Kathleen Welch

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The Arty Crowd funding sources require inclusion of members who identify as belonging to priority groups encompassing: Indigenous, ethnocultural communities, rural or remote residents, youth, and Francophones (english and french). Hamilton Arts Council further wants to measure its success in attracting members from all the diverse groups we serve in the Greater Hamilton Area arts community, including those who are LGBTQ2S+, and persons with disabilities. We will use the aggregates of the information collected here to measure our success in making The Arty Crowd an accessible and safe space for all who join. We thank the members of the committee from the Safer Spaces Project who advised us in creating an inclusive self-identification process.

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My name is Kathleen Welch (she/her), and I am a playwright, composer, and actor based in Hamilton. Along with Natalia Bushnik, I am a founding member of Spindle Collective, a group of gender-marginalized artists focused on the creation of dark folklore epics. With Spindle Collective I co-wrote and composed the music for SAMCA, which received funding from the TAC, the CAC, placed as a Top 10 Finalist in the Wildfire Playwriting Competition, won ‘First Place’ in the Hamilton Fringe New Play Contest, and was presented as a two-night, sold-out site-specific roaming piece in Burgoyne Woods for the ‘In the Soil Festival’. Spindle Collective and our co-producer Riot King produced a full-scale SAMCA premiere as an outdoor roaming immersive experience at Black Creek Pioneer Village in September 2024, to rave reviews and sold-out audiences. I am currently developing two new works with Spindle Collective. I recently finished the first draft of my first solo project Bluebeard’s Wives, and I will be workshopping it in Hamilton in the spring. I am interested in creating multidisciplinary and/or site-specific shows and I’m driven to explore stories about the experiences of womxn, especially messy, dangerous, and amoral womxn. Folktales provide a perfect backdrop to delve into the dark and visceral sides of humanity. Spindle Collective’s creation process is multidisciplinary in nature. Natalia comes from a dance and physical-theatre background, while I come from a background in music and composition. Our writing is rhythmic and the pacing is musical in nature. We experiment with movement and sound to generate inspiration, text, and world-building elements. By bringing different perspectives and cultural traditions into the creation space, we are able to challenge ourselves, blend unexpected practices, and create in a way that is as untraditional as it is lucrative. We believe the blending of disciplines is the best way to create an entirely unique experience.

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