Alicia Grace

Alicia Grace is a performer, writer and dramaturg based in Devon. She has a First Class honours degree in Theatre and Arts Management, from Dartington College of Arts and is currently completing an MA in Arts and Ecology. Her practice is informed by post-modern dance, physical theatre, feminist poetics, fatigue and ecology.

Focusing on the relationship between body, place and stigma Alicia often works with photographers and filmmakers to create images, which question restrictions of mobility, explore edges of action and notions of the unseen. Her recent work, "end of the world rehearsal" is an exploration of Cold War bunkers. This work speaks a resistance to the contemporary tendency towards apocalyptic environmental visions, reflects the performative nature of cold war operations, and is under-pinned by Alicia's own experience as a survivor of nuclear medicine.

"My improvisation practice is concerned with a dynamic between mindfulness and play, a space for rest, and intention within stillness. I enjoy creating strange personas for strange places and developing a moving vocabulary from that collision.  At the heart of my poetic image-making is an ethic of complexity, play and empathy - especially towards morphological difference, stigma and revulsion. I am enraptured with the ecological phenomena of metamorphosis and symbiosis - the grotesque and buried shapes within these process, the abundance of poetic language surrounding them, the cycles of decay, regeneration, collaboration - all continue to inform and reflect the patterns of my own creative world."

Alicia's solo performance work has featured in DADA Fest '06 (Liverpool), The Talk Show (MAC Birmingham), Dance Feast (The Landmark Devon) and DanceScapes (commissioned by Dance South West for BDE & Bath ICA).

In 2006 Alicia presented her practice and research as part of Kaite O'Reily's "Alternative Dramaturgies from a Deaf and Disabled perspective" symposia at Exeter University and Hope University Liverpool. She has since worked as a dramaturg for Visual artist Gus Cummins and for choreographer Rosanna Irvine during her residency at Dance House, Glasgow.  In 2009 Alicia's research into dramaturgy entitled "Dancing in lassitude: a dramaturgy in limbo" was published in Research in Drama Education The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. She has also written articles on dramaturgy for Art, Disability, Culture magazine and Disability Arts Online. Alicia has worked as a visiting lecturer in contextual practice, a disability equality trainer specialising in dance, and continues to work as a non-executive director for Kaleido Arts.

Contact Alicia at: lyricfrequency@yahoo.co.uk