Convenor: Anne Wessels
Location: Small Rehearsal Studio, Dalhousie Arts Centre
Pure Research is Nightswimming’s program that provides dramaturgical and financial support for inquiries into theatre/performance ideas while favouring exploration over product. Anne Wessels (who has lived experience of stroke) asked a research question about how movement, gesture and stillness might surface vocabularies of stroke. She became part of the Pure Research program and to begin engaging with the research question, Associate Artist, Andrea Nann (Artistic Director of Dreamwalker Dance) offered the Conscious Bodies Practice that was developed with her company. In preparation for the three days of intensive research inquiry that took place in Tarragon’s Extra Space in January 2023, Anne began this movement practice and regularly shared observations with the team that includes Andrea and the Nightswimming dramaturgs, Brian Quirt, Gloria Mok and Nathaniel Hanula-James.
The CATR workshop will draw from this intensive three days of research inquiry. Workshop attendees would not require any previous movement training, but they would be offered the opportunity to experience some of the ways of working that were explored and activated in Pure Research. Participatory in design, attendees could choose to take part in whatever way would be most useful to them. This proposed workshop would welcome 5 – 15 attendees but would not be well suited to observers. There are no special requirements for the space – just enough room to safely move.
This proposed workshop would be most relevant for those who are curious about theatre research as an exploratory process and for those who work at the intersections of movement and brain injury/neurological difference.
Bio: Anne Wessels completed her PhD at OISE, University of Toronto in 2014. Her award-winning dissertation focused on youth and their performances of the suburb. As Director of Education at Tarragon Theatre she put her research to work by engaging with youth through theatre in the suburban areas of Toronto. Anne has taught at OISE, University of Windsor and at Centennial College.