‘I spent two decades searching for the right thing that would help me get my life back on a path that had purpose,’ said Jen Chandler.
Following a brain injury sustained at the age of 18, Chandler spent 12 years working part-time as an administrator before discovering Rosetta Life. Now an ambassador for the charity’s performance arm, she finds that working alongside professionals in their new touring production, Learn From Us, directly challenges the low expectations often facing survivors of head trauma.
‘Working with professional performers and professional artists pushes you to excellence and achieving high standards, when you are used to aiming for something average,’ said Chandler. ‘It is life-affirming to believe that you can aim for and achieve something of excellence.’
This drive toward high artistic standards marks a change for Rosetta Life as it celebrates its 25th anniversary. Operating under the name Beyond the Odds, the performance collective is transitioning away from closed-circle hospital workshops to establish a semi-professional touring company for paying public audiences.
‘I spent two decades searching for the right thing that would help me get my life back on a path that had purpose,’ said Jen Chandler.
Creative director Lucinda Jarrett explained that moving these therapeutic practices out of clinical isolation forces a fundamental change in how the ensemble interacts with the auditorium.
‘The shift is threefold,’ said Jarrett. ‘Firstly, the shift is partly from a community audience of friends and family members who witness a transformation in level of confidence and mental health, to a public audience who are astounded by the risks that the performance company take to explore themes that are pertinent to them.’
Professional Pathways in Creative Health
This evolution is an attempt to establish clear professional pathways for disabled artists. Rehabilitation requires long-term commitment, yet medical and social care models frequently treat it as a temporary intervention. Beyond the Odds aims to offer a permanent space for artistic growth.
‘The shift is in professionalism: the two ambassadors who are performing Learn from Us are part of a new company, who aspire to be members of the first disabled led performance arts company to grow out of healthcare and aim to make semi-professional art work for a paying public audience,’ said Jarrett. ‘The company acknowledge the shift themselves by naming themselves Beyond the Odds, stating clearly that they have moved beyond the community arts and social health care model, Stroke and Brain Odysseys.’
For the performers, the discipline required on stage provides an alternative to the standard patterns of post-hospital existence. Chandler found that the rigour of the work had a direct impact on her specific neurological symptoms.
‘It does not change it, but I think if I had encountered Rosetta Life and performance arts earlier, my dystonia and the tension across my body would be much diminished,’ said Chandler.
Learn From Us Dance Theatre Movement
The touring production itself examines the aftermath of life-altering illness through the relationship between a mother and her son. One acts as a carer; the other attempts to construct an independent life. The 50-minute show integrates live choreography, song, and global video projections to depict these altered existences.
Traditional dramatic structures rely heavily on linear scripts and verbal dexterity. For individuals surviving severe brain injuries, verbal communication can be a primary casualty. The company addresses this directly by choosing abstract movement and choreography over traditional text. It is an aesthetic choice dictated by the physical realities of the performers themselves, creating an unexpected structural tension by balancing serious movement with stand-up comedy.
Jarrett explained that the production’s format mirrors the individual communication styles of the ensemble. One ambassador leans toward poetry and metaphor; another relies on self-deprecating comedy.
‘The narratives of disability dance theatre are countered by standup comedy which offers an irony and a comic foil to the poetic worlds,’ said Jarrett. ‘We are using these two media because they are most appropriate for the expressivity and artistic skills of the two ambassadors.’
She further argued that these abstract forms are better suited to capturing the non-linear realities of physical recovery than a standard play script.
‘Movement and choreography and song are media I feel most confident facilitating,’ said Jarrett. ‘They also offer us a poetic and image-led media to explore feelings of endurance, of how we recover a body when we have lost it and how we explore feelings of renewal. I believe that these feelings are best explored through metaphor and an exploration of physicality than through linear story and traditional narrative.’
By removing the necessity for traditional script delivery, the production creates space for a different kind of theatrical appearance. Aphasia, the partial or total loss of verbal expression, affects multiple members of the broader company. The body becomes the primary tool for communication.
