Laura Karreman is an assistant professor in the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University, where she teaches in the MA Contemporary Theatre, Dance and Dramaturgy, the RMA Media, Art and Performance studies and the BA Media and Culture. She is also the programme coordinator of the RMA Media, Art and Performance studies. 

She researches the role of embodied knowledge in dance transmission practices, the role of digitization in performance archives, and epistemological questions that relate to new notions of dance and performance knowledge. She is a member of the UU Research Group Transmission in Motion, in which she relates to research themes and topics such as dramaturgy, somatechnics and 'mobilizing the archive'. 

Laura was nominated for the UU Teacher Talent prize of 2021 by students of the Department of Media and Culture studies. You can view the short film (5:31) which she made on her teaching vision for the nomination trajectory by clicking here or on the image above.  

Background

Laura Karreman earned her doctoral degree in Art Studies at Ghent University (2017). She also holds a Research Master degree in Art Studies from the University of Amsterdam (2007) and a BA degree in Theatre, Film and Television studies from Utrecht University (2004). Previously she worked on various projects as a dramaturg and researcher in the Dutch cultural field of visual arts and performance. She worked several years as an advisor for the Theatre and Dance Advisory Board board for the Amsterdam Art Fund. She also taught at the honours programme Theory and Research in the Arts at ArtEZ Institute for the Arts in Arnhem.

PhD research 

She conducted her doctoral research (2012-2017) at the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies at Ghent University, Belgium. Her PhD dissertation is titled “The Motion Capture Imaginary: Digital renderings of dance knowledge”. This thesis is the result of a 4-year research project (2012-2016) funded by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and advised by Christel Stalpaert (Ghent University). This dissertation project examined what implications motion capture technologies have for our understanding of dance and the dancing body.

Recent publications

Together with Christel Stalpaert (UGent) and Kristof van Baerle (UAntwerpen) she is currently co-editing the book Performance and Posthumanism: Staging Prototypes of Composite Bodies, which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in their Theatre and Performance list (expected in Spring 2021). A chapter titled "Breathing Matters: Breath as Dance Knowledge" was published in Futures of Dance Studies (2020), edited by Susan Manning, Janice Ross and Rebecca Schneider and published by The University of Wisconsin Press. Another chapter titled "How does motion capture mediate dance?" was published in the second edition of the Routledge volume Contemporary Choreography (2017), edited by Jo Butterworth and Liesbeth Wildschut. Previously, she has also published several articles in Performance Research. 

Laura Karreman holding a Noh mask © Photography: Michiel Bles

Click here or on the image above for a brief introductory clip (00:54) of Laura Karreman's nomination for the UU Teacher Talent award 2021.