Movement, Music, and Memory

The workshop will focus on how movement and music can be entries into memory as a generative writing technique, highlighting the material nature of writing.

Through dancing to some of our favourite tunes to energise and inspire us, this workshop with Thymian Gadd will explore what role the body can play in our writing practices. How can we take a sense of freedom found in dancing and use it in our writing? How does music help us both think and feel? And how does this help us in recognising both the conceptual and material nature of writing? 

What will you do in the workshop?

During this workshop we use movement and music to help us delve into our memories and generate written material. We’ll then play with our material by trying some experimental collaging techniques.  

What can participants expect?

Participants can expect to dance and move (camera’s on or off – writers choice). We’ll learn about the cut-up technique, zuihitsus and the lyric essay. We will generate material doing free-writes and listing exercises and then collage our material. 

Who is this opportunity for?

This workshop is for anyone. Anyone interested in how movement might be involved in their writing practice. For someone feeling stuck, wanting new energy, or someone wanting to start writing.


About Developing Tutors 

Developing Tutors offers new and established writers their first opportunity to teach a creative writing workshop with enhanced support from lesson planning to delivery. Following an open call in April 2024, Spread the Word selected 7 workshop ideas from over 40 applications. The workshops will run up to February 2025 and if successful, there will be another open call in 2025. 

Bursary Places 

We have 5 free bursary places for each Developing Tutors workshop available to those who cannot afford the price of a ticket, allocated on a first come first served basis. Please email [email protected] stating which event you would like to attend for free and if we are able to offer you a place we will. Due to availability, we can only accept one bursary request per person for the series of workshops.

Access Notice 

  • If you require BSL interpretation to take part, please email us at [email protected] by Monday 10 July and we’ll try to secure BSL interpretation for you. Spread the Word will cover this cost.

  • We’ll send through any reading seven days in advance. We can create adapted handouts to writers attending our workshops and events by request.

  • If you have additional access needs or questions, please email us on [email protected]

About Emily James

Thymian Gadd


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Thymian is an interdisciplinary writer-artist from London. Their writing practice draws heavily on techniques that they learned at art school while exploring other mediums. Movement and drawing are particularly important to their practice. They like to spend time considering themes of the body, memory, relationships, nature, and healing. They love to write by weaving together the complex, blurry, and uncertain elements of living with facts and information about the world that fascinate them. They hope that with their writing they can highlight our interconnectedness and maybe find a way to articulate the fluctuating and viscous experience of being alive. They can be found on Instagram at @thymian_gadd.