Current Projects
Please see below for up to date information on projects Carrie is currently involved with. If you would like to chat about these email or get her on Instagram @caz_westwater / carriewestwater@gmail.com
To book Acting & Performance tuition please use email.
Observing rehearsal and performances of actor-journalists working from areas of conflict. This longitudinal research project tracks how the method of Theatre Reportage works, its processes and effect on actors and audiences.
From Hidden Wars to Hidden Theatre: A Festival of Theatre Reportage ( 6-8th November, 2024) at JOMEC, Cardiff University.
I am pleased to announce a new festival to be held in JOMEC, Cardiff University this year ( 6th, 7th and 8th November, 2024). This will see 7 Actor- Journalists from the Middle East arriving to deliver workshops on their method of Theatre Reportage. They will also present new performances of their experiences in Palestine, Iran, Iraq and Ukraine in recent months.
Please see below. It would be wonderful to have your support!
From Hidden Wars to Hidden Theatre: Here We Are
Thats Life, During War: A Festival of Theatre Reportage
Who are the ordinary people living in war? Can theatre and reportage better represent them?
Workshops are open to artists, activists, journalists and anyone interested in representation and the power of theatre and journalism.
Theatre reportage embodies the lives of those living in war.
This new festival held in Cardiff, Wales will be at JOMEC (School of Journalism, Media and Culture) will use Theatre Reportage to expose the lived experiences of those living under the conditions and oppressions of war, using an exciting combination of creative and research-led workshops, talks and performances from Palestine, Iraq and Ukraine.
With a focus on the Middle East (Palestine, Iraq) and Ukraine, this new three-day festival will offer workshops that propose alternative methods for the media to report on escalating wars and other experiences of occupation and oppression. It will explore how theatre, film and social media can perhaps better inform global audiences by using empathy building tools.
The festival is being led by Cardiff University artist and academic Dr Carrie Westwater and the international journalistic theatre group Teatro Di Nascosto /Hidden Theatre, who use a method of theatre reportage to report on everyday living and working under oppression and war.
They use this method of theatre to tell true stories of daily life living in war and occupation - the pain, the fear, the loss of a future, the loss of family, the loss of their home… but also unexpected moments of happiness in desperate situations. All supported by Journalistic approaches.
The Festival of Theatre Reportage invites creatives, activists and academics to participate in workshops and an open conversation on the latest research. The festival will also present new and vital performances of theatre reportage presenting aspects of life living in conflict, with trained theatre reportage actors, coming directly from the Middle East.
The Programme can be found on Eventbrite.
The Workshops
Workshops will be delivered by the artistic director of Teatro Di Nascosto who has developed the method over 26 years. Her work has been with Judith Molina, Jerzy Growtowski and been highly endorsed by Eugenio Barba as “breaking all the rules of theatre”.
The workshops will explore the method of theatre reportage, sharing its practice and training of participants in embodied non-theatre aesthetics.
Each workshop can be attended as a separate unit; however, they will also develop from each other and if you book all three you will gain much more value and awareness of Theatre Reportage.
Full three day festival ticket ( includes all three workshops , talks and performances , please book via the Eventbrite link below)
Performances and Talks include:
£120 paid/ salaried
£45 students/ unpaid
Free for Cardiff University staff and students
To attend just the workshop (PM) (please book via the Eventbrite link below):
£40 paid/ salaried per workshop
£15 unpaid/ student per workshop
Free for Cardiff University staff and students
There are also a number of FREE workshop spaces available. Please contact Carrie Westwater to enquire how to apply at WestwaterCA1@cardiff.ac.uk.
NB: The ticket price goes directly to the travel, visas and accommodation for the actors participating from the Middle East and Ukraine. Please do consider donating if possible, using PayPal to accounts@teatrodinascosto.com .
The workshops will involve encountering the realities of living in war using the method of Theatre Reportage. This will involve training/ workshopping the anthropological, psychological and cultural aspects of working and representing conflict zones. The workshops will be with the actors living and working in Iraq, Palestine and Ukraine.
We will engage in improvisation, physical performance training and journalistic research! We will also listen to the actor-journalist' experiences of life during conflict and together prepare a new Theatre Reportage performance with the international Group from Ukraine, Palestine and Iraq called Nahnu Huna – Here we are.
There will be a newly formed performance developed during these workshops shown on the 8th November - on the third day of the festival. For those who wish to participate in the performance, you are welcome.
Furthermore there is an opportunity to participate as a Creative Contributor. We invite anyone to respond through the medium of poetry, visual art, music, theatre, dance or any other creative expression to the themes of: Hidden Wars and Life under Oppression.
Please send your ideas or finished works to Carrie ar WestwaterCA1@cardiff.ac.uk before the 4th October, 2024.
GRAVIDA
Gravida and Lullaby for Mother
This Gravida R&D project of 2018 was informed by a strong legacy of several small and medium scale research projects, including Women in Pregnancy and Art of Living-Gravida, https://vimeo.com/86566641, funded by the Arts Council of Wales. Through working with midwives and pregnant professional dancers ( shown here in the image as Lara Croft, Jessie Brett, Deborah Light and Aleksandra Nikolayev Jones) we have developed a strong evidence base for the concept of CODA ( Context Orientated Dance Approach) methodology.
Carrie is currently investigating the benefits of CODA and how it uses mindful movement in an aesthetic dance context to connect performers (dancers and non-dancers) to their own bodies in the flow and to use creativity as a fundamental way for human beings to express and connect with their own and collective well-being.
MED[IA] AND "THE OTHER" STORIES
A production in development
Med[ia] and "the other" stories is a performance project Caz Westwater is currently developing. This project began as a series of monologues that explored the unvoiced women as Devastations of Maura James ( Experimentica, 2018). These monologues are now being elaborated and will include scenes with a cast of six women who will perform characters from antiquity in reaction to being written by men.
AUDITION PREPARATION & ACTING TUITION
Private and one - to - one acting and performance tuition and drama school preparation. A'Level Acting and L.A.M.D.A examinations ( to Diploma Level) are also training provisions Carrie provides.
Carrie is an established theatre director and has taught Acting and Performance and Audition prep for around thirty years. Since relocation from Scotland to Wales she has worked extensively as Associate Lecturer in Drama Cardiff Metropolitan University and as a mentor at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
She can help with public speaking, confidence building and performance.
For private one- to -one tuition for adults and young adults please email her at carriewestwater@gmail.com.
First 30 mins are Free!
NB: Public liability is held and Covid Safety guidelines upheld.