Dance Studies Programme at the University of Auckland.
