Exchange Talk Expanding Narratives - Jess Thorpe

Between March and October 2023 Jess Thorpe led a team from Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre to create BESIDE ME, a project for Dads currently living in HMP Perth and their children. The goal was to co-create a performance that would enable the families to connect, spend quality time and co create something brand new together.

Supported by Families Outside and the Scottish Prison Service, BESIDE ME was part family party, part performance and part creative learning project. It was structured around weekly rehearsals held in the social hub (former wood assembly shed) at HMP Perth and culminated in three performances for a public audience.

This exchange talk aims to share the key learning and experiences that have emerged from the project and in so doing so examine the power and potential of the arts as a tool to support families separated by incarceration.

Bio
Jess Thorpe is a Lecturer in the Arts in Justice at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she designs and delivers creative projects in prisons and with communities impacted by the criminal justice system. Outside her work at RCS, Jess was the Associate Director (Engage) of Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre (2020-2024). She is Co-Artistic Director of Glass Performance, through which she also developed long-term initiatives such as young people’s performance company Junction 25 and Polmont Youth Theatre, the first youth theatre in a Scottish prison. In 2015, Junction 25 won a CATS Whiskers for an outstanding contribution to Scottish theatre. Jess has published several works on theatre including ‘A Beginners Guide to Devising Theatre’ (for Methuen) which won a Drama and Education prize in 2021.

Image by Viktoria Begg.