About F.I.T
All about our -
Creative Dance, Music & Performance-making classes & Found in translation (F.I.T) teaching methods:
What is F.I.T all about?
What does not F.I.T?
What is “contemporary performance-making”?
What is meant by access and inclusion?
Who are your facilitators?
What are the benefits of Creative Dance, Music and Performance-making classes?
Who are these classes and workshops for?
Teacher training and becoming a volunteer support person (training to be a paid support person)
Image description: Five people around a table - Bella, Emily, James and Jade. There are 10 diverse musical instruments made up of everyday objects (old kettle, glass and steel bottles and plastic containers with beads in them) on the table top. Andrew is reaching across the table from right to left to pick up an instrument. Each of the students have an instrument in their hands, ready to play.
Image description: Four people captured dancing. Dean is leading three students in a dance routine. All have their right arms up and right legs forward. Sun is beaming through onto the wooden floor. The wall to the left is painted white and the back and right side wall are natural brown brick.
What Are ‘Found in Translation’ (F.I.T) methods all about?
Found In Translation (F.I.T) is a set of finely-tuned accessible and inclusive multi-artform teaching methods that draw from a diverse range of performing, and other arts practices that Weird Nest’s co-directors, Dean and Andrew (and our trainee facilitator, James Penny), have specialized in for many years.
These include:
Image description: Bella and Emily from our Nth Bondi group during their 5 minute structured improvisation - working with props and a small set of table and chairs. Emily wearing a bright orange dress has her right leg out to the side and is facing away from us with her hands on a large grey table. Bella is captured in mid-flight runing towards camera with her arms out to her side close to shoulder height.
Contemporary dance, movement and choreography
Contemporary theatre making and/or directing
Music composition and making
Visual art – drawing, painting, sculpting and video work / editing
Set and costume design and construction
Community outreach, tertiary, secondary & primary education
Professional exchanges and development
Creative, fiction and non-fiction writing
Throughout 2021 Weird Nest will also be inviting members of our “associative professional artist hub” and extended arts community (including artists living with disability), to bring aspects of their own creative disciplines to participants of our weekly classes and holiday intensives.
Image description: Bella and Emily from our Nth Bondi group during their 5 minute structured improvisation - working with props and a small set of table and chairs. Emily wearing a bright orange dress is calmly standing in the middle facing the table and chairs situated on the left hand side of the image. Bella is behind Emily to the right in the middle of launching her right leg, leaning slightly forward, arms extended in the air up and infront of her, and her head flinging her hair back. One of her arms is straight with a bent wrist, and her other arm is bent also with a bent wrist.
These include:
Dancers, choreographers, actors and directors
Musicians and composers
Set and costume designers
Digital, animation and video artists
F.I.T methods are geared towards embracing a holistic, authentically accessible and inclusive approach to performing arts education, training, professional and personal development. Whilst the core focus is more keenly placed on dance, drama (theatre) and music, we utilize several creative disciplines as a means to more equitably generate, encourage and draw out ideas from within each group and together, discover unique and captivating ways of arriving at choreography/composition and making original performance productions.
A core aim with our F.I.T methods is to develop a stronger sense of individual purpose from within a collaborative group context, helping to build a sensitivity to, and appreciation of, team work and to honor each participants’ needs in a safe and encouraging atmosphere. Ensuring that each person feels a deeper sense of belonging, whilst helping them achieve a sense of creative, communicative agency.
Across the ten years that Dean has been formulating this method, drawn from 3 decades of professional dance, theatre and choreographic research and practice, many class participants and performance cast members (and their families), have experienced/witnessed significant, positive changes, not only in their artistic ability but across several aspects of their lives. Of particular note is the evident improvement of communication, posture, spatial awareness, social skills, coordination and a deepened sense of purpose. All this leads to improved mental and physical health, wellbeing and quality of life - and we all deserve a chance at that.
Image Description: Edwina & Dean during their 5 minute structured improvisation. Edwina is in the foreground of the image barefoot wearing her school uniform, red tartan skirt and white shortsleeved button shirt, stepping forward, her arms in in the air infront and above her head, blurry in this image from movement. Edwina is smiling. Dean is seated in the background at a table and chair with both feet on the ground, arms outstretched on the table with his palms faced down. He is looking to the wall at the right of the image with a neutral expression on his face.
Where some participants might not care to move or perform out on the studio floor so much (or even on a stage), others may want to do nothing else but “strut their creative stuff” and express themselves through embodied techniques. Either way, through our engaging with these classes, there is always something to immerse oneself in for every participant - dancing / performing, choreographing / directing sections, writing, designing, making music or leading other aspects of the process.
