Rachel Smith is an inventive and charismatic performer, choreographer and educator with a background that covers acting, music, dance and visual art. Trained at The Laban Centre and The Scottish School of Contemporary Dance, her versatile and innovative approach has led to her involvement in a diverse range of performance initiatives throughout Scotland and the UK. Her work has included site-specific works, residencies, choreography for professional theatre and film, community projects and dance theatre performance.
An experienced educator, Rachel was Dance Education Officer for Scottish Dance Theatre, Scotland's principal contemporary dance company from 2002 - 06 and continues to teach contemporary dance techniques and create choreography in schools, colleges and national dance centres.
Rachel's involvement with Designs for Life began in April 2007, working as part of DCC Creative Learning Team as a dance educator for an exciting physical theatre project with local Primary School children, exploring new connections being made between science and the arts. Following on from this initial engagement; Rachel has been invited to develop her own professional response to the ideas and methodologies of Designs for Life, through the creation of a new choreographed video piece. This work will be shown at the project's exhibition and symposium event, which will also premier other Designs for Life creative collaborations from musician Alex Smoke and The Scottish Ensemble.'Dance as an expressive medium can respond to science as culture in a way that does not remove itself from the art to become a purely physical or scientifically analytical form. Communication, perception and representation are as key to dance and performance as they are to scientific research. This work explores people as the common link – new knowledge and the way we perceive and understand it is a constant process through which we grow as individuals and as a society.'
Rachel Smith Rachel Smith is co-founder and Artistic Director of the performance company VERY RED
www. VERY-RED.com