Personal Statement
I am a Scottish, French performer, creator and facilitator.
I am driven by a deep passion for theatre and the performing arts with a belief in its ability to engage active empathy in its audience and incentivise genuine change in both its audience, actor and creation artist. Inspired by practitioners such as Berkoff and Brecht, the political theatre collectives; Paper Birds and 7:84. I am drawn to the practice of verbatim theater and drawn to work inspired and rooted in lived experience and stories such as the works of Jonathan Larson, Janet Hood, Micki Grant (to name a few).
As a performer I have worked professionally in both French and English (and in my most recent credit a bilingual show) in both traditional and immersive theater settings. My experience has all been with the Swiss Theater Company LYMPA (Live Your Musical Passion Association), most recently working on the new musical “The Writer” where I was a performer and collaborator co-writing my characters song “Just Breathe”, and an immersive bilingual adaptation of Tick Tick Boom!
As a theatre facilitator I have spent the last year working at a volunteer capacity as an artist at Loop Theatre. Where I was first introduced to the joy and magic of creating theater with adults living with disabilities. At Loop Theater I got to apply my personal practice to a whole array of different forms of theater (physical, clowning, visual arts etc.) and aiding in providing theater to a group of people who are ordinarily not provided the opportunity to engage with performing arts, helping participants feel emboldened and a develop a ‘greater belief in their self expression’. To put it simply; pure magic.
I aspire to be an artist who not only performs but contributes to the creative process, creating work and facilitating spaces for theater which challenge both artist and audience to confront their own preheld biases and conceptions (whether this be political or personal, most often a bit of both). Furthermore my practise of theatre intends to foster dialogue and active empathy through storytelling, connecting people and hopefully inspiring change.
Line of Inquiry
In our first session of Introduction to Collaborative Practice (ICP) my key weaknesses, our first task was to partake in a thirty minute conversation in which we were to outline our ten strengths and weaknesses. It was through articulating a key weakness that I would find the structure of my line of enquiry for the remaining weeks.
I had marked in my conversation with Andrew that my biggest weakness in terms of collaborative work was an inability to remove my ego or emotions when receiving feedback on new work . Often failing to put pen to paper due to a fear of criticism, failure and regard of any form of negative feedback as a personal failing. Essentially;
an innate struggle to provide and receive effective feedback.
As such several questions arose:
- How do I provide feedback that empowers the artist?
- How do I receive feedback that facilitates further creation?
- How do I create feedback in a setting so that both artist and audience can feel engaged in art and use a testimonial experience and reading of the pieces?
- How do I ensure I am engaging with testimonial reading when reflecting and feedbacking on someone else’s piece?
After this initial session I worked on navigating my line of inquiry to
finding a method of receiving and providing feedback which I find effective in engaging in active empathy with others’ works, and creating further inspiration in my own.
Documentation
A) Week 1-2: To the Morrows, a week to create a pitch for a show inspired by the word ‘tomorrow’
B) Week 2-3: Using Robinson Ensemble devising, exploring 5 different forms of collaborative devising.
C) Exploring Critical Process Response in creating my own work
Analysis
Documentation A & B How do I best collaborate?
In order to understand how I could best use feedback to enhance new work (of my own and others) I had to firstly figure out how best I was able to work collaboratively in the creation of new work. In my documentation I have highlighted two different moments of exploring how to collaborate and create in our ICP Class. One in a longer more drawn out exercise (creating a production pitch over a week inspired by the word Tomorrow), and another more condensed try of practicing the 4 different styles of leadership in a time restricted classroom setting.
Creating new work : to the morrow Week 1-2: To the Morrows, a week to create a pitch for a show inspired by the word ‘tomorrow’
In this collaborative task we explored different patterns of collaboration outlined by John Steiner; distributed, complementary, integrative, family eventually falling on using a distributed collaboration process. In our adaptation of this pattern of creative collaboration those involved have the similar interest but not necessarily the same goal using a separated initial creation experience. After having outlined the general concept and context (area of research). We individually worked on different dimensions (in our case different days) of the production pitch and would make connections on common ground/themes throughout the week. In this product I realised I really enjoyed working in this model, as when in rooms with constant feedback/ working together on creating initial content, I found for me it would hinder the creative from getting into a flow state or following an idea all the way through. I appreciated the space and trust in each other to create independently and then receive more practical and targeted feedback once a more actualised version was reached.
Week 2-3: Using Robinson Ensemble devising, exploring 5 different forms of collaborative devising.
In this session we created various five minute pieces with the title vacation. Each session/performance taken from the different collaboration models offered by Robinson D.R.
(2015) A practical guide to ensemble devising. London: Palgrave. Pp.95-6 these are
Finding effective collaboration models
- Yes, and …
- Rotate leadership
- Assign roles
- Debate and vote
This session was a fantastic opportunity to see which models of devising worked best, particularly in the feedback sessions provided by the audience for how the pieces were conveyed. After these sessions when moving towards how I would collaborate creatively in my own personal work, I decided to use a mix of yes, and… and assigned roles. With yes and everyone’s opinions and ideas were given weight, importance and follow through but with assigned roles and a definitive leader if something doesn’t click after being explored it can be removed. This also enables feedback in my collaborations to be provided as creative offers, building on the piece as opposed to purely criticism. It also helped me as a creator detach myself from ideas and offers and see them as options as opposed to (overly) personal. In my own personal collaborative devising, I applied these and found them incredibly helpful to my practise as a creative and collaborator.
