WSI is developing a three-phased collaborative creative process:

• gathering information/accessing material;
• generating improvisational responses to the material and to participants’ own experiences;
• and then shaping the work into public performance.

Although our work is issue-based, we strive to move outside “message” theatre, building our performances through a dynamic, interactive process that weeds out anything that doesn’t make us laugh or pull us in or cause us to think.

This collaborative process is set in motion months before we gather in Lesotho. Through the use of shared resources and materials (books, films, articles), Institute participants begin to investigate the agreed-upon focus. Once everyone arrives in Lesotho, the exploration continues via presentations by colleagues, community organizers, medical personnel, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and people living with HIV. This enables WSI to establish a shared platform from which our multicultural group can work to create fresh, actor-driven, visually compelling theatre.