Teaching & Mentoring
Creating performances, teaching choreography, and upskilling my work through learning are areas which developed alongside each other throughout my thirty - year movement practice. I come to see them as integral parts to my creative practice and way of advancing practice.
​
Photographer Unknown
I am a Senior Lecturer of Performance, Central Saint Martin's, London.
I have taught extensively for various international institutions, including; Trinity Laban, The Place, The Metropolitan, Reading, Westminster, Hammersmith and Middlesex University, University of Roehampton, and the London Actors’ Studio in the UK. Long term relationships in Europe include The Brussels Ministry of Dance Education and the State School of Dance in Greece where I have run the choreography course for twenty years. I was invited as a guest teacher, at the Hong Kong Academy of Arts and the Tottori University in Japan. I led workshops for people with disabilities (Candoco, Greaeye UK), Liminal in Greece and the over 60s group at Sadlers Wells UK. Internationally, I offered workshops for various companies and organizations in Helsinki, Madrid, Cyprus, Venice, Frankfurt, Cardiff, Reykievic, Washington DC, Mexico and Tokyo and other prefectures in rural Japan, amongst others.
​
​
________________
​
Photo Above: CSM: MA Design and Performance Practice,
sited production, Plague 2022, Photo by Athina
​
Since 2018 I am based at Central St Martins University of Arts where I lecture at the MA Course of Performance Practice and Design.
​
CSM, MA Design and Performance Practice, Workshop, 2022. Photo Athina
​
My role includes giving workshops, designing courses, mentoring and assessing students, inputting in research, updating the curriculum and inviting international art practitioners from different disciplines and at different stages in their careers to present and share their expertise with the MA students through online presentations and live workshops.
​
CSM, MA Design and Performance Practice, Workshop, 2022. Photo Athina
​
________________
​
LCF Workshop: BA1 Costume, Make Up,
and 3D Effects courses, 2022. Photo, Athina
Continuing since 2019, my association with University of Arts London has expanded into the London College of Fashion. For this past May (2024), I was really glad to have been invited by Matt, Jessica and Jenny at London College of Fashion to lecture and contribute as site specific project collaborator. The new building at Stratford is massive and these students mounted the first brave attempts to activate the space through performance.
​
Photos by Athina
In the past, as an associate lecturer, I contribute workshops across several units such as, Drawing Materiality, Innovation and Design, Costume for Design and Collaboration One: Design and Production, also mentoring personal projects across the BA curriculum. I work alongside the staff for the end of year student productions, such as a sited work based on the Ravel Opera, Les Enfants et les Sortileges.
​
All pics above: LCF, BA1 Collab One: Design for Performance, Sited
Performance, 2022. Photos, Bronwen Sharp.
​
_______________
​
​
Since 2018 I have also been an associate lecturer at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts for the MA Site Specific Theatre, inputting workshops and mentoring students. Over two consequent years I have mentored MA students who presented their final work at the disused site of the HP Prison Holloway, in London, before its final closure to the public as a site.
​
Copernican Dream by Kelsey Yuhara, Aylesbury Learning Centre,
2019. Photo, Katherine Leedale
Death Steps Back, by Anna-Maria Panagiotopoulou.
HMP prison, 2020. Photo, Katherine Leedale
_______________
​
Most recently, I teach composition at The London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) where I had previously created work for EDGE their postgraduate company.
​
LCDS, Edge- Ethics, 2018, Courtesy, the Place
​
________________
​
I have developed a teaching and mentoring relationship with the Dance North Scotland through offering movement and site-specific workshops for the DNS youth company, their associate artists (DNA) and RAS Network Scotland.
​
DNS: Youth Company, 2022. Photo Gail Sneddon.
DNS: DNA, Cath Giles Mentorship, 2022. Photo, Athina Vahla.
In both contexts, I teach choreography and site - specific workshops for groups at different stages of their dance practice varying from MA students (Rambert School) to The Youth Company, Associate artists (DNA) and RAS Network Scotland, at DNS. (see collaborations)
​
​
________________
​
October; Rhodes University, Drama Department,
Honours Physical Theatre, SA, 2017. Photo, Aman Bloom
I am an academic visitor and associate researcher to the Drama Department at Rhodes University, Makhanda South Africa, offering workshops in choreography and physical theatre, inputting to the MA supervision and creating performances.
​
​
________________
​