Dr Sita Popat

Senior Lecturer in Dance (New Technologies)
Phone Number 0113 343 8716
Email s.popat@leeds.ac.uk

Roles
Director of Research
School and Faculty Research Committee
School Management Team
External Examiner Bath Spa University
Member of School Performance and Technology Research Grouping

Current Teaching
Undergraduate – Performance Perspectives, Theoretical Concepts in Dance (module leader); Major Dissertation
Postgraduate – Conceptual Frameworks, Research Project

Research Interests
Performance and new media
The body and digital scenography
Dance and eScience
Choreography with Internet communities
5 PhD students, has supervised 3 PhDs to completion, and has examined 5 PhDs.

Recent Conference/Editorial Work:
Associate Editor, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media (Intellect Books)
Referee Panel Member, World Dance Association Global Summit, Brisbane, Australia 2008
Programming Committee member, Digital Resources in the Humanities and the Arts (DRHA), 2008
Reviewer for Computers in Art and Design Education (CADE) 2007 & European League of Institutes of the Arts (ELIA) 2007
Programming Committee member, (re)Actor: 2nd International Conference for Digital Live Art, 2007
Other review work completed for Palgrave Macmillan, Leonardo journal, Interacting with Computers journal.

Awards and Grants
2007-9 Co-Investigator on the AHRC/EPSRC/JISC-funded project, “Relocating Choreographic Process: The impact of Grid technologies and collaborative memory on the documentation of practice-led research in dance”. Co-investigators: Helen Bailey (PI, University of Bedfordshire), Simon Buckingham Shum (Open University), Michael Daw (University of Manchester).
2007-8 Co-Investigator on AHRC/EPSRC-funded project, “Emergent Objects: Designing the Technological Interface through Performance”. Principal Investigator: Mick Wallis; Co-investigators from University of Leeds, Nottingham Trent University, University of Huddersfield, and Shadow Robot Company (London).
2006-8 Principal Investigator on the AHRC-funded project, “Projecting Performance: Interrelationships between performance and technology, dancer and operator”.  Co-investigator: Scott Palmer (PCI); Collaborators: KMA Creative Technologies Ltd.
2005-6 Member of core team of “Emergent Objects: Performance & Design Research” Cluster, funded by EPSRC/AHRC Designing for the 21st Century programme. Researching the relationships between design and performance.
2002 Principal Investigator on the “Eurodans Project”, funded by institutions from the European League of Institutes of the Arts, Dance Section. This project used a dynamic web site environment to link 26 dance students from 10 higher education institutions in 7 European countries in a year-long choreographic project, culminating in a performance at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland in October 2002.
2002 The Eurodans Project was awarded a Netd@ys label and selected to be the UK representative project at the European Commission's Netd@ys 2002 ceremony in Brussels, Belguim.
2001 Principal Investigator on the TRIAD Project, funded by the Oracle Corporation to use their online community software for choreographic work with teenagers.

EKT
2005 Dancing in the Streets: Movement consultant and choreographer for this interactive light installation on the streets of York. Project organisers were KMA Creative Technologies Ltd. The project was funded by York City Council, as part of the York Renaissance Project.
2000-2005 The Notschool Project: Online theatre and dance with disaffected young people (http://www.notschool.net )
2001 Pax Excelsis, dance choreographed for Platfform 01 Digital Arts Day, BBC Wales. Choreography of telematic production, involving live Internet connection to USA. (Role: Choreographer and post-performance discussion panel member)

Biography
Sita originally trained as a dancer, but her career was blighted by injury. Having taken time out to have a family, she returned to full-time education and gained her PhD in 2002. Since then she has lectured at the University of Leeds, developing her interests in dance performance and choreography in a variety of digital and new media contexts. She has choreographed on dancers, robots and digital ‘sprites’, and is fascinated by the interrelationships between performers, operators and computers.

Popat, S. & Palmer, S. (2008) Embodied Interfaces: Dancing with Digital Sprites, Digital Creativity 19(2), pp.1-13
Bailey, H., Buckingham-Shum, S., Daw, M., Popat, S. & Turner, T. (2008) e-Dance: Relocating Choreographic Practice as a New Modality in Performance and Documentation, International Symposium of Electronic Arts, Singapore, July 2008. 
Popat, S. & Palmer, S. (2008) Keynote presentation: Projecting Performance, DigArt Symposium 2008, Aalborg University, Esbjerg, Denmark, March 2008
Palmer, S. & Popat, S. (2007) ‘Dancing in the Streets: The Sensuous Manifold as a Concept for Designing Experience’, International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media 2(3), pp.297-314
Popat, S. (2006). Invisible Connections: Dance, Choreography and Internet Communities, London & New York: Routledge
Popat, S. & Palmer, S. (2005) ‘Creating Common Ground: Dialogues Between Performance and Digital Technologies’, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 1(1), pp.47-65