About me
I am an anthropologist and former professional dancer, currently Visiting Researcher at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), where I previously served as Associate Professor. My research explores how the body shapes the ways we inhabit and understand the world, working across medical anthropology, phenomenology of the body and illness, embodied cognition, and dance and performance studies. I examine presence, embodiment and agency in performance practices and in the experience of illness.
My recent work focuses on arts and health, developing co-creative dance practices with cancer survivors. I was Principal Investigator of the project Transforming Illness Experience (2024-2025), funded by the Danish Cancer Society and Helsefonden. Alongside my research, my artistic practice in screendance and choreography explores the entanglements of movement, emotion and environment.
My monograph Dancing Presence: Ecologies of Embodiment in Contemporary Dance Practices is forthcoming with Routledge.
Background
I hold a PhD in cognitive science from Macquarie University, Sydney (2020), and an MA in cultural anthropology from the University of Bologna (2012). My research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and in volumes published by Oxford University Press and Bloomsbury, and received the Australian Anthropological Society (AAS) Best Article Prize in 2022.
Before my academic career, I trained in ballet and contemporary dance at Aterballetto, the École Supérieure de Danse de Cannes Rosella Hightower and the D.A.N.C.E. programme directed by William Forsythe, Angelin Preljocaj, Wayne McGregor and Frédéric Flamand. I have been creating choreographic works since 2005. My short film Abisso, co-directed with Ruggero Pini, was screened at festivals across Europe and Australia, won the 2018 AAS Visual and Creative Ethnography Competition and earned me the 2019 CHASS Australia Prize for a Student in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
I welcome collaborations with researchers, artists and healthcare professionals.
