Personal Statement

[SUMMARY OF YOUR ARTISTIC AND PERSONAL BACKGROUND IN RELATION TO COLLABORATION]

My practice over the last 30 years has involved many forms of collaboration: from playing in rock bands as a teenager and working in circus and street performance, through to my later work as a performer with companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company and Obra Theatre Company, and more recently, working as a sound designer and composer, collaborating with directors and choreographers. Throughout this work, I have enjoyed the challenge of adapting and responding to the unique nature of each collaboration and how this has brought out different aspects of my creativity.

Line of Enquiry

[LINK THIS TO YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT]

An aspect of collaboration that I am particularly interested in is the distribution of roles and responsibilities in a collaborative process and the ways artists negotiate and establish these roles and rules of engagement. While these are sometimes explicitly stated in a brief or contract, it is often the case that these are negotiated implicitly throughout a project to varying degrees of success and agreement.

As Candy (2019) writes:

Disciplinary boundaries between practitioners are reflected in the distinctive
contributions each party brings to the collaboration. The value of each individual’s
contribution is based upon how well the level of skill, specialised knowledge and
differing perspectives supports the shared endeavour (Candy 2019: 110)

From my own experience, trying to work out how everyone’s individual skills feed into a “shared endeavour” can sometimes be difficult, especially when their is a lack of clarity around what the specifics of what that “shared endeavour” actually is.

Documentation

[CHOOSE 3-5 KEY MOMENTS OF COLLABORATION THAT HAVE STOOD OUT TO YOU OR RELATE STRONGLY TO YOUR LINE OF ENQUIRY]

Over the course of the last weeks, I have participated in many collaborative processes with my fellow MA students and in observing undergraduate classes and productions. In each of these, I noticed the ways we negotiated our roles.

New Work Lab Wk 1 – Making stuff in a group

New Work Lab Wk 3 – Writing a song

Description…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

ICP Workshop Wk 4 – Micro workshops

New Work Lab Wk 5 – Sharing new works

Reflections/Analysis

[LINK THIS BACK TO YOUR LINE OF ENQUIRY AND DOCUMENTATION]

I noticed that throughout these collaborations, I often took on a leadership role, and at times, I had difficulties relinquishing control of the creative process. I also noticed that many of the most creative ideas come about when our group was able to make time to hear each other’s ideas and when we were not in too much of a rush to get to the finished product.

One tool that I found particularly helpful in clarifying roles was Jo Butterworth’s “Didactic- Democratic framework model”(2009:90).

I found this particularly helpful in clarifying what I was responsible for in any given collaboration and also what I could expect of others. For example, when running my Micro Workshop, I was really clear that I was operating between the roles of “expert” and Author. But when I was making the performance material in the Lab I found that we worked more a “co-owners” of the creative process. I think if I had been more aware of these titles, it might have helped unpick some of the conflicts that arose in these group sessions.

I also found the use of roles in Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process helpful in setting up a safe space for giving and receiving feedback (Lerman, no date). Lerman sets out the following roles:

• Role 1: Artist/Maker
• Role 2: Responder
• Role 3: Facilitator

I would be interested in trying these out in my own work when facilitating a group and seeing how they could help me give feedback and receive feedback from others more effectively. My overall feeling was that this process felt very formal and I am not sure how this could be applied in a rehearsal room setting, but I am keen to explore this further.

Conclusion

[DRAW TOGETHER ALL THE ABOVE SECTIONS AND HIGHLIGHT CONCLUSIONS AND ACTIONS/QUESTIONS TO TAKE FORWARD]

Over the course of the past five weeks I have encountered many ways of collaborating that have been familiar to me. But what I have found most interesting and helpful has been the way that I have learned new ways of approaching these situations and some helpful tools for working through the inevitable challenges that arise in these situations. Some the key take aways from this have included:

• learning how to relinquish control of the creative process
• being clear on my role in a collaboration
• know when to give feedback and how best to approach this

Moving forward from here

[LINK THIS TO YOUR PRACTICE AS A DIRECTOR, MD, DRAMATURG, PERFORMER ETC.]

As I continue working in various collaborations over the course of this MA and in future professional practices I am keen to develop a greater ability to… and to find better ways of…. I am particularly keen on finding better ways of articulating my role and on setting clear boundaries when it comes to collaborative projects.

Bibliography

[LIST OF BOOKS AND OTHER RESOURCES REFERENCED OR QUOTED IN THIS PORTFOLIO]

Butterworth, J. (2009) ‘Too many cooks? A framework for dance making and devising’, in Contemporary Choreography. Routledge.

Candy, L. (2019) The Creative Reflective Practitioner: Research Through Making and Practice. 1st edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Lerman, L. (no date) Critical Response Process | A Method for Giving and Getting Feedback’. Available online: https://lizlerman.com/critical-response-process/ [Accessed: 10 October 2025].

Magic Radio (2017) On set of The Greatest Showman: Pasek & Paul sing This Is Me [Video] Available online: https://youtu.be/BdyCHpkAJLE?si=tly76crSqqRsLjJY [Accessed 10 October 2025].