After graduating in 1992 Andy went on to work within the sound and lighting department at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre, gaining experience as a front of house live sound engineer and lighting technician in a variety of contexts from orchestral performances through to large scale rock shows and musicals.
From 1997, Andy worked as a freelance writer for radio and television, quickly resulting in his first comedy series broadcast on BBC Radio Four, Grievous Bodily Radio, which he created with his writing partner, Jon Holmes. In 1999 he accepted the position of department Script Editor with BBC Light Entertainment. During this time, Andy made up part of the writing team of four that devised the successful impressionist comedy show Dead Ringers, working on the original radio version with Alistair McGowan, Kate Robbins and John Culshaw.
As a radio presenter and producer, Andy has recorded and edited spoken word and music based packages for a wide range of commercial radio groups (Capital Radio Group, Virgin Radio, LBC and Radio One) and won a Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Entertainment Show in 2000.
Andy has also worked as a freelance composer producing music for both radio and television (Channel Four – Harry Hill’s Fruit Corner, Channel Five – Jim Tavare in Cabaret, BBC2, and BBC Radio Four).
Exploring Somatic Sensation – what do we feel when we encounter intimate dance performance?
Assisting Nina Atkinson
Excerpt from Hanging Heavy by Loop Dance Company
Choreography Nina Atkinson
Dancers Effie Mcguire-Ward, Daisy Farris, Harriet Parker-Joy and Clarisse Roud
Music Sabio Janiak
Lighting Design Dr Andy Hurst
Kinaesthetic empathy involves the internal ‘simulation’ of observed movement in the brain of the observer; this simulation of others’ actions contributes to action understanding and empathy. For example, when we see someone expressing an emotion, the emotion is embodied through our neural and physiological response. It is not known whether this response is dependent on sight, or can be experienced in a more direct ‘somatic’ manner.
The immersive dance performance piece ‘Hanging Heavy’ is the result of the 5 year project ‘Exploring Somatic Sensation (ESS)’. This immersive performance project investigates kinaesthetic empathy focusing on intimate work that immerses the audience in the work in collaboration with cognitive neuro-scientists from BEAMlab (University of Manchester). The project builds on the pilot project which questioned if vision stimulates kinaesthetic empathy by testing audience reactions. We carried out tests to investigate by measuring things such as spontaneous movement & arousal. Interestingly, we discovered that audiences were reacting to the work physically, heart rates were elevated & were synchronizing with the dancer’s. The Encounters Tour 2023 is the 4th and final phase of ESS and involves refined data collection informed by the previous stages.
We will show a short excerpt of the work and the choreographer Nina Atkinson will offer a provocation for discussion.