Dr. Gina Giotaki is Assistant Professor in the Department of Performing & Digital Arts at the University of Peloponnese. She is a dance artist and certified Somatic Movement Educator. She has been a Research Associate in the NHS Department for Research and Development Northwest (R&D Northwest, UK) and has been a faculty member of the “Leading a Culture of Research and Innovation in the NHS” programmes and Developing Early Career Research Programme (2020) funded by Health Education England.

Her ongoing research interests focus on theories of embodiment and the impact of embodied and somatic-informed creative processes in contemporary dance performance, intermedial performance and in community and health contexts. Having developed her own approach to dance and movement practice, she explores ways in which: a) mindful ways of moving may inform pedagogy and creative processes in contemporary dance practice, and lived experience in intermedial performance b) an anthropological understanding of embodiment and embodied methods may enhance our understanding of dance history and applications of technology in exploring dance as intangible cultural heritage, and c) principles of practice drawn from embodied methods of creative practice contribute in interdisciplinary dialogues around well-being and enhancing health provision services.

Over the past two decades, Dr. Giotaki has held roles as a faculty member at academic institutions in the UK and Greece. She was Senior Lecturer in Dance at Edge Hill University, and Liverpool John Moores University, and has worked in the Department of Performing Arts at Coventry University, UK and Ionian University in Greece. As an artist and researcher, she has extensively worked in the community, education and health settings and in collaboration with numerous organisations and artists in Europe. She has worked with esteemed artists such as Miranda Tufnell, Katy Dymoke, Andrea Buckley, Angie Walton, Bernard Pierre Louis, and with companies such as English National Ballet, Liverpool Improvisation Collective, Shobhana Jeyasingh Dance Company, Bedlam Dance Company and other.