Dean designed F.I.T after several years of working more specifically with people (children through to seniors), living with disability – ranging from higher support needs to higher functioning, including physical and/or intellectual and learning disability. These may be more immediately evident or hidden / invisible disability - e.g. autism, ADHD, complex trauma and other congenital or acquired neurological conditions.
Throughout his 30-year career as a dancer / performer, choreographer / director, educator / mentor, and more recently, over the last decade, as movement researcher Dean has always held a compassionate interest in reaching out to members of the wider community who too often finds themselves sidelined, dismissed, minimized or condescended. Many feel compeltely left out of the consideration of being involved in higher calibre performing arts pedagogy - classes, training programs, projects or even professional development in order to pursue a possible career in the arts.
What does not F.I.T?
Image Description: Left to right, Bella, Dean, James and Toby right at the end of their 10 minute group improvisation. An image of four people closely cropped to mostly only see their faces. Bella is smiling calmly at the camera with Dean’s arms around her shoulder. Dean is enthusiastically smiling with his mouth open in mid-laughter. James is infront of Deand and Bella also smiling very enthusiastically with his mouth open in mid-laughter. Toby is infront of James, in this image he is blurry with movement and we can only see his mouth, chin and shoulder due to his proximity to the camera. He is also smiling enthuiastically in mid-laughter.
F.I.T is in a state of continued evolution. We continue to develop it to “fit” in well with as many diverse groups of people as possible - young and old. As such, it is not a finite or reductive system that is in any way enforced. It has been designed to be responsive to the dynamic and ongoing access needs of each group and each individual within them.
Our group classes are also aimed at developing life skills from within the context of creativity, led by sector leaders who are expert in their fields. Some, as with Dean and James also identify as living with disability. Whilst our classes and their methodologies continue to hold substantial therapeutic benefits, they are not solely aimed at being therapy sessions.
We do not enforce, impose or condescend:
F.I.T has been developed by Dean, across the last decade, as a method of teaching that refrains from using reductive terminology, belittling or even competitive language, making comparisons with others or enforcing methods that impose on an individuals’ sense of identity through insisting they conform, assimilate or “meet the challenge” of being the “best” in the room. We are more interested in addressing how all present in the room are always learning together. That all our senses are part of our sense-making process - not only the intellect. Exercises are gently developed, progressed and imparted within the context of those present in the room. It is from here that we can see, really see, the diversity within the group and how best to impart the information within the exercises at hand.
Image Description: Emily and Andrew during a dance-based improvisation whilst the rest of us played musical instruments to accompany them. In this image, Emily is seen wearing a white shirt, black pants and a red scrunchie in her hair. She is towards the left of the image, lying on her stomach with head towards the camera. Andrew to the far right of the image wearing a white tank-top and short yellow shorts in a very bent-over position with his elbows bent and fingertips touching the floor, head bent under his chest, and his legs bent in a half-squat position.
We do not “dumb down” anything, rather, we constantly have several alternatives “waiting in the wings” - adaptations, translations and non-imposing choices. Rather than being reductive, we choose to invite complexity and a beautiful, gentle chaos in order to find our way towards distilling the lessons we’re aiming to teach. This always tends to promote a more organic quietening and calming focus in the room when everyone’s natures are given space and care to find their way. The process to this is held with as much esteem as any outcome we’re aiming and hoping for.
Dean, Andrew and James have over 30 years experience between them working specifically with people with disability, at “wider community outreach” and “professional arts community within-reach” capacities. As such, our classes are not so much designed as ‘respite care’ sessions or programs for people who are not really interested in the performing arts. However, if you would like us to engage your family member and/or group home members in a more bespoke workshop, designed specifically for them, please contact us on: dean@weirdnest.com AND andrew@weridnest.com
What is “contemporary performance-making”?
Image Description: James and Toby during their 5 minute dance and character improvisation, whilst responding to different sound tracks and props and set. Hugh Bamford Hall, Nth Bondi. In this image James and Toby are to the right of the image, seated at a grey table with James on the left, Toby on the right. Infront of James is a book and a singing bowl musical instrument, and infront of toby is a book. They both have comedic expressions on their faces with arms bent and wrists bent, with Toby in a hunched position and James sitting more upright. Their legs are visible under the table, James has his feet raised off the ground with his right foot on top of his left. Toby’s feet are also raised off the ground with this ankles crossed. The sun coming through the windows illuminates a broad line in the middle of the floor from the front to the back of the hall, and the pair are to the right of it.
Over the last few decades we (the professional performing arts sector) have tended to bundle contemporary dance and theatre (drama) under the one banner of ‘contemporary performance’. This is done to discern more contemporary and pioneering trends/findings within practices that reflect what is ever-changing in the wider social and political landscapes - often predicting them well in advance.
