Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• "Bree Hadley (2014) Disability, Public Space Performance, and Spectatorship: Unconscious Performers. London: Palgrave Macmillan."
  "Why would disabled people want to re-engage, re-enact and re-envisage the everyday encounters in public spaces and places that cast them as ugly, strange, stare-worthy? In Disability, Public Space Performance and Spectatorship: Unconscious Performers, Bree Hadley examines the performance practices of disabled artists in the US, UK, Europe and Australasia who do exactly this. Operating in a live or performance art paradigm, artists like James Cunningham (Australia), Noemi Lakmaier (UK/Austria), Alison Jones (UK), Aaron Williamson (UK), Katherine Araniello (UK), Bill Shannon (US), Back to Back Theatre (Australia), Rita Marcalo (UK), Liz Crow (UK) and Mat Fraser (UK) all use installation and public space performance practices to re-stage their disabled identities in risky, guerilla-style works that remind passersby of their own complicity in the daily social drama of disability. In doing so, they draw spectators' attention to their own role in constructing Western concepts of disability. This book investigates the way each of us can become unconscious performers in a daily social drama that positions disability people as figures of tragedy, stigma or pity, and the aesthetics, politics and ethics of performance practices that intervene very directly in this drama. It constructs a framework for understanding the way spectators are positioned in these practices, and how they contribute to public sphere debates about disability today."
• "Rachel Carling-Jenkins, Mark Serry (2014) Disability and social movements: learning from Australian experiences. Burlington : Ashgate Publishing Company"
  Reads, in part "This book provides the reader with a ground-breaking understanding of disability and social movements. By describing how disability is philosophically, historically, and theoretically positioned, Carling-Jenkins is able to then examine disability relationally through an evaluation of the contributions of groups engaged in similar human rights struggles. The book locates disability rights as a new social movement and provides an explanation for why disability has been divided rather than united in Australia.."
• "Commonwealth of Australia (2017) “National Arts Disability Strategy Evaluation Report 2013–2015.” Canberra: Meeting of Cultural Ministers."
  Reads, in part "The second Evaluation Report was endorsed by cultural ministers in September 2017. It concludes that progress continues to be made against the Strategy. It also identifies that there have been significant changes to the arts and disability sector since the release of the Strategy in 2009 such as the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme."
• "Commonwealth of Australia (2019) Key Results of the 2018 Public Consultation: National Arts and Disability Strategy. Canberra: An initiative of the Meeting of Cultural Ministers"
  Reads, in part "Between 24 September and 3 December 2018, people shared their stories and ideas about arts and disability in Australia. The Meeting of Cultural Ministers asked to hear these ideas and stories. The Meeting of Cultural Ministers is made up of the Cultural Ministers from the Australian Government and state and territory governments. The statistics in the report all come from the online survey. These ideas and stories will help Ministers to make a new National Arts and Disability Strategy.
• "Christopher Newall (1996). The Disability Rights Movement in Australia: A note from the trenches. Disability & Society, 11(3), 429–432. https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599627705"
  Reads, in part “A recent visitor to Australia from the UK commented to me on their return ‘I looked in vain for the disability rights movement. Can you tell me where they are?’ In essence, the Australia disability rights movement is currently fragmented, predominantly organised around disease labels and seems to have lost ground, compared with the self-help initiatives fostered around the time of the International Year of the Disabled Persons in 1981.”
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1997-98"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1997-98 - discusses letter from chair of council, functions, profile, organisation chart, corporate overview, year in review, arts funding, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes professional development activities, financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for programs, projects, information and advocacy with producing a set of Disability Fact Packs exploring the importance of accessibility for arts and cultural organisations and a guide to marketing arts to disabled audience
• "Bree Hadley (2016) Cheats, charity cases and inspirations: disrupting the circulation of disability-based memes online. Disability and Society, 31(5), pp. 676-692."
