DANCING WITH WORDS

MODULE 1: Dancing with sounds
Saturday, 17 February 2024 / 9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Build your creative writing talents through guided movement routines, role plays and writing exercises, and apply them to the composition of expressive and poetic scenes, stories and poems for the stage, a book or an artistic project.

This workshop series offers hands-on practice of creative writing, focusing on the contemporary stage and an in-depth exploration of sounds, words, sentences and texts in English and other languages. We offer an inclusive space that encourages participants of any linguistic background to explore their awareness of the relationship between spoken word, written language and physical body from their own cultural perspective.

D.I.V.E. Theatre Collective’s unique approach to creative writing for the stage encompasses theatre games and exercises to relax your body/mind and sharpen the five senses. You will play and experiment with movements, relationships, time and the performance space. Then, you will gradually see how sounds, words, sentences and dialogue naturally take shape on the stage without any conscious effort to make them occur. This is when theatrical poetry starts to materialise and the real craft of the creative writer begins.

In a fun and relaxed environment, you will be encouraged to be an active creator by devising scenes, discovering movements to express spoken and written sentences, crafting texts, developing social connections and thinking creatively.

The workshop is entirely conducted by the group's insights, creations and material, and guided by the directorship of Priscila Da Cunha, who has facilitated creative writing and theatre experiences in schools, community groups and arts organisations in Brazil and Australia for the last 15 years. She has a Master's Degree in Comparative Literature, has published academic articles and edited several anthologies of short stories for young people.

Dancing With Words is divided into four modules during the year. Each session is an independent unit; participants are encouraged to join anytime. This workshop is aimed at participants 18+.

DATES:

Module 1: Dancing with sounds – Saturday, 17 February 2024
Discover your inner voice and explore with your body, pen and paper the expressive essence of the sounds in our language.

Module 2: Dancing with words – Saturday, 20 April 2024
Find out how movement and relationships can lead words to naturally materialise onstage. Dive deep into these small acts of language and give wings to your free-spirited prose on paper.

Module 3: Dancing with sentences – Saturday, 27 July 2024
Explore the four sentence archetypes (statement, command, exclamation and question) through theatre exercises and movement and guide them to craft your word power on paper.

Module 4: Dancing with texts – Saturday, 124 August 2024
Devise short scenes for the stage and add colour to them through beautiful poetic texts, using juxtaposition and metaphors as a creative writing principle.

COST: $60 (per Module) or $210 (Year pass)