Cacophonie | Bridge to Terabithia: A Somatic Exploration of Childhood Self—A Creative Workshop with Mark LeRoy
2026-04-16 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Toronto) | ImprovLab, MacKinnon Room 108, 87 Trent Lane, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 1Y4, Canada
Join us at ImprovLab for a workshop by Mark LeRoy, PhD student in Critical Studies in Improvisation, as part of Dr. Sharon D. Engbrecht’s “Cacophonie” series!
For this event, prospective participants should read Bridge to Terabithia. Copies are available through the Guelph Public Library. If you are unable to find a copy, but would like to participate in the workshop, please e-mail sharon.engbrecht@uoguelph.ca. A limited number will be available through The Bookshelf at no cost to participants!
Through exploration and play guided by sensation, image, behaviour, and affect, we will explore how parts of us emerge within Terabithia, as we collectively hold space for embodied knowing and self- and group-coherence.
Terabithia becomes our imagination’s site of exploration and experimentation, where we are invited to lay down our certainties to wonder and explore the beauty of our fragile highs.
While reading Bridge to Terabithia prior to attending, you may consider:

How might ritual support your temporal encounter of reading Bridge to Terabithia?
As you immerse yourself in Jesse’s and Leslie’s world, how does your body emerge as a co-narrator?
How might we extend curiosity towards what our 10-year-old selves might be experiencing or want to share?
The name of your own magical land.

Mark LeRoy (he/him) is a PhD Student in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, researching how the liminal spaces of improvisation and negative capability, emerging from postmemory, might function as a rite of passage to embodied knowing. As a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist, Mark is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and Internal Family Systems Therapist, supporting those affected by the silencing narrative of trauma.
Sharon Engbrecht (they/them) comes from a background in theatre, visual arts, narrative theory, and critical studies in gender and sexuality. They have a knack for event planning and facilitating group events focused on storytelling and improvisation. Their research invest igates questions of embodiment, identity, and relationality.
