Holding gender as processual and relishing the transition, I am ‘shapeshifting’. Through this project I will performatively and collaboratively play with different expressions of what it is to be a body.

The creative process will focus on task-based group movement improvisations also drawing upon music and poetry, generating material that I will choreographically distil into a sincere and humorous dance performance twisting with dynamism and currents of transferable energy.

The resulting performance will invite the audience into a world that troubles binaries of ‘male/female’, ‘human/non-human’ and ‘real/surreal’.

The workshop will reflect the creative process of the project, focusing on creative expression, identity exploration and playful character development. It will be designed for queer and trans people, developed with reflective feedback from collaborators. Dance has been pivotal in supporting my own exploration of my gender identity and I am eager to design a movement workshop that directly engages the trans and queer community that this work seeks to serve.

Through regular conversational reflection I will create a safe studio environment grounded in queer ethics of transparency, agency, consent and care.

‘Dear Annie’ is underpinned by a philosophy that challenges the separation of ‘human’ from ‘non-human’, addressing and challenging a settler-colonial legacy in which humans are considered apart from the earth. In reframing humans as both within and a part of the world, interpersonal ethics of care extend to the rest of our environment. This philosophy runs through my practise, my healthcare work, my day to day life, and is expressed through a message of integration and connection within ‘Dear Annie’. ‘Biological’ is not a synonym for immutable.

Research, and resources discovered through the project will be shared on this website, sharing learning and contributing to a bigger-than-this network of queer and trans community, support and activism.