  "With the increasing part online self-performance plays in day-to-day life in the twenty-first century, it is not surprising that critiques of the way the daily social drama of disability plays out in online spaces and places have begun to gain prominence. In this article, I consider memes as a highly specific style or strategy for representing disability via social media sites. I identify three commonly circulating categories of meme – the charity case, inspiration and cheat memes – all of which offer representations that people with disabilities find highly problematic. I then investigate the ways in which disabled people have begun to resist the representation and circulation of these commonly circulating categories of memes, via the production of counter or parodic memes. I focus, in particular, on the subversive potential of these counter memes, within disability communities online and within broader communities online."
• "Bree Hadley (2018) Disability, disabled dance audiences and the dilemma of neuroaesthetic approaches to perception and interpretation. In Wood, K, Brown, A, Waelde, C, Harmon, S, Blades, H, & Whatley, S (Eds.) Dance, disability and law: Invisible difference. Intellect Ltd, United Kingdom, pp. 293-315.”
  "In this chapter, I want to consider one emerging approach to spectatorship – the neuroaesthetic approach – through the lens of disability spectatorship. In the twenty-first century, neuroaesthetics is gaining traction amongst scholars looking to provide accounts of spectatorship in less story-based performing arts such as classical and contemporary dance, as well as in more story-based practices in drama, theatre and performance. ‘It would be fair to say that neuroaesthetics has become a hot field’, as Alva Noë puts it (2011). To date, though, the assumptions that underpin neuroaesthetic approaches to spectatorship have not been brought together with the assumptions that underpin the equally emergent field of disability spectatorship studies. As Carrie Sandahl (2002: 18) has noted, different cognitive, sensory and corporeal abilities result in a range of different phenomenologies, perceptual processes and perceptual preferences that can in turn produce different styles of engagement with experiences, events and objects. These differences impact on how people with disabilities produce and perceive aesthetic performances – somatically, syntactically, symbolically and socially, as disabled people hear with their eyes, see with their fingers, or perceive phenomena vicariously via the intervention of technologies or translators. Accordingly, disability spectatorship, and more detailed attention to the presence of distinctive cognitive, sensory and corporeal processes amongst disabled spectators, has the potential to complicate, extend and challenge assumptions embedded in emerging neuroaesthetic approaches to spectating."
• "Australia Council - Making the Journey: Arts and Disability in Australia"
  Reads, in part "A collection of inspiring examples of how to include people with disabilities in the arts, as participants, creators and organisers"
• "Australia Council - Arts and disability a priority as Australia Council commits significant new funding"
  Australia Council - Arts and disability a priority as Australia Council commits significant new funding - reads, in part "The Australia Council has committed $750k over three years to support sustainable careers and to recognise the artistic excellence of artists with disability."
• “Inaugural High Beam festival in 1998”
  High Beam was a biennial community-based disability arts festival. It was a joint initiative of SPARC Disability Foundation and Arts In Action (through the direction of Tony Doyle). (Arts in Action later became Arts Access SA.) The 10-day event was the first of its kind in the Southern hemisphere, attracting around 20,000 people at each festival. The festival showcased theatre, dance, comedy, and music. Some celebrity artists included Adam Hills and David Helfgott. The inaugural festival (1998) invited Swedish Disability Theatre Company Mooms Teatern to perform; the company also conducted workshops with a disability-led Australian theatre company, No Strings Attached. This first festival was also the site of Tutti's first public performance as a choir.
• “Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts, Australia (DADAA), based in Western Australia, is established in 1994”
  The National Participate Conference, hosted by Arts Access Victoria in 1990, set the scene for the emergence of the DADAA network. This came after several years of conversations among Western Australian artists about starting an organisation; the organisation was officially established in 1994. “In 1986, a small group of artists with disability met to discuss starting their own WA-based arts organisation. It is from this meeting that DADAA slowly grew, from a pilot project it became an organisation in its own right in 1994: taking the name Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts, Australia – DADAA.”
• "The first ACT DisAbility Arts Festival is held"
  In 2004, the first ever ACT DisAbility Arts Festival was held as part of International Day of DisAbility celebration.
