Theatre, dance and disability show Learn from Us at Stanwix Theatre

In an inspiring show from professional performers and emerging artists living with brain injury, the new disability dance theatre show from Rosetta Life highlights different ways of living – not only for those living with brain injury, but for everyone.

With a story centred around a mother and son in the aftermath of life altering illness – one as a carer, and one building a new life for himself – the show advocates for independence after trauma and explores the role of unpaid carer. Alongside live performers professional singer Melanie Pappenheim, dancer Elvi Christiansen Head, and emerging artists and Brain Odysseys ambassadors Jen Chandler and James Heather, video projections from across the world will offer different perspectives on living, from the sensory world of sights, smells and sounds of the jungles of India, to the Australian dancer finding strength through the intensity of her passion and focussed anger. Composer Jules Maxwell provides the music to the show, with lyrics by participants living with brain injury. 

Turning 25 this year, Rosetta Life is a charity working across community and clinical settings in the NHS that supports people living with the effects of brain injury to lead independent creative lives. Their years of research has evidenced that agency, meaning, and increased mobility and communication are greatly improved through devised performance arts practices. The two Ambassadors in the show are long-term participants in the project: Jen Chandler has been with Rosetta Life for seven years, having joined the project 20 years after her brain injury at the age of 18; and former commercial pilot James Heather has been working with Rosetta Life since 2020. He has authored a book, Above Us Only Sky, and is public speaker about his experience of brain injury and recovery.

An ambitious new model of disability dance theatre from Rosetta Life, Learn from Us will engage with communities and health professionals in each of theeleven areas it travels to in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Taster sessions of their music, word and movement workshops will be available to the public and also in hospitals. In addition, local arts and health professionals will be invited to table discussions, and artists will be offered training at London dance venue The Place in December.

Creative Director of Rosetta Life Lucinda Jarrett said, “This ambitious work of dance theatre tells the remarkable story of five people who are grateful for the perspective their brain injury has given them, and now want to offer the wider world a chance to see the world through their eyes. Telling the story of the complex relationship between those who suffer brain injury and those who care for them, Learn from Us tells the story of people who brave independent lives despite devastating head injuries. This touring theatre work is designed to seed arts and health practices across the country, and will demonstrate how arts and health practices can help us build supportive communities and find solutions for the critical, underfunded and oversubscribed health and social care crises we face.”

Rosetta Life is an arts in health innovation charity, who this year celebrate their 25th anniversary of delivering evidence-based practice working with leading artists. They pioneer meaningful performances that are transformative to participants, audiences and society. Each project is a social problem-solving incubator presenting scalable solutions. Their ongoing project Brain Odysseys (formerly Stroke Odysseys) has included performances: Hospital Passion Play, an opera performed by seventy performers including professional singers and a choir of twenty stroke survivors at the Victoria and Albert Museum; I Look For The Think, an online opera released during the pandemic, and touring music and dance show Stroke Odysseys. In January 2024, Rosetta Life projected an artwork Heart of Care onto public buildings. Alongside English National Ballet and Breathe Arts Health, they are one of three companies that make up SHAPER (Scaling-up Health Arts Programmes: Implementation and Effectiveness Research), the world’s largest ever study into the impact and scalability of arts interventions on physical and mental health.

Learn from Us plays at Stanwix Theatre, Cumbria 24 April to 11 November. Tickets are available here.