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-sessions are research sessions devoted to the W-practice. They are run by Joris Lacoste and Jeanne Revel and bring together actors, dancers, performers, students and researchers.

W research is centered around three inseparable parts : the practice , the critique, and the theory. It shifts constantly between these dimensions, in order to alternately theorize practice, theoretically practice critique, or practically criticize theory.

W-sessions explore these three dimensions while resolutely emphasizing the first, namely the point of view of the action and the actor. They rely on different practical tools (the W-games, the W-lexicon, the W-notation, and the W-method) as developed during previous research sessions and attempt to question, perfect and add to them. This happens essentially through developing and experimenting with a certain number of games (W-games). Those games formalize the questions of the improvisation and interpretation, the notation of the action and the effectuation of scores.