• "A number of theatre companies are established in the 2000s"
  A number of theatre companies were established in the 2000s, particularly towards the end of the decade. Some key companies in disability theatre or inclusive arts practice to emerge in the 2000s are: Second Echo Ensemble (2005, integrated, often producing work in partnership with the Tasmanian Theatre Company), Ever After Theatre Company (2006, performers with disability), Rollercoaster Theatre Company (2007, performers with disability), DirtyFeet (2008, inclusive), and Blue Roo Theatre (2009, performers with disability).
• “Creative Australia’s National Arts and Disability Awards are awarded to their inaugural recipients in 2019”
  Creative Australia’s National Arts and Disability Awards were first awarded to their inaugural recipients in 2019. The three awards go to an emerging or early career artist, and established artist, and someone who’s proven themselves as a leader in disability arts. From 2019 to 2023, the recipients span across artforms and the country.
• "Creative Australia (2024) releases 'Equity: Arts and Disability Associated Plan"
  Reads, in part "The Australia Council for the Arts have released their critical new report Towards Equity: A research overview of diversity in Australia’s arts and cultural sector. This overview gathers published and unpublished data and research on representation within the arts and cultural sector in Australia."
• "Commonwealth of Australia, 2018. Research Overview: Arts and Disability in Australia. Barton: Department of Communication and the Arts, Cultural Ministers Council. Available from: https://www.arts.gov.au/sites/g/files/net1761/f/research_overview_of_arts_and_disability.pdf."
  Reads, in part "The Research Overview brings together published and unpublished data and research about arts and disability in Australia, and case studies highlighting arts and disability practice around the country. The Research Overview is part of the evidence base for a renewed National Arts and Disability Strategy. The evidence gathered here will be complemented by submissions and survey during a national consultation in 2018."
• "Juliet London and Des Walsh (1995) Arts & Disability: Report Australia Council: Surry Hills."
  Juliet London and Des Walsh - Arts & Disability, Australia Council 1995 - Reads, in part "The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that 18 per cent of the Australian population has a disability. There is a basic lack of data on participation in the arts by artists with a disability. No figures were available on the number of people with disabilities applying for grants from the Australia Council or from State or Territory arts agencies. The current dearth of statistical information needs to be overcome by systematic and sustained research."
• "The Arts and Disability No Date #1"
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• "The Arts and Disability 2016-2017"
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• Noelene Gration
• Madeleine Little
• Katie Ellis
• "Interview with Michelle Ryan"
  Michelle Ryan is the artistic director of Restless Dance Theatre and has extensive experience as a dancer and performer. Interview Summary Michelle Ryan, the artistic director of Restless Dance Theatre, shares her journey from being a successful dancer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 30 to becoming an advocate for artists with disabilities. Despite her initial hesitations to perform with her disability, a positive experience dancing with a European company reignited her passion and led her to Restless Dance Theatre, where she aims to change perceptions of who can create art. Michelle emphasizes the importance of providing professional opportunities and proper compensation for disabled artists, challenging the notion that disability work is charity or hobbyist. She advocates for representation that is genuine and not tokenistic, ensuring the inclusion of people with disabilities is meaningful and respectful.
• "Interview with Peter Vance"
  Peter Vance is a singer, songwriter, musician, performer, facilitator and disability arts advocate. Interview Summary: Peter Vance is a songwriter, performer, musician and singer. Peter suggested disability arts in the last 20 years has become more visible and popular reflecting a positive shift in how society views disability as part of the rich tapestry of human experience. This is reflected in how the arts now tell the stories of individuals with disabilities, not simply as artists with a disability, but as whole people whose varied experiences - visible and invisible - inform and enrich their creative expression. However, there are still challenges with funding and accessibility and ongoing struggles for recognition and support of disability art. Changes in how organisations operate to suit new funding such as the NDIS have potentially limited the spontaneity and personal touch that smaller, community-driven organizations once offered. Peter said it is essential to continue to push for better understanding, support, and visibility for people with all kinds of disabilities in every aspect of life, including the arts, to truly embrace inclusivity.