PEEK FEST
​WORKSHOP SERIES

The Peek Fest Workshop Series covers a range of exciting topics, and is designed to provide a variety of training opportunities to local arts workers.

While the 2024 Workshop Series has ended, you can explore the most recent offerings below, or visit the Peek Fest History page to review workshops from previous years.

---

WHAT'S IN THE ROOM?
with MAIKO YAMAMOTO

• Description
  
• What to Bring
• Meet Maiko
  
• Accessibility
  

<

>

This three hour workshop will explore aspects of Maiko's artistic practice, specifically some methodologies for collaborative material making.

Things to bring:

• Clothing that you can move and breathe easily in
• Water bottle
• Notebook
• Writing utensil
  

Meet Maiko
Maiko Yamamoto is the Artistic Director of Vancouver's Theatre Replacement. A leader in the local and national arts scenes and known internationally for her work, Maiko’s practice draws upon her love of formal inventiveness and exploration, conceptual play, creative research, artist-centred processes and experimental and multidisciplinary practice. A natural mentor, Yamamoto often collaborates with intergenerational artists, individuals and family members in making work that searches for playful, immediate and authentic ways of bringing audiences and performances together.

• This workshop incorporates some physical movement, but you are able to move as best works for you.
  
• This workshop will include brief reading and writing components
  
  

---

RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES AND PERFORMANCE WITH KERRI FLANNIGAN

• Description
• What to Bring
  
• Meet Kerri
  
• Accessibility
  

<

>

This workshop will explore various frameworks in researching narratives based in non-fiction or “auto-fictography”.

In the first part of this workshop Kerri will share insight into their deeply researched-based practice, touching on how research informs practice and ethical considerations of research. The second part of the workshop will feature a series of prompts for the group to work on their own researched-based narratives.

 
Participants are invited to bring a couple pages of their own research-based material (source or original) that they wish to use to generate a performance narrative. Participants will be invited to share work generated in the workshop exercises.

Participants need to bring:

• A writing surface and utensil
• A device able to access the internet (ex. phone, laptop)
• Source material: some work tor research hat you'd like to develop further
• Water bottle
  

Meet Kerri
Kerri Flannigan is a interdisciplinary artist, performer, and educator currently based on Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ Territories (Victoria, BC), who experiments with methods of research and storytelling through drawing, video, and performance. With a background as an experimental animator and zine-maker, Flannigan is interested in investigating different ways of creating and performing narratives, working to create a framework through which the personal is critically connected to a wider sphere of context. Family mythologies, coming-of-age confessions, queer experiences of place, fire, and swimming have all been subjects of recent works.  
 
Flannigan has shown locally and internationally, receiving funding from the Canada Council for the Arts in 2023, and the BC Arts Council in 2022, and was an inaugural OUTstages resident in 2020/2021. Flannigan is currently developing two projection-based performances, Slow Dive and Wild Flame.

• This workshop is a masked event unless you are physically unable to do so.
  
• This is not a physically oriented workshop and is suitable for all physical abilities
  
• There are a few writing exercises as a part of this workshop, but alternative ways to respond can be provided.
  
  

---

DEVISING PARTICIPATORY THEATRE
WITH ADRIENNE WONG

• Description
• What to Bring
  
• Meet Adrienne
  
• Accessibility
  

<

>

Are you interested in making a performance that engages the audience as participants? Are you interested in making a performance that invites audience members to engage with each other? Adrienne’s workshop is an opportunity to learn more about participatory and relational theatre / performance, and to try out some ideas.

In this workshop, Adrienne will start by talking and introducing ideas, then participants will have an opportunity to create small experiments in participation. Workshop participants will work in groups to make a small theatrical offering for the others.

Things to bring:

• Clothing that you can move in
  
• Notebook

Meet Adrienne
Adrienne is the Artistic Director of SpiderWebShow and an artist whose work straddles theatrical and digital space. Together with co-founders Marcel Stewart and Michael Wheeler, she co-curates the Festival of Live Digital Art. Adrienne's web projects include The Apology Generator, which earned her the inaugural Artist in Residence position on CBC Radio’s Q, and SadSongs.ca, commissioned by Nightswimming Theatre in Toronto. Landline (created with Dustin Harvey) is a performance for audio recording and SMS that has toured nationally and internationally for five years. Me On The Map (created with JD Derbyshire) is a kids’ show about urban planning and collective decision-making, received a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award nomination in Vancouver, and was selected for the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity 2017 Playwrights Colony. Her writing has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, CdnTimes, and the anthology Asian Canadian Theatre. Adrienne is currently pursuing an MFA in writing for performance from UVIC.

• This workshop incorporates some physical movement, but you are able to move as best works for you.
  

---

GENDER-AFFIRMING VOICE:
YOU ALREADY HAVE WHAT YOU NEED
with rOBIN LOVE

• Description
• What to Bring
  
• Meet Robin
  
• Accessibility
  

<

>

This workshop will provide a general overview of vocal function and aim to demystify how gender is perceived in voice. Through listening, reflection, and play, we will bring into awareness our body's inherent intelligence to manipulate sound and to discover pathways to new forms of vocal expression. Since our voice is intimately connected to our nervous system, we will consider how to build an exploratory vocal practice that is grounded in a sense of safety. No prior experience is necessary.

Attendees are invited to come and listen and/or to participate as much as they are comfortable. Robin will offer live examples, as well as time and space for those wishing to experiment with and receive feedback on any vocal exercises.
​

Things to bring:

• Clothing that you can move and breathe easily in
• Water bottle
• Notebook
• Writing utensil
  

Robin Love (she/they) is a vocal coach and multidisciplinary artist working across performance art, video installation, and writing. Her ongoing artistic and vocal practices stem from a curiosity in the nature of process and an exploration into the myriad possibilities of being. They are a graduate of the University of Toronto (Philosophy), OCADU (Sculpture/Installation), and Renée Yoxon’s Trans Voice Teacher Training program. Their modes of working are influenced by their studies as an athlete, practitioner of Sanbo Zen, and 10 years of vocal training and teaching apprenticeship under Peggy Redmond (Toronto). She currently teaches singing and gender affirming voice work in Tiohtià:ke, colonially known as Montreal.

• This workshop incorporates some physical movement, but it is all optional.
  
• This workshop does not have any required reading or writing components, although there may be opportunities for reflective writing.
  
  

---

ACCESSIBILITY

WORKSHOP ACCESS PROGRAM
Impulse Theatre, and Peek Fest, seeks to create an anti-oppressive and queer-positive space for artists within the community.​ Impulse Theatre is pleased to offer up to 2 paid ($40) spots to arts workers who identify as queer, trans, non-binary, Indigenous, Black, a person of colour, neurodivergent, d/Deaf and/or disabled. Participants are limited to 2 workshops each.

Applications to the Workshop Access Program will reopen in Fall 2025.

SCENT-REDUCED SPACE POLICY
As some attendees experience severe scent sensitivities, we ask individuals to attend these events as scent-free as possible. This means where possible, no perfumes, colognes, hairspray, scented creams and deodorants, or essential oils.

ACCESSIBILITY HOMEPAGE

---

---