Simone Kenyon

Dr Simone Kenyon is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work investigates embodied knowledge, ecology, and place through dance, somatic methodologies, and mountaineering. Her doctoral thesis, Walking out of the body and into the Mountain: dancing, mountaineering and embodied ways of knowing (University of Leeds), explores women’s experiential relationships with the Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland, and draws on the writing of Nan Shepherd to develop expanded approaches to place-relational performance making. 

Kenyon has contributed to research initiatives including Agroforestry Futures (Robert Gordon University) and Creative Landscape Futures (University of Aberdeen), and her publications appear in Performance Research, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, and The Routledge Companion to Site-Specific Performance (2025). 

Alongside her academic work, Simone brings over two decades of experience as an artist, dancer, facilitator and producer, delivering place-relational, ecologically driven and socially engaged arts projects across the UK and internationally. 

Qualifications:

PhD, MA Practising Performance, BA (Hons) Contemporary Arts 

Publications

Book Chapters

(Forthcoming)- Kenyon, S. (2025). In Crossley. M, Garton. R, Rippel. I (ed). (2027). Nomadic ​​Performance Making: Experiences, Environments and Empathy. Bloomsbury. 

Kenyon, S. (2025). Walking Out of Our Bodies and Into the Mountain: Dancing, Mountaineering and Embodied Interconnections through Place-Relational Performance. In The Routledge Companion to Site-Specific Performance (pp. 347-360). Routledge.https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003283034-31/walking-bodies-mountain-simone-kenyon 

Kenyon, S., Kerr, M. (2023). Into the Mountain: Challenging Hegemonic Discourses of Mountaineering and Expanding the Relational Field. In: Hall, J., Boocock , E., Avner, Z. (eds) Gender, Politics and Change in Mountaineering. Global Culture and Sport Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29945-2_12 

Kenyon, S. (2015) The Thing About Water. In Neal, L. (2015) Playing for Time. Oberon Books. 

Journal Articles

Kenyon, S. (2024) Walking out of Bodies and into the Mountains. Animated Community Dance Magazine. People Dancing. 

Kenyon, S., 2021. Journeying towards multitudinous bodies: working with body weather practices through the creation of Into the Mountain. Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 12(2), pp.224-232.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19443927.2021.1915629?journalCode=rtdp20

Kenyon, S., 2019. Into the Mountain. Performance Research, 24(2), pp.32-35. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19443927.2021.1915629 

Ashley, T. and Kenyon, S. (2010) The Pennine way: the legs that made us (a return journey). Visual Studies, 25(1), pp.83-84. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14725861003606944 

Ashley, T., Kenyon, S. (2007) Contact Quarterly (Winter/Spring), Exchanging Stone for Coal. 

Conferences and Presentations

Into the Mountain (A meet). (2018). Conference organiser, host and speaker. Tramway, Glasgow.  

Performing Mountains Symposium, (2018) University of Leeds 

Walking Women Symposium (2016). Artist Speaker, Forest Fringe, Edinburgh 

The Highs and Lows of Sited Practice (2016). Dundee University. 

Dance: Architecture, the Body & the Environment (2015). University of Nottingham and Dance 4, Nottingham. 

Living Landscapes (2009). Aberystwyth University.