Micia De Wet

Micia de Wet is currently a PhD researcher at Coventry University's Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE). She is also a performing artist, theatre-maker, writer, choreographer, and lecturer. Micia's research is focused on somatic approaches to performance within interdisciplinary perspectives. She holds an MA Drama Cum Laude from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

somatic practice; live performance; embodied cognition; neuroscience; psychology; acting training; physical theatre; postdramatic theatre; intuition

I created an original somatic method with the intention of developing an actor's intuition as both an embodied cognitive state and process. My Practice as Research inquiry is an interdisciplinary exploration that combines embodied cognitive science, somatic practice, and acting training. 

My MA Drama thesis (2017) was a practice-based-research investigation that explored how a radical re-interpretation of Sam Shepard's A lie of the mind (1986) would destabilise the victim / perpetrator binary between the two protogonist characters, Beth and Jake. It explored and utilised Antonin Artaud's notion of The Absolute within Theatre of Cruetly, and created a contextual framework by using René Girard's notions of violence, vengeance, victimisation, and scapegoating. This study was done at The University of Pretoria (UP) in South Africa under the supervision of Prof. Marié-Heleen Coetzee and Dr. Chris Broodryk. 

I am interested in creating work that is socially and politcally relevant in both my own processes as a theatre-maker, as well as within the content I explore. I strive for ethical and inclusive practice and research. It is important to me as both a researcher and practitioner to leave spaces, both literal and metaphorical, better than I found them.