Partnering Workshop: Mobility Aid-Users x Non-Mobility Aid-Users

In this workshop, we’ll learn about the protocols and pathways involved in partnering successfully with mobility aid-using performers in professional settings.

Over 4 hours we will cover anti-ableism, cultural safety and consent in relation to working collaboratively with disabled performers, and explore both open and set partnering exercises to leave you with nuanced physical skills to take into other rooms.

Participants will leave with a greater range of knowledge around how to create safer and more equitable working spaces for mobility aid-users in dance and physical theatre industries, and how to move with mobility aid-users using rich dynamic qualities, spaciousness, and fluidity.

This workshop is for non-mobility aid-users of any career stage working in dance and physical theatre, and all material and exercises will be designed around the interests and capacities of participants. Please sign up by Tues 6th Oct so your preferences can be woven into the workshop plan (you're welcome to register after this date too, and I'll do my best to accommodate).

🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Is this workshop for me?

If you are:

• a dancer, physical theatre performer, choreographer or director who wants to use your privileges to improve how our industry treats and works with disabled performers and makers

• interested in learning from disabled perspectives, and comfortable with your own perspective being gently challenged and exposed to new ideas in a supported but honest learning environment

• based in professional or independent sectors that don't have a specific focus on working with disabled communities

• either not a mobility aid-user, or you're planing to participate in this workshop without a mobility aid you use part-time

Then this workshop is intended for you.

If you are:

• a teacher of any type of body-based performance who wants to develop safer learning spaces for disabled performers

• a studio or venue manager, arts worker or board member interested in improving disabled cultural safety at your studio, venue, company or organisation

• interested in applying what you learn here for working in the disability arts sector, as a disability support worker, or in any settings with a specific focus on disabled participants

• a mobility aid-user who wants to learn more about mobility aid-using dance technique

Then this workshop is not intended for you. But if you're interested in these topics and want to collaborate on your professional development, please feel free to reach out and we can discuss if my other training for dance and drama teachers, my work specifically for organisations or companies, or my classes for mobility aid-users is a better fit for you. You're welcome to reach me anytime through the "Contact host" link at the top or bottom of this page.

📋 Workshop Plan

1pm - 1:20pm Grounding, Acknowledgement of Country, Introductions: talking
1:20pm - 2pm Cultural awareness, self-awareness and consensual collaboration: talking with visual diagrams
2pm - 2:10pm Break
2:10pm - 2:30pm Warm-up: self-guided & guided movement
2:30pm - 3:15pm Physical foundations & Improvising: guided movement & group open improvisation
3:15pm - 3:55pm Set partnering phrase: gestural dance theatre* & talking
3:55pm - 4pm Break
4pm - 4:40pm Set partnering phrase: contemporary ballet* & talking
4:40pm - 5pm Reflections & Check-out: talking

*Set choreography we'll learn will be created in response to the preferences and interests participants share when signing up - these examples are just starting points.

For set partnering phrases, participants will learn the phrase with me one at a time in front of the room, and the space will be facilitated to create a collaborative and curious environment where being observed is a low-stakes experience. Phrases will be adjusted to each participant's own body and style.

To offer a holistic and responsive learning environment, this workshop is capped at 8 participants.

👨🏻‍🏫 About the facilitator

Patrick Gunasekera (he/him) is a contemporary ballet and theatre artist, cultural safety trainer, and teaching artist based on Whadjuk Noongar Boodjar. He has taught dance and experimental performance classes independently since 2024, mainly exploring responsive and inclusive class structures, and teaching techniques developed through his own highly interdisciplinary and body integrity-focused performance practices.

Since 2023 he has facilitated disabled-only spaces for artists to develop creative processes that draw from and centre their own voices and knowledge. He has worked as an access and inclusion advisor with numerous artist-run, small-to-medium, major and national organisations for several years, and since 2025 has run pay-what-you-can anti-ableism workshops for independent artists.

Since 2019 he has extended mobility aid-using dance technique with lived experiences as a cane-, walker-, and later manual wheelchair-user, with a particular focus on holistic movement and professional practice, which he recently begun formalising as Gunasekera technique.

♿️ Access Info

📍 King Street Arts Centre is in the CBD. Getting here from Perth Train Station is an 8-minute walk / 10-minute flat manual roll with lopsided paths. Getting here from Perth Busport is a 7-minute walk / 10-minute manual roll with one long uphill (flat on the left). It is next to CPP His Majesty's carpark on Murray St.

🪜 Entrance on Murray St has a sliding door, 2 steps, a break, then 3 steps. Accessible entrance on Munster Lane has a locked sliding door - please email me ahead of time if you want this entrance unlocked for you on the day.

🚪 This workshop will be in Studio 1. Take the lift or wooden stairs to Level 2, and turn right (or left if you took the metal stairs) and keep going to the end of the hallway. Studio 1 is on the left, opposite the Green Room.

💡 The room will be lit with natural lighting.

🎶 Music through speakers is acoustic and grounding, volume can be adjusted and will be faded in and out.

🎾 A self-care station with stim toys, breathing exercises, hand sanitiser, menstrual care items, and some physical relief tools will be set up near the entrance, you are welcome to use anything from here during the workshop.

🪟 Studio windows can't be opened. The teacher wears an N95 mask, and spare N95 masks and hand sanitiser will be available in the wellbeing corner.

🌡️ All rooms have some air conditioning, but as the building is quite old it's best to dress appropriately for the weather and bring anything you need to be comfortable.

🪞 Studio 1 has mirrors that can be turned around, and which are optional to use during set partnering phrases.

🧑‍🧒 If you can't find or afford childcare for the duration of this workshop, and have a child in your care who would be happy and able to take care of themself in the back of the studio or the green room, feel free to discuss this with me and I'll let you know more about the spaces available for them so you can still participate.

🌱 The tone and pace of this workshop will be open and responsive, in order to create a learning environment that is curious and where honest dialogue and feedback can be shared. It's important to me that you feel accepted and valued so that you can grow confidently into the next stage of your learning journey, but I will also encourage you to think critically and truthfully about the social contexts we work in.

🚦 This workshop includes learning about important social and cultural histories and present-day experiences which may initially shock some participants for whom these lived experiences are unfamiliar and unjust. This will always be shared with care and respect, and prefaced with content warnings. In mindfully harness the potential of uncomfortable growth, this workshop has been designed over the four hours to give you the best possible opportunity to grow emotional resilience and better cultural competency whilst maintaining healthy boundaries and nervous systems.

🤲🏼 This is a consensual touch-only workshop, and will not involve physical contact unless it is wanted. Before physical exercises, we will share our own comfort zones, cautions, and what's off-limits, and all participants are expected to respect and be creative with both the boundaries and range of anyone they move with. Participants will be given green, yellow, orange and red wristbands to wear during improvised exercises, corresponding with how open they are to close or advanced partnering at the time. During registration, participants will be asked how comfortable they feel with partnering and contact, and phrases and exercises will be created to suit these ranges.

👂🏼 I have a responsive teaching style, and enjoy adapting the speed and complexity of work to the pace of the room (whether that's harder, softer, or a mix). I’m used to giving different options the room can choose from, and appreciate being told what works best for different artists and discreetly integrating this range into the class.

🧠 The first hour of cultural awareness training will involve a lot of listening, accompanied by visual cards, followed by some one-on-one conversation and group discussion. My dance teaching process involves verbal instructions for guided improvisation, and verbal instructions and visual demonstrations for set pathways or phrases. Usually this is broken down by explaining the function of the movement. It matters to me that the steps and ideas we learn are delivered in ways that are affirming and helpful for you, and questions and reflections are completely welcome and encouraged. There will be ongoing check-ins about pace.

🔀 You are always welcome and encouraged to adjust movements and instructions to make them work for your body and creative voice. I’m happy for you to find your own process yourself, and if you ever feel stuck doing this you are welcome to ask me for guidance.

👀 Please note: a couple of mobility aid-using emerging artists may shadow this workshop for their own development, but not participate in set partnering exercises.

If you have any questions, concerns, requests or feedback about this workshop, I would love to hear from you - please click "Contact host" under the event dates at the top of this page, or in the Host section below.

Header image: Stirring (chor. Patrick Gunasekera, danc. Kiara White and Patrick Gunasekera) 2026. Photo by Cameron Park, courtesy of Make-Shift Evenings and STRUT Dance.