Documentation C Exploring Critical Process Response in creating my own work & collaborative devising
After finding how I best work in a collaborative environment, and in a collaborative environment of division, I then found how I could best give and receive feedback, through Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process. This process for feedback comes in four steps these are:
THE CORE STEPS
1. Statements of Meaning: Responders state what was meaningful, evocative, interesting, exciting, striking in the work they have just witnessed.
2. Artist as Questioner: The artist asks questions about the work. After each question, the responders answer. Responders may express opinions if they are in direct response to the question asked and do not contain suggestions for changes.
3. Neutral Questions: Responders ask neutral questions about the work. The artist responds. Questions are neutral when they do not have an opinion couched in them. For example, if you are discussing the lighting of a scene, “Why was it so dark?” is not a neutral question. “What ideas guided your choices about lighting?” is.
4. Opinion Time: Responders state opinions, subject to permission from the artist. The usual form is “I have an opinion about ______, would you like to hear it?” The artist has the option to say no.
from Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process: A method for getting useful feedback on anything you make from
dance to dessert
Below is how we applied these steps in our first encounter of using CPR in a collaborative devising setting.
STEP 1 What was positive and meaningful.
After presenting the work “so far” celebrating its very raw state we engaged in the first step of CRP, statements of meaning, provided by Neeysa. We highlighted the clear feeling of one character and person coming through throughout as well as affirming this song was necessary and emotionally vulnerable enough for it to be expressed through music.
STEP 2 ARTIST as Questioners
After a brief conversation outlining roles and figuring out how to maintain that sense of one consistent character although collaborating (a more in depth conversation about who our protagonist is/was) we began to engage in artist questions. I highlighted a want to remove certain tropes I had already recognized myself writing with as well as a more clear vision for the movement and purpose of this exact song.
STEP 3 & 4 Responders Questions, Responders Opinion
These final two stages went hand in hand in our first engagement with this process as we were in an incredibly dialogue focused way of creation, so the questions and opinions were often intersected in the middle of providing new material. It’s important to note that opinions were often characterised as offers in order to still apply a level of agency for the creator (myself) who was sharing the new work. During this stage we fully fleshed out the narrative of the song, giving it full room to provide a journey and we explored with new options for our characters story and discovery of her Alzheimer’s. As a creator this was an incredibly empowering and insightful final step.
What I loved so much and hope to take forward in my practice when engaging with CPR, is its ability to engage active empathy in both the feedback giver and receiver. Both parties of the process are encouraged to fully immerse themselves in the artistic space and emotion of the piece. My focus on engaging active empathy in my practice comes from a deep concern for how an audience and performer engage with empathy when consuming, facilitating or performing theater. This interest was incited by definitions, and importance placed on different forms of empathy which I encountered in my undergraduate studies. Most of my research and engagement with active empathy has been based in the works of (and inspired by) Megan Boler. Boler insists that the different types of empathy a reader might engage with have different consequences on the reader. She holds that if a reader engages in passive empathy it can pose potential risks, as it could ‘fetishise the pain of the other’. She instead advocates for ‘testimonial reading’ otherwisely texts which provide the reader with the opportunity to ‘situate their cultural and social context in relation to the other and witness their experience rather than consume it.’ Essentially arguing the absolute importance for a reader to engage in Active Empathy when reading, I believe placed into the context of using CPR it is an essential dimension of this feedback process.
Conclusion
Over the course of the past five weeks I have found many of these new methods of collaboration and creation helpful to my development as an artist. What I have found most interesting and useful to carry with me into my practice is what patterns of collaboration work best for me to receive feedback, and how that feedback is given. Key learnings from the last five weeks have included:
- Creating an environment where every idea is valid and worth exploring
- Creating ample time in the creative process to create independently, collaboration does not mean having to be creating with each other all the time (in a situation of constant feedback.)
- Importance of facilitating the artist to play an active role in the process of feedback
Moving forward from here
As I continue working in various collaborations over the course of this MA I hope to only sharpen my skillset of collaboration. I hope to keep playing with different roles of collaborating while reflecting on what works best for me. As a facilitator of Theater I would absolutely love to bring my new found appreciation and use of Liz Lerman’s CRP into these environments. Particularly keen to explore how they help empower adults living with disability to have agency over the feedback they receive, as well as the feedback they give when creating and devising theater.
bibliography
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The paper birds theatre company (2017) The Paper Birds. Available at: https://thepaperbirds.com/ (Accessed: November 12, 2025).Weber, L. (2023) “The Foggy Window: Passive Empathy and the Fight for Testimonial Reading in Neoliberal Higher Education,” in Using Social Theory in Higher Education. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 129–138. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-39817-9_10 (Accessed: November 12, 2025).
