Artist Statement

My life as an artist has changed and evolved many times as I have grown, but I have always considered musical theatre to be my home. Being at the intersection of music, acting, and dance meant that I could explore a variety of mediums all in service to one goal. Every foray into another artistic endeavour meant building my skills as a performer in musical theatre. Years spent in piano lessons, saxophone lessons, in concert, jazz and pop bands, taking singing lessons in classical and contemporary styles, attending dance classes, and working on school plays all served to build a single toolbox that I can now reach for. 

My path in the arts began with piano lessons in my living room, cultivating a love of music which grew as I did and led me quickly to musical theatre. From there onward I joined school choirs, as well as the school concert band, and began taking dance classes. When I reached high school I auditioned for the production my school would be submitting to the National Theatre School Drama Festival. Each year we entered a one-act play, most often student-written and student-led. Outside of school, in my voice lessons I became more and more focused on classical music, which led me to audition for a Bachelor of Music voice program. I spent my undergraduate years singing art song and opera, solo and in ensembles. Each new experience supported the others, helping me build my identity as an artist and allowing me to become intimately familiar with my strengths and weaknesses. In all my experiences I strive above all else to be a well-rounded individual and artist, which I have come to find serves me well when it comes to collaboration. 

Line of Enquiry

Having worked in all disciplines of musical theatre separately, and having worked in multiple genres, I have found that often the collaborative styles and practices employed by directors, choreographers, music directors, and other leaders often shift to suit the piece being created or performed. Moving between past projects for the National Theatre School Drama Festival, in classical music, to current work in Performance Project, the way different people navigate collaboration in different environments has become a point of interest. Having moved between genres and specialties, and now having investigated different styles and forms of collaboration in ICP, I have become interested in how collaboration is approached differently to suit the particular style of the piece.

Documentation

Intro to Collaborative Practice

Entering a room with the intention of collaborating, without any predisposed conceptions of exactly how, created an open space for experimentation. Learning through ICP seminars and workshops about different forms of collaboration and the way they have been categorized by others has allowed me to look at my own work and put into words how my collaborations have functioned. Furthermore, the unique environment in these sessions created opportunities for unique collaborative experiences that I have not found anywhere else.

ICP WEEK 1

My first ever collaborative experience at Leeds Conservatoire was in our first week of ICP, during which we were instructed to form small groups and create a short piece. With such a broad prompt and little to no information on each other, although our time was short our collaboration was unique. Pulling from the skills of group members, as well as personal experiences, I and the two dramaturgs I was working with put together a short story performance piece to share.

ICP WEEK 3

For our “Micro Workshops” in week 3, I lead my group through a collection of vocal exercises, with a short discussion on vocal health. Although each workshop was led by an individual, our collective participation and input combined each short session into what felt like one extended workshop. As a group we were able to draw parallels between the goals of each workshop and see how they each supported each other.

National Theatre School Drama Festival (2017-2020)

Learning about collaborative styles in ICP has allowed me to look at my past work and understand it in a new way. I can now identify that during my time participating in the National Theatre School Drama Festival (NTS), I was participating in a “family collaboration” (Candy, 2019). A collective style approach was taken by teachers when creating and mounting productions for the festival. It was very common that a large portion of the cast and crew would be involved from the very beginning when the plays were being written, demonstrating “a strong element of the family pattern”(Candy, 2019) which is a common occurrence in “the creative performance world”(Candy, 2019). Students also took on roles as writers, stage management, directors, prop and costume designers, lighting and set designers, as well as cast. With so many roles needing to be filled, many of us were often working cross-departmentally. In line with the family pattern, these “roles [were] flexible and [could] change over time”(Candy, 2019) as new skills or interests were discovered, or when particular assistance was needed in a department. Although any given member of the group could only participate for a maximum of four years before graduating, there would always be older students to introduce new members to the “family,” and the “culture unique to the group” (Candy, 2019) could be passed on as students cycled through. The core practices of “work[ing] sufficiently closely”(Candy, 2019) and “support[ing] each other’s roles”(Candy, 2019) in the family pattern were essentials to ensuring that the process ran smoothly. 

Photos from NTS Drama Festival productions.

Opera and Art Song (2021-2025)

My most recent artistic and collaborative experience before coming to Leeds Conservatoire comes from my undergraduate course in music. The most common collaborative model in my education in classical music is best encapsulated by Jo Butterworth’s (2009) “Didactic-Democratic Framework model.” Although the model was created based on choreographer-dancer collaboration, I found it captured the collaborative practices of music directors and opera singers at my university.

Butterworth (2009) Didactic-Democratic Framework model

In classical singing, there is direct focus on a singing technique referred to as “bel canto.” This directly translates to English as “beautiful singing,” but describes a particular “Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries”(Jander, 2001).  In bel canto singing, the most important elements are “perfect legato production throughout the range, the use of a light tone in the higher registers and agile and flexible delivery” (Jander, 2001). Although between periods and styles there is variation, this was the foundation for all singing. When other techniques were required to suit the style of the piece being performed, students could rely on the expertise of their voice teacher or music director to manage the transition. As the majority of the work we were performing had been composed a hundred more years prior, the stylistic elements were set in stone, and it felt as though there was an agreed upon way to perform the music correctly, in a musical sense as well as a stylistic one. The overall emphasis is on realizing the composer’s vision as accurately as possible. I would consider Process 1 on the Didactic-Demoncratic Framework, with the choreographer as the “expert” and the dancer as the “instrument” as the same type of collaboration in a different medium. In the same role as the dancer, singers “[learn] valuable skills about the making of dances,”(98) or in this case, opera and art song. They also “[observe] and [learn] from the choreographer’s creative process” and “[learn] about expected conventions” of the work. In this case then the role of choreographer is taken by a voice professor or music director. They often are incredibly knowledgeable about the genre, composer, and sometimes even the specific piece you are working on, and with composers often being long dead, they are the expert.

“La reine de coeur” from La courte paille by Francis Poulenc, performed at my final undergraduate recital.

Performance Project

My most substantial collaboration to date at Leeds Conservatoire is my work in our Performance Project module. As a member of the Musical Theatre Company, my role in this project has been as a performer. This has meant working with directors, music directors, choreographers, and other cast to realize the piece. Due to multiple different MA courses working together, as well as the varied expertise among Company, we have tended towards a collaborative structure similar to what Candy (2019) describes as “complimentary collaboration”(Candy, 2019). The different roles were allotted “based on distinctive expertise,”(Candy, 2019) and thus each person brought “distinctive contributions… to the collaboration” (Candy, 2019).

DRIVING IN MY CAR VIDEO

I worked together with the director and music directors to realise their vision for the ending of the song “Driving in my Car.” Our director for this piece had ideas for incorporating my background in classical singing, however as he had less experience with music, he opened the floor to the music directors and myself to work together on how to make this happen. The director was able to describe what he was looking for, and as musicians, the music directors and I were able to interpret that and put it into practice. They had an idea of what they wanted for the music, and through a collaborative discussion, I was able to execute that idea. 

DRIVING IN MY CAR AUDIO

In the first clip of audio, from a full run of “Driving in my Car,” the element we discussed in the video can be heard. The second clip, from the same song, shows another point of collaboration between myself, the music directors, and the director. This is another element the director put forward for the music directors and I to work out. Initially I was uncertain, as I was unsure what our director was looking for, but in communication with the music directors they made reference to the famous Mozart aria sung by the Queen of the Night. With this reference point we pulled a line from the score’s piano part for me to sing.

Reflection/Analysis

Through ICP I have learned useful vocabulary and concepts for identifying and analyzing my past and present collaborations. I have learned that family collaboration remains one of my preferred patterns. The collective investment in the project from every party as well as the community built through this pattern are both things I found incredibly fulfilling. The support I found in this form of collaborative practice is also something I make an effort to seek out and also provide in every collaboration I participate in, and I often find myself offering to fill roles that need filling rather than confining myself to what I consider my primary role in the project. The family collaboration pattern continues to inform how I approach collaboration in my practice today, and remains the foundation of who I am as a collaborator. Contrarily, I did not enjoy my collaborations in classical music. I found Process 1 of the Didactic-Democratic Framework model confining and for me personally it was not conducive to equal collaboration and personal creativity. I would consider the complimentary collaboration pattern a happy medium. Each person has their defined role, but I find there is not such a harsh power imbalance as with the didactic process.

Conclusion

Entering into an environment such as ICP seminars and workshops where collaboration is the only expectation of the day has shown me how collaborations can be unexpected and abstract. I have been able to identify past collaborations in the family and complimentary patterns identified by Candy (2019), as well as in Process 1 of Butterworth’s (2009) Didactic-Democratic Framework model. This new ability to categorize projects based on the collaborative style employed has allowed me to identify how I work best. I know now that I have a personal preference for the family collaboration identified by Candy (2019), which I experienced in the National Theatre School Drama Festival. I have also begun to identify aspects of the family pattern among the MA courses in Performance Project rehearsals, and I am interested to see how we may potentially evolve our collaborative style together. This understanding of collaboration has given me the skill to consciously collaborate in ways that support me as an artist or adapt my personal collaborative style to suit a project. 

Bibliography

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.

Jander, O. (2001) Bel canto (It.: ‘beautiful singing’). Grove Music Online. Available at: https://www-oxfordmusiconline-com. (Accessed: November 6, 2025.)