SPEAKING // TEACHING // MENTORING

Below is a variety of ways I work with people in and around my work - from public speaking to masterclasses & workshops, mentoring and some notes about my participatory practice.

If you’d like to get in touch with me about any of it, email me here: louise@louiseorwin.com

SPEAKING & KEYNOTES

Over the years I’ve been invited to speak on a variety of topics associated with my work through keynotes, panels, Q&As and post-show discussions, in anyway from academic contexts, to festivals, on the radio and in press contexts. I bring the same rigour, humanity and humour to my talks that I bring to my performance work. Expect something that challenges, entertains, and stays with you.

I've spoken at: Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmiths, University of Bristol, London Southbank University, Guildhall, Southbank Centre, Live Art Development Agency, Studio XX Montreal, PYT Tokyo, Supersonic Portugal, Who's Jack Festival at City Hall London, and once even in Parliament.

Things I speak about include but aren’t limited to:

  • Making work that lives on the edge- between experimental practice and the mainstream

  • The attention economy, social media and what it means to be an artist now

  • Working with participants, communities and difficult material

  • Issues affecting young people today, with a focus on social media, feminism, and gender

  • Feminism, visibility and the female gaze in contemporary performance

  • Solo practice: how to begin, how to sustain, how to grow

MENTORING

Mentoring, consulting, or working as an outside eye/dramaturg with individual artists, companies and student groups is an integral part of my practice.

We can work on: consulting on creative elements of your work, developing and sustaining a practice, building an international touring profile, navigating the industry as an independent artist, and finding the work that only you can make.

I also take on 4 mentees a year. I currently have 2 slots open for 2026 - email me if you’d like to be one of them, or would like to know more.

MASTERCLASSES & WORKSHOPS

I’m a super experienced workshop facilitator, as much of my work to date has been created with or alongside workshops: from the Pretty Ugly workshops working with teenage girls, to the Oh Yes Oh No workshops which focused on giving participants a safe space to talk about sex and desire, to the CRYCRYKILLKILL Fight Club workshop creating spaces for people to work safely with physicality and rage (yep, that one was fun).

Drawing on over fifteen years of the above combined with international practice, I now offer masterclasses for conservatoires, universities, arts organisations and festivals. Sessions are tailored to context and can range from a single intensive to a multi-day residency. Previous sessions have focused on:

  • devising practices for making work

  • making solo work: starting points, methodologies and unblocking and finding flow (see How to Begin workshop below)

  • working with autobiography or others’ stories

  • on care: working with trauma, sensitive material and risk

  • multi-media performance: working with live feeds, the mediated body, integrated and emerging technologies

  • producing and directing your work

  • unblocking and finding flow

I've delivered masterclasses at RWCMD, RCSSD, Guildhall, Goldsmiths, and in international festival contexts.

SHORT SESSIONS

Responding to an influx of requests, I’m now offering Short Session Mentoring for those who’d to work with me on a flexible or one-off basis one-off session to ask advice, or to consult on your work. Sessions are £100 for 60mins, and can be spent however you like: from feeding back or help on a specific project, general mentoring around your practice, tips for writing/making/devising, or help with putting together workshops. Email me to book in a session: louise@louiseorwin.com

PARTICIPATORY WORK

My work with participants is central to my artistic practice. I create participatory performance processes where participants are treated as collaborators - not students- and are invited to shape both the content and direction of the work. These projects sit at the intersection of performance, music, digital culture and contemporary life, asking urgent questions about visibility, identity, power and the systems we inherit. Rather than delivering traditional workshops, I build temporary spaces where participants can think, make and experiment together - contributing directly to the development of new performance.

My methodology draws from live art, theatre, pop culture and social practice.

I am interested in:

  • performance as a tool for critical thinking

  • how identity is constructed and performed - onstage and online

  • how young people navigate cultural and digital systems

  • collective processes as a way of generating bold, unexpected work

Sessions are collaborative and idea-led, moving between discussion, writing, performance-making and experimentation.