W is a research collective that studies action in a performance setting. What does it mean to act as others watch? What characterizes the relation we call theater?

To answer these questions, W simultaneously develops three complementary approaches: a practice, which builds tools and techniques for the actor; a critical method, which suggests reception guidelines for the spectator; and a theory, which works towards defining notions useful to the first two approaches.

In particular, W produces games, a score writing software, a lexicon of operational notions, workshops and practical sessions, critical seminars, as well as articles and conferences.

The W-method consists of a variety of techniques for performing actions as concretely as possible, notably by relieving the actor of the responsibility of representing something. To this end, they provide a whole array of immanent criteria and syntactic rules which aim to give the actor the means to articulate his action dramaturgically, to favor his autonomy and his availability to the event, and to make choices ensuring a multiplication of his possibilities, that is to say to increase his freedom.

The W method takes the form of an empirical corpus of approximately 45 questions tested during various sessions and practical training courses. For the time being, it is only passed on orally during workshops and practical sessions.