Gregory Sporton MA PhD

Contact Details 25 Jul


Dr. Gregory Sporton
Director, Visualisation Research Unit
Department of Art
Birmingham Institute of Art & Design
Margaret Street
Birmingham B3 3DX
+44 (0)121 331 5978
Mobile no. +44 (0)7944753140
gregory.sporton@bcu.ac.uk

If you require further information, please get in touch with me.

Curriculum Vitae

Gregory Sporton MA PhD

Since January 2004. Director, Visualisation Research Unit, Department of Art, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Birmingham City University (BCU). Duties have centred around developing funding and research with commercial practice, resulting in successful grant applications for AHRC Research funding, Arts Council, Spinner, Medici and British Academy support. Current research work is focused on interdisciplinary work and with developing e-Science in the Arts as the Unit’s specialism. The VRU will relocate to the new gallery (see STATE Enterprises below) during 2008. Course Leader for MA Digital Arts in Performance.



Current Projects
STATE Enterprises is a new initiative for the School of Art, that incorporates an artist-led gallery space (Eastside Projects) dedicated to presenting new work with a digital technology research facility for the visual and performing arts (VRU). Already made an RFO by Arts Council West Midlands, the gallery’s remit is to encourage new ways in which the School can interact with the local community of artists, encourage continuing research and create opportunities for new and existing creative businesses in an area ready for regeneration as the cultural quarter of Birmingham. As Chair of STATE, my role is to manage the initial set up period and set the medium term goals for establishing the facility.

Service By Design. Lead Officer in the development of a programme of support for a local manufacturing business looking to change its business model and reorientate from mass manufacturing to supporting and developing design-based businesses.

Manual Handling Project.Collaboration with Faculty of Health and Well-Being in creating virtual environments and motion capture feedback for motor skills learning and training for nurses.

Chair of COSMOS COSMOS is the group planning and coordinating the use of space within the School of Art.

Course Director, MA Digital Arts in Performance.Collaborative programme with the Birmingham Conservatoire in the application of digital technologies in performance contexts.

Background to Current Post Recruited to University of Central England (now BCU) in 2002 as Head of School, Performance & Moving Image, Department of Visual Communications, Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. During four years in the Visual Communications Department my role was regularly altered to include areas like research, quality assurance, new course development and overseas course development.

Management & Consultancy
2007- Selected as Innovation Mentor, Service by Design Project, BCU
2006-present, Member of the Management Team, Department of Art, BIAD
2004-present, Consultant, Animazoo Motion Capture, on development of new products, corporate spokesman and accessing new markets.
2003- 2007, Board Member, VIVID, Birmingham, representing commercial development opportunities in the Arts sector.
1993-2000 Birmingham Royal Ballet, Education Advisory Committee.

Previous Posts


1999–2001 Head of Research & Graduate Studies, Laban Centre London. As part of the Centre’s Executive Team, was responsible for the fundraising, development and institutional strategy surrounding the £22m Creekside Project, a new building to house the Centre, at that time a private institution. This project drew funding and support from Arts Council, local authority and DCMS programmes, as well as private sector support from Jarvis, Sony and other interested companies. The project included remodelling and refocusing the entire institutions activities, including the development of business areas in Pilates, Library & Archives and Community Projects. This required introduction of structures for new courses, personnel procedures, business areas strategy and marketing. In 2002, the building won the RIBA Stirling Prize. In 2003 the Centre merged with Trinity College, joining the HEFCE sector, with the structures developed during 1999-2002 (See consultancy above), largely in place and in some cases adopted by the new institution.


1996-1999 Dance Studies Subject Leader/ Acting Associate Dean, University of Wolverhampton. Developed Dance Studies to a full honours programme, from the smallest subject in the University to a full department attracting 90 students per year. Seconded onto the Steering Group for the development of a new faculty for the University, now the very successful School of Sports, Performing Arts and Leisure (SPAL), and acted as its Associate Dean during the period of selecting and appointing an inaugural Dean. This included negotiating demerger of subject areas, staff and students from existing structures, the establishment of a management team, chairing Quality Assurance Committee, and developing new programmes for the new School.

1992-1995 Lecturer in Dance, Coventry Centre for the Performing Arts, (CCPA) Coventry, U.K.


1985-1994 Professional dance career performing with companies and in independent projects across a large variety of forms and contexts. Work included spells with English National Opera, Nexus Dance Company, Human Veins Dance Theatre, Het Muziektheater, Opera Restor’d, Small Axe Dance Company and more. Full list on request.

New Programme Development 19 Nov

My experience of new programme development and validation is extensive, having initiated and created new programmes at undegraduate and postgraduate level. Validations for programmes have been secured at every level, including doctoral study, in internal and external validation events for four universities.

Innovative programmes where I have led validation include the MSc Dance Science at Laban, the collaborative MA Digital Arts Practice (with the Birmingham Conservatoire at BCU), as well as M-level programmes in Choreography, Dance Performance and Scenography, and BA programmes in Dance and Dance Studies. I am currently working on validation of a new BA Digital Arts Practice programme in collaboration with a number of partners in other faculties and the media industries.

Training & Education 5 Mar

PhD University of Sheffield, 1999
MA Arts Education & Cultural Studies, University of Warwick 1996
BA Dance, Victorian College of the Arts, 1985,
Medici Fellow, 2004-05, Creating Enterprise in Universities
Arts & Business Creative Training & Development Programme, 2006
Prince 2 Project Management Foundation Level, 2008.

Speaks English & Russian

Select Bibliography

Recent Publications

Sporton, G. 2008, ‘The Ballet Called “Siegfried”: the Enigmatic Prince of “Swan Lake”’. New Theatre Quarterly, Vol.24, Part 3, No.95, pp.281-293.

Sporton, G. 2007, “Building the Wireframe: e-Science in the Visual Arts”, AHRC e-Science Support Website, http://www.ahessc.ac.uk/files/active/0/BW-report.pdf

Sporton, G. 2007, “Real-time Collaborative Art-Making”, AHRC ICT Methods Network Report, http://www.methodsnetwork.ac.uk/activities/act23.html

Sporton, G. & Sharl, R. 2006, “Ultra parallelism: the Grid, the Supercomputer and the Creative Artist”, VIVID hothaus series, ed. Gibbon, J., Birmingham, Article Press, pp.102-108.

Sporton, G. 2006, “Capturing the space: ‘Doppëlganger’@ New Art Gallery Walsall”, Journal of Body, Space & Technology, Vol. 6, No. 1, http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0601/home.html

Sporton, G. 2006, “Power as Nostalgia: the Bolshoi Ballet in the New Russia”, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 22, Part 4, No. 88, pp.379-386.
-reprinted in Barnett, D. & Skelton, A. 2008, “Theatre and Performance in Eastern Europe”, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, pp.3-12

Sporton, G. 2004, “Dance Culture and Statuary Politics: Chiang Kai-Shek and the Myth of Primitivism”, New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 20, Part 3, No. 79, pp. 280-285.

Sporton, G. 2004, “Of Watermelons and DVDs”, Research in Dance Education, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 83-93.

Sporton, G. 2004, “Dancing by Degrees” Horos [48, Feb/May 2004], p.6-9. Athens (in Greek)

Sporton, G. 2003, “A Degree of Confusion: Does Higher Education in the UK understand dance just yet?”, A. Raftis, ed., ‘Dance as Education’, IOFA Greek Section, Athens, pp. 189-196.

Sporton, G. 2002, “Real & False Cultural Understanding: Ideas, policy and practice for multi-ethnic Britain”, A. Raftis, ed., ‘Dance as Intangible Heritage’, International Organisation of Folk Art, Athens, pp. 188-196.

Sporton, G., “Dance as Cultural Understanding: Ideas, Policy & Practice”, Dance Research Journal, December 2004, pp.80-116.

FORTHCOMING
Sporton, G., “The ‘e’ Prefix: e-Science, e-Art & the New Creativity”, Digital Humanities Quarterly, January 2008.

Sporton, G., “Visualising and Reality”, in “Emerging Intersections in Visualisation Practices and Techniques”, Tolmie, J., ed, 2008.

Sporton, G., ‘The Activist Audience: the Network as a Performance Environment’, Modes of Spectating, Oddey, A. & White, C. eds., Bristol: Intellect Books, 2008.

Recent Conference Papers
Sporton, G. & Wright, C., September 2008, ‘Writing with Her Body: Transference of Movement, Spectacle & Meaning Through Technology’, Digital Resources in the Arts & Humanities (DRHA) 08, University of Cambridge.

Sporton, G., July 2008. ‘In the Service of the State: Art & Politics in the Early Soviet Union’, Third International Conference on the Arts in Society, BCU, Birmingham.

Sporton, G., March 2008, ‘Real-time Collaborative Art-Making’, Methods Network Conference, Kings College, London.

Sporton, G., June, 2007, ‘Building the Wireframe: e-Science in the Visual Arts’, e-Science for A&H Research: An Early Adopters’ Forum, National Centre for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Sporton, G., July, 2007, ‘e-Science and Creativity’, Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conferences International, London College of Communication, London.

Sporton, G., July, 2007, ‘The ‘e’ Prefix: e-Science, e-Art and the New Creativity’, e-Science & Performance, Public Lecture Series, National e-Science Institute, Edinburgh.

Sporton, G., July, 2007, ‘And, With & Through: the Technologies of Performance’, Digital Representations of Performing Arts AHDS conference, Edinburgh.

Sporton, G. & Green, J.,September, 2007, ‘lightpipe’, UK e-Science All Hands Conference, East Midlands Conference Centre, lecture-demonstration, Nottingham.

Sporton, G., 2007, ‘The New Passive: Opportunities for Spectators in Interactive Performance’, Modes of Spectating Symposium, Ruskin Anglia University.

Green, J., Sporton, G., & Williams, K., 2007, ‘The Networked Multi-disciplinary Performance Environment’, 2000+Seven Symposium, Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queens University, Belfast, April.

Sporton, G., 2007, ‘Grid-based VisualiZation’, VizNet 2007 Symposium, Intersections in Visualization Practices and Techniques, Loughborough University.

Sporton, G. 2004, “Design as Action: Jean Cocteau & the Ballets Russes”, International Federation of Theatre Research Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Sporton, G. 2003, “Turning to the Academy: Issues in Practice-based Research”, SCODHE Conference, University of Leeds.

Sporton, G. 2002, “Real & False Cultural Understanding: Ideas, policy and practice for multi-ethnic Britain”, CID-UNESCO Conference, Corfu, Greece.

Sporton, G. 2003, “A Degree of Confusion: Does Higher Education in the UK understand dance just yet?”, CID-UNESCO Conference, Naxos, Greece.

Sporton, G. & Sharl, R. 2004, “Ultra parallelism: the Grid, the Supercomputer and the Creative Artist”, VIVID, ‘Progression’ in the hothaus series, BIAD, Birmingham.

Sporton, G. 2001, “The Cultural Gesture: policy and practice for South Asian Dance in Britain”, Congress on Research in Dance, New York University.

Sporton, G. & Holmes, S. 2000, “The Classical and the Grotesque in the Internet Age: Self-publication and Representation via Web-Cam”, University of Birmingham, 3rd International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference.

Sporton, G. & Bartrip, M. 2002, “Rethinking Laban Centre London: Curriculum and Policy Responses to a Changing Environment”, CEDAR, University of Warwick, Coventry.

Sporton, G. & Gant, K. 1998, “Beyond the Initiative”, Community Dance: Current Issues in the Field, L. Jasper, ed., ‘Seminar Papers 1998’, University of Surrey, Guildford, pp. 43-57.

Wilson, M., Whyte, G., George, K., Lane, A., Redding, E., & Sporton, G. 2001, “Variation of electrocardiographic (ECG) changes in contemporary student dancers”, IADMS, Madrid, Spain.

Other Publications

Sporton, G. 2008, “Real-Time Collaborative Art Making” in Hughes, L. (ed), ‘The AHRC ICT Methods Network’, London: AHRC ICT Committee, p.45.

Sporton, G. 2001, “Matthew in a cage (The performing presence of this year’s Jerwood-Choreography-Award winner, Matthew Hawkins)”, Dance Theatre Journal, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 30-31.

Sporton, G. 2002, “Moving history, dancing cultures”, Dance Theatre Journal, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 45-46.

Sporton, G. 2001, “A Question of Confidence”, Research in Dance Education, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 95-99.

Sporton, G., 1997, “The Culture of Dance Meets the Cult of the Body”, Animated, Summer 1997, p.6-7

Unpublished Theses
Sporton, G. 1996, Undressing Terpsichore: The Culture of Dance, MA, University of Warwick.
Sporton, G. 1999, Real Dancing: Theory & Action , PhD, University of Sheffield.