Zoe Katsilerou

This article reflects on relationships between sung close intervals and the cultivation of presence within movement training. Drawing on my experiences of facilitating the Moving Voice Laboratory (2016–20), and using voice, movement and improvisation as contextual frameworks, I reflect on the spiritual, practical and interpersonal significance of inhabiting dissonance, and the positive impact this can have on a performer’s presence. This article combines academic writing with poetic reflections of practical, in-studio work. All participants remain anonymized. I use this writing to discuss the learning that embodying semitones can offer with regards to cultivating presence as a spiritual, performative practice. What can embodying semitones reveal about our conditioning around inhabiting discomfort and dissonance? Expanding on embodied understandings and notions of presence and dissonance, this article offers a new framework for practitioners and scholars and aims to inspire further investigation into the possibilities of semitones, presence and movement within training.

This chapter is a reflection on the activities delivered by Stand and Be Counted Theatre with sanctuary youth groups in the United Kingdom, with the aim of sharing insights into their pedagogical and creative methods of working with young people. Stand and Be Counted (SBC) is the UK's first and leading Theatre Company of Sanctuary. Drawing on SBC's body of work, Zoe Katsilerou (Associate Artist) and Rosie MacPherson (Artistic Director and Joint CEO) document and reflect on the processes of working with groups of young people seeking sanctuary. Throughout the delivery of long term creative empowerment programmes, a range of professional theatre practitioners have worked with groups of young people to build confidence, develop creativity, build community, foster inclusion and generate knowledge through creative practices. Zoe and Rosie analyse SBC's work as a way of disseminating working methods and ethics for those within the field of contemporary devised theatre and socially engaged practices in the UK. Through reflecting on our experiences of 15 years of practical, theatre-based process, we hope to add to existing discourses around socially engaged theatre practices and the empowerment of young people, to highlight the significance of cross-cultural learning and to raise awareness of the impact theatre practices can have on the lives of those seeking sanctuary in the UK.

Object biography, amended and expanded by the newer and ontologically updated concept of object itineraries, is a well-established analytical tool for documenting human–object interactions. The present paper explores its intersection with art, and proposes the concept of Creative Object Biography, as a step forward in the discourse and as a means for articulating and sharing alternative narratives and imageries not only among specialists but also – and especially – with the wider public, aiming to render discussions on materiality relevant to diverse audiences. The paper uses as a case study a group of three every-day objects associated with the Vlach pastoral transhumance of northern Greece, whose entanglements and cultural itineraries functioned as the inspiration for the creation of three original short films.