Core Practice 10 — Presenting: a full-bodied performance

18th March 201929th March 2019 Eline Kieft

Presenting our project results to research participants and academic colleagues is an essential part of the research cycle. No matter how much experience you have, some degree of nervousness is normal. This can affect the body, leading for example to tight vocal chords and a squeaky voice, excessive trembling or sweating, or even a blackout. With this Exploration you can prepare your presentation in a full-bodied way, in which your body is as relaxed as possible. Connecting and integrating these three centres within your body, you will find a confident stance to present from, delivering your content in a natural, open way.

Further Reading

Bagley, C. and Cancienne, M. B. (2001) ‘Educational Research and Intertextual Forms of (Re)Presentation: The Case for Dancing the Data’, Qualitative Inquiry,,7(2), pp. 221-237.

Boydell, K. M., Gladstone, B. M., Volpe, T., Allemang, B. and Stasiulis, E. (2012) ‘The Production and Dissemination of Knowledge: A Scoping Review of Arts-Based Health Research’, 2012,13(1).

Cancienne, M. B. and Bagley, C. (2009) ‘Dance as method: The process and product of movement in educational research’, Arts and Learning Research Journal,25(1).

Francombe-Webb, J., Rich, E. and De Pian, L. ‘Speaking With(in): Embodied Reflexivity and Embodied Knowledge’, European Sociological Association Annual Conference: Crisis, Critique and Change, Turin.

Furman, R., Langer, C. L., Davis, C. S., Gallardo, H. P. and Kulkarni, S. (2007) ‘Expressive, research and reflective poetry as qualitative inquiry: a study of adolescent identity’, Qualitative Research,7(3), pp. 301-315.

Jones, K. 2014. What is Performative Social Science? The Potential of Arts-based Research and Dissemination.

Pirkko, M. (2006) ‘Body-Movement-Change: Dance as Performative Qualitative Research’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues,30(4), pp. 353-363.

Rendle-Short, J. (2006) The Academic Presentation: Situated Talk In Action.New York: Routledge.

Sullivan, J. V. (2015) Embodied cognition : the vicarious presentation effect.Master of Arts Degree in Experimental Psychology, The University of Toledo, Toledo [Online] Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f8e0/5a80b451dc794f601b062deaef288cef662e.pdf(Accessed.

Theune, M., Heylen, D. K. J. and Nijholt, A. (2005) ‘Generating Embodied Information Presentations’, in Stock, O. & Zancanaro, M. (eds.) Multimodal Intelligent Information Presentation Text, Speech and Language Technology, nr. 27. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 47-69.

Many universities offer guidance on presentations, see for example: