Jack Gallagher studied dance in New York at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and has danced professionally since 1988 with the Nikolais Dance Theater (USA), Krisztina de Chatel (NL) Amanda Miller (Germany) and Anouk van Dijk dancecompany (NL) amongst others. Jack gives classes and workshops in all the major dance academies in The Netherlands and is also involved in open studios and summer programs. Jack gives classes in a contemporary dance technique entitled Vigorous Release, a technique he has been developing whilst working with Anouk van Dijk between 1996 and 2009. In 2004, Jack formed an ad hoc interdisciplinary dance company under the name Bodies Anonymous. Under the motto of Pure Dance/ Non-fiction, they formulate new principles of dance and performances for the theatre and on location. Bodies Anonymous’ projects have been supported by the Dutch Dance funding organization. They perform regularly in Amsterdam and have toured Germany, Russia, Turkey, Australia and Israel.

The dialectics of dance between body and meaning.

Gallagher spent 5 weeks searching for the missing links between the language of dance and the communication rules we traditionally come to expect in public space. His research is essentially about the gap between the expectations of an audience and his dance practice. Audiences are already initiated into a language community which has an essential performative aspect, exposed as it were by the use of Speech Act Theory. These audiences that are not necessarily privileged to have been initiated into the dance culture know something else about the body and the act of communication that dance has excluded.

How can dance reincorporate the communication rules that bodies already employ in Speech Acts? Drawing a new map for his own composition method using Speech Act Theory & Lacan's logic of discourses, the main research question (derived from Speech Act Theory is -What do we do by saying?) was What and How do we say by doing dance? Gallagher is currently developing a new manner of engagement with dancers, combining his technical background with expert contributions from linguistics, psychology and philosophy.

Collaborators: Matthew Kelly Roman (dancer), Diane Elshout (research assistant), Jochem Naafs (dramaturgy), Derrick Brown (advisor)
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Insights and Conjectures regarding PSAT
Research - Phase II

“During my first research phase in 2009, I aimed at keeping my work simple, thorough, and methodical: Testing, Testing, Testing. Now, one year later I find that repetition is crucial in establishing a new streamlined formula for a continued research process. Play (test), Learn (test), Create (test).
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