Matthew Rawcliffe

I wanted to practically test some of the ideas from scholarship in the studio with students, here are some things that came up: It’s so hard when my main practice isn’t necessarily pedagogy, to not connect theories around learning and teaching to my own work as a teacher. I decided to let them be a bit blurred and mashed together. I decided I would both deliver the session as a trial of taking experiential learning as form and guide, but also trying to teach and articulate some of the areas where I feel I have significant learning - but that I wouldn’t normally incorporate into my teaching practice (especially with pre-professionals.) And here it gets messier. Because I have a real interest in developing and making space for the autonomy of performers I work with. However, this becomes complicated as I’m engaging with theory around reflective learning which now I see relates both to what I’ve learned and also how I’ve learned it. I feel some clarity in this: Schön  (1987) on The...

I have just started reading Schön’s  Educating the Reflective Practitioner  and so I wanted to jot down some initial thoughts and name some of the questions and ideas that have already arose. I’d love to hear from others who are also reading it. These responses mainly come from notions presented in the first chapter. Here, Schön presents the epitome of the argument: asking what knowledge is needed in order to excel in your practice. Already, there is discussion around what methods can offer this rigorous professional knowledge beyond traditional structures. There is recognition that artistry affords this personal growth. There is identification of how profession affects perspective, our unique framing of a situation gives rise for the need to somehow mediate these differences. It is the skills which allow for this greater perspective which are proposed to offer this extension of professional knowledge.   At some point I will probably write about woke-washing and current p...

A response to Tilflugt (2022) by Signe Klejs and Christian Windfeld: Art as a discipline is uncontrollable. I can use imagery which speaks to me and only me.   I can play with universal themes only to discover they were never universal. I can make a work about how much I love chess and you might understand it as being about the pursuit of love within a totalitarian society. Maybe that’s failure. Maybe it’s beautiful. Maybe failure is beautiful in its nature. If I am having a particularly good day maybe I will view any art on that day through that lens. The same is, of course, true in reverse.   And that is beautiful. I become part of the art. A little part of where and how I am will affect the way in which I meet the work.   When art plays with this notion and pushes me to perceive myself inside the work, for me it begins to shift into transforming how I see the world and myself within it. I was really thinking about this in relation to Tilfugt as I am advised to see ...

This is not my practise. Or at least this is not the practise. It is just a practise - which I have. I really enjoyed the debate around how necessary art is - I think these topics of selfishness, genius and integrity are so vast and interesting. I was trying to think about how best to respond to the topics raised, and maybe I will offer something very obvious as a reminder for myself. The more artists I meet, the more I become excited by how nothing is necessarily true. Say, for instance, between a small group of us we could agree that all art is necessary , then we have an agreed truth for our community. However, next week a new member joins who introduces their practice as the pursuit of making unnecessary art… has our one agreed truth now been broken? Perhaps the pursuit of creating the unnecessary comes from the intrinsic belief that art is always necessary. But with the fallible craft of naming things with words, do we diminish our imagined unnecessary art practice-r? Perhaps fo...

Hi friends,   Welcome!   This is my first blog post - I hope you enjoy it. My name is Matthew Rawcliffe and I’m a dance artist from Manchester in the UK, currently living and working in Denmark as a company dancer.   I'm currently enjoying scouring second hand shops for any interesting and unusual books about installation, architecture, site specific art, silent movies and just about anything that catches my interest.  I began training professionally as a dancer at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, during which I competed in BBC Young Dancer - winning in the contemporary dance category. My interest in choreography was really pushed by the competition, for which I  created and performed two solo works which really stayed with me: the first I was asked to tour as  a guest artist with Kneehigh Theatre, the other was commissioned to be extended by SICK! Festival alongside performances as part of The Sadler’s Wells Program at Latitude Festiva...