1’The authenticity of the brain-injured body has its own aesthetic and its own physicality and this is not often staged so this is an innovation in dance theatre media and practices,’ said Jarrett. ‘It is less interesting to ask people to tell stories when they have no voice and many people in the wider performance company are living with severe aphasia, loss of verbal expression. The expressivity of the body is therefore important to explore as a rehabilitative tool as well as an innovation in dance theatre practice.’
Brain Injury Rehabilitation Arts and Health
The societal framework surrounding severe head trauma frequently isolates individuals from cultural participation. Survivors often find themselves excluded from professional environments or treated as passive recipients of clinical care rather than active agents.
‘I think the most deeply ingrained societal misconception is that people’s disabilities make it impossible for them to participate meaningfully in social and cultural life,’ said Jarrett. ‘Brain-damaged people often feel that they have been put in the dustbin.’
The production challenges this isolation by framing the lessons learned through survival as resources for a wider public. Jarrett argues that the collective survival strategies of those with acquired head injuries offer broader lessons in resilience for a society dealing with its own systemic crises.
‘Our performance demonstrates that in a world that is traumatised and shaken by conflict, environmental catastrophe and economic trauma, we can learn from those who have acquired brain injury how to live through these traumas,’ said Jarrett. ‘The resilience, endurance and the strength they have learned are all skills we need, while the creativity they express gives us all a resource to dream new futures for our lives.’
James Heather, a former commercial pilot who has worked with Rosetta Life since 2020, brings a different perspective to the ensemble. His previous career demanded absolute precision, a contrast to the unpredictable nature of devised physical theatre. He views his transition with a dry irony.
‘It’s a different and varied life I’m in now,’ said Heather. ‘But just before my accident I was thinking of leaving anyway because I was quite bored of being a pilot. So, the accident gave me a not too subtle way of forcing my hand, lol!’
‘I think the most deeply ingrained societal misconception is that people’s disabilities make it impossible for them to participate meaningfully in social and cultural life,’ said Jarrett. ‘Brain-damaged people often feel that they have been put in the dustbin.’
Re-engaging with personal trauma on stage requires significant emotional stamina. While external observers might view the process as potentially distressing, the performers view the stage as a controlled environment where their history gains utility. For Chandler, the physical demands of rehearsal provide a structured motivation that solitary domestic life lacks.
‘It is not traumatic to re-engage with the story of my brain injury because I live it with it every day,’ said Chandler. ‘It also helps me to think my story is of interest to others and could help others. My mental and physical health are so much better when I am engaging with a performance arts project and the benefits are so huge that they outweigh anything else. Thinking about my own wellbeing, it is very hard to keep going with all the rehabilitation exercises when you get back from hospital and you are on your own at home; it is so easy to stay at home and feel sorry for yourself.’
To anchor these creative practices in hard medical data, Rosetta Life operates alongside the English National Ballet and Breathe Arts Health as part of SHAPER. The initiative represents the world’s largest study into the impact and scalability of arts interventions on physical and mental health, providing a clinical counterweight to the project.
The current tour across venues in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is accompanied by public workshops and professional discussions intended to seed these creative health practices locally. Ultimately, the long-term efficacy of Learn From Us will be judged by whether it alters regional health commissioning models and helps address the broader, underfunded social care crisis. Yet while the administrative side of the charity focuses on shifting local health policy, the immediate value for the performers remains fixed in the physical reality of the live theatrical encounter.
By shifting their practice away from clinical isolation and onto the public stage, the company forces audiences to confront the aesthetic validity of the injured body. For Heather, the ultimate validation of this methodological shift is found not in the clinical data of the SHAPER study, but in the immediate energy exchanged across the footlights.
‘The reaction on stage is much more immediate, and it is good to feel I’m making a difference in people’s lives in the audience,’ said Heather.
Featured Image: Learn From Us, Jen Chandler and Elvi Christiansen Head, credit Luke Waddington
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