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Intimate Violence: Feeling Impact in Irish Step Dance

8/27/2024

Intimate Violence: Feeling Impact in Irish Step Dance

Abstract
Intimate Violence is a practice-based study of Irish step dance that asks a simple question with radical consequences: what if the truth of percussive dance lives not only in what we see or hear, but in what the body feels at impact? Drawing on a psychometric (object-reading) perspective and an Arts Practice methodology, I read both material and immaterial “objects”—from 18th-century dance manuals and wooden-soled shoes to recurring gestures, memories, sites and systems of oppression. The book traces how impact, attention, and identity co-produce technique and meaning across the 17th–18th-century Atlantic world and today. Along the way, two performance case studies—The Querist (2017) and AngelAI (2023)—map a haptic, impact-driven practice that confronts legacies of colonization, oppression, and intimate harm. Written from my position as a Queer, Romani, disabled dance artist-researcher, Intimate Violence reframes percussive traditions—Irish step dance in dialogue with Tap, Flamenco, and Ballet Folklórico—as embodied archives where bodies negotiate history and violence one strike at a time.

Pre-order

I’m preparing a trade-readable adaptation of the dissertation.

Overview

The project combines studio experiments, live performances, and critical writing. Methods include movement scoring, attention constraints, and comparative analysis with ballroom/vogue arm work.

Methods

  • Impact drills (floor strikes, rebounds, breath)
  • Attention routing (gaze, sound cues, task switching)
  • Witness protocols and post-performance notes

References & availability

  • University of Limerick Library catalogue: forthcoming listing.
  • UL Institutional Repository (ULIR): post-exam deposit, forthcoming.
  • Book adaptation: pre-orders opening soon (see launch list above).

Image credit

Pair of mule-style shoes with wooden soles — National Museum of African American History and Culture (Open Access/CC0).
Object record: https://www.si.edu/object/pair-mule-style-shoes-wooden-soles:nmaahc_2014.179.3ab
Open Access policy: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/nmaahc-open-access

Keywords

Decolonial Dance Studies, Critical Romani Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, Queer Disability Studies, Trans Studies, Black Performance Theory, Irish Step Dance, Percussive Dance, Impact-Driven Dance, Somatic, Embodiment, Arts Practice PhD, Psychometry, Object-Reading, Posthuman Performativity, Barad, Atlantic World, Tap, Flamenco, Ballet Folklórico.

Contact

Speaking, workshops, or publication inquiries: info@timedancers.org