The myriad disciplines that are original and self-devised, more often than not embracing a more collaborative approach, are discerned from those that maintain a more “traditional” process in their content and form. Traditional, in this context, refers to the process of making (choreographing, composing, directing, performing/presenting), works that follow a more traditional formula, methodology or even aesthetic. In theatre, a more traditional working methodology and process refers to engaging with well-known and well-worn, pre-existing texts or scripts, written by a playwright where, for the most part, all roles and their players are pre-determined - e.g Shakespeare etc.
In dance “traditional” refers to choreographic processes that have a distinct focus on the production of steps, usually within a very strong sense of a particular style or set of very disciplined physical techniques that can be significantly difficult to make truly accessible and inclusive for all minds and bodies. Often this means that one person is calling all the creative and technically-embodied “shots” with all cast members having to comply.
Image Description: James and Toby during their 5 minute dance and character improvisation, whilst responding to different sound tracks and props and set. Hugh Bamford Hall, North Bondi. Toby, wearing a colourful tie-dye red orange and white t-shirt and navy blue shorts, is in the foreground of the image in mid-strut holding the edge of an old book at a distance infront of his pelvis with his arms outstretched. His upright body is in a twisted position and he is looking up at the ceiling with an open mouth in a broad smile. James, wearing a black tanktop and black shorts, is in the mid-ground of the image behind Toby and to the right. He is also holding an old bookin a similar position to Toby. James is in an upright position and is in mid-walk with both knees bent and is looking directly ahead of him, facing to the right of the image.
Contemporary performance, on the other hand, focuses more on a fusion of artforms that might hold equal weight in the creative process, structure and therefore the reading of the work. A contemporary performance might have dance, drama/theatre, original music composition, video and other digital interplay. There is often a very collaborative sensibility present in such works and often these works are being written, choreographed, directed and designed as the work develops. This can also mean that the diversity of the creative talents in the room all pitch in to create meaning, mood, atmosphere and aesthetic together. For the most part, though not always, there is still a director, but they will be well-versed in a more collaborative and cohesive process.
This is where our choreographer and director, Dean Walsh, and our composer, director and producer, Andrew Batt-Rawden, feel most at home in their practices. It is also why Dean designed and developed the F.I.T methods - practices that account for including diverse bodies and minds.
What is meant by “access” and “inclusion”?
We define access and inclusion within the context of aiming for an individual and unified sense of belonging in the following way:
Access - what are people’s basic access needs? For us, they should never be ignored, hard to listen to or met as they are inextricably linked to a persons’ basic human rights - ramps (or no stairs), no phyiscal obstacles, access to toilets, lessening sensory overlaod potential, Auslan interpreters, adequate lighting, image descriptions, audio description - among several others. Access should be a given, enabling people to get into the room with ease and having their continued access needs respected and met from that point onwards.
Inclusion - for us, inclusion is an active, even proactive, and dynamic constant. It is fluid, ever-changing and ever-present. It is not “we have you in the room, therefore you’re included.” It is an always morphing, dynamic version of “access”. It is therefore a vital component to any authentically accessible situation. It is in need of reiteration, redefining and checking in with each individual, maintinagin a sense of creative sharing and agency. Even letting people sit out from time to time may be exactly what an individual needs to feel included at that moment. But checking in with them and their interests, is the layered-fold of inclusion.
Integration - In our definition, this is not meant as “assimilation”. It is a multi-laned process of co-participatory inclusion and it must work in a reciprocal format. That is, everyone checking in with fellow participants, respecting the needs of others as they shift and evolve in any one session we’re sharing together. “Sharing” is therefore a key word in our classes and core philosophy of Weird Nest. We promote communal integration and one that is defined by the individuals’ expressed access needs at any time within a session.
Belonging - When we adhere to the three streams of individual and combined “dynamic accessibility” as outlined above we hope to see that each person feels like they belong in the room, are being heard and respected as a member of the whole. The key word here is “vitality”. Developing a safe environment for everyone present, including our support people, where the capaicity to live well, grow together and develop as human beings is paramount.
Andrew and Jade recording (written and drawn) down what they see, feel and hear from the group dancing in the studio space.
Jade from our Nth Bondi group writing down her thoughts on her own dance and performance.
Emily from our Nth Bondi group working on her set design as translation for her developing dance piece.
Who are your facilitators?
Dean Walsh – Weird Nest co-director
Andrew Batt-Rawden – Weird Nest co-director
James Penny – Weird Nest F.I.T workshop and class facilitator in training throughout 2021.
Image Description: James leading some of the group at Nth Bondi in 20 minute warm up. There are three figures, from left to right, Emily, James and Jade, spread out accross the space. Jade and Emily are wearing grey shirts and black shorts. James is wearing a black tanktop and black shorts. They are running towards the front of the hall, facing the camera, with expressions of laughter on their faces. They are flapping their straight arms and are captured in this image in various degrees of raised arms.
