Debbie Milner

School of Arts and Media

Photo of Debbie Milner

Contact Details

New Adelphi 5.42

Please email for an appointment.

Current positions

Programme Leader MA Dance/Performance and Professional Practice/EMERGENCE Lecturer Dance

BIOGRAPHY

I have twenty years’ experience of working as a professional dance artist. During this time, I enjoyed a successful and varied career which saw me engage with regional, national and international dance artists and companies, community groups and arts organisations and cultural industries.

This breadth of experience has given me a broad palate of knowledge and skills which I share and develop with students.

My teaching and research considers how we can best prepare and support dance students so that they graduate with the information and confidence necessary to navigate their chosen career path.  In my academic teaching practice, I encourage myself and students to be curious, intuitive and honest in exploration and play. I have high expectations of myself and I encourage the same from my students. There is a rigor to my practice, but this is softened by my genuine love of dance which I share openly and without apology. Dance can be a very exposing area of study and I work with an ethos which encourages the maintenance of a nurturing teaching environment in which commitment to focused participation is expected, where vulnerability and failure are encouraged.

Teaching

BA

  • The Creative Entrepreneur
  • Creative Lab
  • Dance Techniques
  • Choreography and Performance
  • Collaborative Practices
  • Approaches to Dance Pedagogy
  • Dance Teaching Strategy and Design

MA

  • MA Dance/Performance and Professional Practices
  • MA Dance/ Choreography and Professional Practice
  • MA Dance/ Creative Education

Research Interest

My main areas of research are viscerally connected to my teaching practice and my pedagogical values.

These include:

  • Dance Employability and Entrepreneurship- The development of the ‘emerging professional’.
  • Non-Assessed Dance Teaching- Enabling a teaching climate fostering vulnerability, risk taking and self-efficacy
  • Dance Science- Injury prevention, dancer fatigue and the benefits of dance fitness testing.

Qualifications and Memberships

Qualifications

  • MA Education. Edge Hill University
  • DDTAL-CYP- Diploma in Dance Teaching and Learning. Trinity London.
  • BA Hons Performing Arts/Dance. The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts