Joanna Skubisz

Joanna Skubisz is a PhD candidate in Gesture Studies at the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. She holds a grant to conduct her research within the Multimodal Communication and Linguistics section of the ERC-funded “BlackBox” project (led by Prof. Carla Fernandes). She earned her MA degree in German Philology and German as a Foreign Language in 2014 from Bielefeld University, where she also worked in the "Rhythm and timing in dialogue" project of the Bielefeld's Collaborative Research Center 673 (2011-2014). 

 

Her main research focuses on human non-verbal behavior (e.g. gaze, body posture, hands, and head movement, etc.) in situated actions of a Performing Arts domain. Her current work aims at analyzing language-like phenomena, specifically paralinguistic vocalizations (i.e. non-lexical vocalizations and imitative sounds) and the touch of performers engaged in dance rehearsal session. Her dissertation studies how paralinguistic vocalizations and touch influence the conceptualization of ideas and shape the compositional process emerging in choreographer-dancers encounters.