Image Description: Dean and Andrew working on what they will facilitate during one of our Saturday morning weekly classes at Nth Bondi, Hugh Bamford Hall, October 2021. The pair are seated at a grey table with various items on it including a computer, a drink, papers, keys, wallet, sunnies, pink pencil case, phone and speaker. Andrew is in mid conversation wtih Dean, holding a pen in his right hand taking notes and his left hand in the middle of gesturing as he speaks. Dean has his elbows on the table, looking pensive with his left hand holding his chin and right hand holding a pen taking notes.
What are the benefits of attending our ‘Creative Dance, Music and Performance-making classes’?
These classes have shown many benefits for individuals who attend. This is both in their creative development as young people interested in the Arts (for non-professional or professional development), as well as benefits in participants’ day to day lives. They offer young people with disability the chance at gaining access to highly respected professional artists and educators, some who identify as living with disability themselves. All our tutors and workshop leaders are highly experienced and respected artists, educators and disability arts access practitioners.
Neural-physical development:
Interpersonal skills building
Spatial and body awareness
Cognitive development through a combination of applied creativity
The development of communication and expression skills
Advanced coordination skills - how to organise our body-mind relationship through embodied creative agency
Fitness, play, joy and leadership skills through leading exercises and moments of ‘setting a scene’ to be explored
Image Description: Edwina & Dean during their 5 minute structured improvisation. Edwina is in the foreground of the image barefoot wearing her school uniform, red tartan skirt and white shortsleeved button shirt, standing in mid-step smiling broadly with laughter, she is her left arm bent and at her side and her right arm straight and behind her, Dean is seated in the background at a table and chair with both feet on the ground, arms outstretched on the table with his palms faced down. He is looking to the wall at the right of the image with a neutral expression on his face.
Image Description: Emily, Andrew, James and Jade during their “playback” dance to the other groups’ dance. Emily is barely visible in the image to the left as we can only see her elbow and leg in the image. James, wearing black shorts and a black tanktop, is in the middle with a big smile on his face in the middle of dancing with his arms bent infront of his torso and leaning to his left. Andrew is behind James, wearing a blue and purple mottled shirt and grey tracksuit pants scrunched up above his knees, he is blurry with movement, jumping to his right. Jade is to the right of the image wearing pale green tights and a grey shirt, on her knees with her hands on her hips and smiling in mid-laughter.
Who are these classes and workshops for?
All our regular weekly classes and school holiday intensives are suitable for children and young people living with physical and/or intellectual or learning disability, mental health concerns.
Throughout the year we hold:
Weekly youth term-based courses
School holiday intensives
One-off workshops for adults living with or without disability. These will be open to professional and non-professional artists, and teachers.
See our calendar for details here
Image Description: Toby and James during their wonderful 8 minute improvisation, looking at ‘call and response’ technique - at Hugh Bamford Hall. Toby is in the foreground stepping towards the left of the image, he is holding a book above his face and is looking towards the book. James is behind Toby stepping towards the same direction as Toby and is also holding a book above his head and looking at it.
Image Description: Edwina and Toby during their wonderfully improvised captivating duet. Edwina is in the foreground, her hair swaying to the left of the image, she has a neutral expression on her face. She is leaning slightly foreward, her arms behind her back, and she is in mid-sway, with her right leg bent inwards. Toby is in the background standing at a grey table picking something up from the table.
Image Description: Andrew and Jade performing their 5 minute improvised duet. A quiet but very detailed performance. Andrew and Jade are seated facing one another but are quite far apart. Jade is thowing a book towards Andrew, who has his hands open ready to catch the book which is in mid-air.
Image Description: Jade and Dean during their quite absurd improvised duet. There were a lot of laughs had by all. Dean is in the foreground to the right of the image leaning foreward with a book in his right hand stretched out behind him, he is facing Jade. Jade is in the background with a book in her hand walking towards Dean.
Image Description: We see the back of Emily and Bella’s heads in the foreground as they are seated on audience chairs. On the wooden dancefloor, Andrew and James are standing and smiling. Andrew is bent over in mid-step looking at Jame’s hand. James is to the right of Andrew with his hand outstretched infront of him. Andrew is following James’ hand.
Image Description: Jade and Andrew are in a scene with a grey table, two black chairs and a book on the floor in the background. In the foreground Jade is to the left, walking with her arms outstretched to her sides. In her left hand she is holding a book, which is also being held by Andrew withhis right hand outstretched to his side. Andrew is stepping forward as well, left left hand resting by his side. Andrew is looking at Jade, and Jade is looking forward.