After completing her MA in Movement Studies at Central School of Speech and Drama, Zoë presented excerpts from her solo show it at The Year of Grotowski Conference, University of Kent. She has performed in two projects with the Barbican, Nic Green’s Trilogy and more recently You Me Bum Bum Train. On screen she will appear in a Welcome Collection Project called Whose Drama is it Anyway, directed by Sal Anderson and Spencer Maybe’s Bus Route music video. Both are currently in post-production.
She is currently performing in a new script by Rob Hayes called The Secret, in which she plays a reluctant, soon-to-be-fiance, part of a three hander that debuted at The Secret Garden Party and is show through the summer in a London park near you.
Zoë’s interest in the arts began with dance. She studied ballet with the Royal Ballet School and was involved in a variety of live performances. When her family returned to Canada, she continued with her dance education in ballet and jazz and began gymnastics training at Altador Gymnastics Club in Calgary. In addition she joined the Youth Singers of Calgary and began training at Mount Royal College and Theatre Calgary. This training included speech, choral singing, mime, improvisation, puppetry, scene study, writing, and directing, resulting in competitions and live performance.
She completed her undergraduate studies at a liberal arts university called Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada. Her degree had two components: languages which included a year of study in each France, Germany and Spain, and Drama/Actor Training. She was introduced to the theory and work of Jerzy Grotowski in her last year of study. What she read in “Towards a Poor Theatre” strongly linked my physical training to my performance practices.
On a trip across Newfoundland she had a serendipitous encounter with a theatre group called Number Eleven Theatre based in Toronto, Canada. Zoë did an intensive workshop with them in physical theatre. Through them she got to in contact with the North American Cultural Laboratory (NaCl) in upstate New York. They accepted her application to do an internship for the summer. At NACL Zoë facilitated their annual Festival of New Theatre, and trained in physical theatre. Further, she learnt stilt walking, and participated in international traditional singing, sound painting, puppet making and acrobatic workshops.
After the internship, she joined the Moscow State Circus during their Eastern Canada Tour. This incorporated daily acrobatic training and synchronised aerial ballet performances on vertical ropes (other wise known as Web).
Upon leaving the circus Zoë returned to Calgary and immersed herself in the local arts scene. She participated in One Yellow Rabbit’s Summer Lab Intensive. She created and performed her own work as well as being involved in projects of others. She sat on the board of Bubonic Tourist, Downstage Theatre, Cow Girl Opera and redtoblue Performance. Zoë was invited to Pontedera, Italy to complete a month long workshop in physical theatre at The Workcentre of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards. Subsequently, she performed solo work with Bubonic Tourist at various events including, PIPE, Tunnel Vision and the Longest Days Street Fair in Whitehorse, Yukon. Before leaving for London, England she performed with Broad Minds Productions at the Pumphouse Theatre in “Waiting for the Parade” by John Murrell, directed by Richard Kenyon.