Make.Do.Camp. offers three parallel tracks of workshops, themed around mind, body and spirit. Campers can choose one of the tracks and experience 3x2hour sessions for each workshop. There is also an opening session and mini-workshops throughout the event. These are open for all campers to enjoy. Register today!

Renée Coughlin – Opening Session

Renée is a vocalist, singer, and songwriter whose work centres music as a listening practice and a vehicle for embodied expression. Through singing, writing, and movement, she explores attunement—to self, to others, and to the felt experience of being alive. She believes that attuning to our bodies and voices opens a deeper respect for life, both human and more-than-human, and this understanding shapes her work. Touring internationally, Renée performs her original music and facilitates workshops with people of all ages, offering playful ways to reconnect with the music held within the body. A self-described harmony junkie, Renee is captivated by the resonance of voices singing together—for her, present listening is integral to the practice of singing and foundational to collective expression.  

This interactive opening session uses voice, movement, rhythm, and playful group exercises to help participants arrive fully in the room and connect with themselves and one another. Together, we’ll explore what becomes possible when we trade perfection for participation, practicing presence, listening, creativity, and gentle risk-taking in a supportive environment. This experience invites authenticity, curiosity, and meaningful connection while laying the groundwork for a weekend of courageous engagement, shared discovery, learning, collaboration, and community.

Stephanie Domet – Workshop Track: Spirit

Stephanie Domet is the author of two novels, Homing and Fallsy Downsies, both published by Invisible. She also co-wrote a non-fiction book for middle grade readers called Amazing Atlantic Canadian Women, published by Nimbus. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of the AfterWords Literary Festival, and the managing editor of The Dalhousie Review. She teaches creative writing to adults and kids at her home in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. She is no doubt wearing something she sewed herself.

Develop or deepen your relationship with writing in a series of hands-on creative workshops led by writer, editor, and AfterWords Literary Festival co-executive and co-artistic director Stephanie Domet. Whether you’ve been writing for years, or are simply writing-curious, these workshops meet you where you are—and help you get where you’re going next. And if writing doesn’t spark joy, but storytelling does, you’ll have a chance to workshop your best story—and then tell it to an audience of your enthusiastic peers.

Meredith Kalaman – Workshop Track: Body

Meredith Kalaman is a two time Chrystal Dance Prize recipient, dancer, choreographer and teacher. She has choreographed pieces about; giraffes, girl guiding, exploring constellations, superheroes, skeletons, past entertainers and female identity.  Meredith trained with Ballet BC in Vancouver before embarking on her independent career dancing and performing in Canada, Europe and Australia. Past presentation highlights include Coastal Currents and Island Fringe performing in Jessica Lowe’s work, Enchantress, working with theatre dramaturg Raina von Waldenburg, Dancing on the Edge in Vancouver and creating and collaborating with Mocean Dance. Her full length work Femme Fatales toured to Victoria, Edmonton and was presented at Uferstudios in Berlin in 2017. Along with her own creative projects Meredith is interested in shifting the context of how ballet relates to our 21st century bodies and inviting bodies to be in dynamic movement through education, sharing of knowledge and community engaged practices. She is on faculty at Halifax Dance and the Maritime Conservatory and teaches nationally across the country. Meredith also co-produces an immersive speakeasy show called The Underground in Halifax.

Meredith will facilitate a workshop series that will unpack each participant’s creative genius. Ever been told, or told yourself, “I’m just not creative.’ Well what if a series of games, exercises, tasks and practices introducing embodiment via the senses would start to unpack the unique way you see the world, and the creativity that your view point holds? Movers do not need any dance experience, but be open and willing to move the body.

Workshop Track: Mind – TBD

Jayme Melrose – Mini-workshop: Food Security

Jayme is a Halifax-based community organizer, Community Food Coordinator, and cooperative governance nerd who has spent years getting her hands dirty — literally and figuratively — in local food systems. She works with the JustFOOD Halifax Network at the Ecology Action Centre, and helps steward Scotch Village Co-operative Farm, which means she spends a lot of time thinking about soil, money, and how people make decisions together (not always in that order). Jayme has deep roots in Halifax’s food systems community, including founding and growing Common Roots Urban Farm from a seed of an idea into one of the city’s most beloved projects. She serves on the board of iNova Credit Union and believes the best things happen when people figure stuff out collectively, which is pretty much the whole point of this workshop.

What would it look like if your community had real power over its food? Not just access — but connection, agency, and the ability to shape what grows, who grows it, and how it’s shared?

In this hands-on mini workshop, we’ll use our imaginations (and some markers, big paper, and maybe something to eat) to dream up what food sovereignty could look like in Nova Scotia — and then get practical about what it might actually take to get there.

Through small group conversation, collaborative mapping, and a little creative chaos, we’ll move from what if to how might we — and leave with at least one real idea we could actually do something about.

No farming experience required. Just curiosity, appetite, and a willingness to think out loud with strangers.

Heather Wilkinson – Craft House

Heather Wilkinson is a visual artist based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, whose work explores the potential of collaboration and connection through socially engaged art. Heather is the co-founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Wonder’neath Art Society, which brings artists and local residents together in dynamic studio explorations, supporting community engagement through the arts, artistic expression, and creative collaboration.

Heather hosted the Craft House at the inaugural Make.Do.Camp. and is thrilled to be returning to offer a nurturing space and materials for campers to play, observe their environment, and reflect on their camp experiences.

More to come!