Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• “House Gang debuts on SBS”
  In 1996, a comedy television series debuted on SBS called ‘House Gang’ featuring three actors with intellectual disabilities.
• “Arts Access Australia established”
  Arts Access Australia was established in 1992 as a national body for arts and disability with funding support from the Australian Council for the Arts.
• "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.
• “Studio A established in 2000”
  Studio A (NSW) was established in 2000 to create access and opportunities for visual artists with intellectual disabilities; their in-house artists’ “practices range from painting and drawing to sculpture, textiles and digital media”. In their own words, “At Studio A, we are dedicated to professionally empower artists with disability and have their voices heard within contemporary Australian culture.”
• “80 wheelchair users and allies halt Melbourne trams, demanding better access to public transportation”
  In a 2000 demonstration organised by the Catch a Tram group, 80 wheelchair users and their allies halted city trams in Melbourne during lunch hours, demanding better access to public transportation.
• “Disabled actor and writer Heather Rose stars in ‘Dance Me to My Song’ (1998)”
  The 1998 film ‘Dance Me to My Song’ stars Heather Rose, who also co-wrote the film. It is about a woman with cerebral palsy, whose carer resents the job. The dramatic tension rises when the two women both take an interest in the same man. The Rolf de Heer-directed film is significant for casting a disabled actor at a time when authentic disability representation was rare, not to mention Rose’s contribution to the screenplay. ‘Dance Me to My Song’ was selected to feature in the Cannes International Film Festival in May 1998. The documentary ‘Heather Rose Goes to Cannes’ (1998, Christopher Corin) follows Rose’s journey from Adelaide to Cannes.
• “Bus Stop Films begins operation in 2009”
  Bus Stop Films began operations in 2009. In their own words, they “educate, create and advocate.” Their primary focus is teaching filmmaking to disabled adults, but they also offer workshops to others of marginalised identities. Bus Stop “makes films with, for and about people from diverse backgrounds and abilities.” Their website lists support workers in every Australian state and territory.
• "Bree Hadley, Janice Rieger (2021) Co-designing choice: objectivity, aesthetics and agency in audio-description. Museum Management and Curatorship, 36(2), pp. 189-203.”
  "The ‘Vis-ability’ exhibition, presented at the QUT Art Museum in 2019 was an exhibition curated with clear social inclusion goals from the outset. Through it, the museum sought to develop innovative, cost effective, and readily replicable techniques to allow blind and low vision visitors and artists to engage with the institution and its collections. The results affirm the benefits of offering blind and low vision visitors a spectrum of engagement choices, and also affirm that blind and low vision artists and visitors have capacity to make a critical contribution in co-designing that spectrum of choices. This exhibition and its use of multisensorial elements offers a useful prompt to museums to engage this community more fully in co-designing inclusion in the future."
• ”Hadley, Bree, Batch, Morgan, & Whelan, Michael (2021) The entitled ally: Authorship, consultation, and the 'right' to stage autistic people's stories. Disability and Society, 36(9), pp. 1489-1509.”
  "Theatre has a long tradition of presenting disabled characters as plot devices to tell someone else’s story. A recent production, All in a Row, resulted in heated debate around this issue. This article examines not the play itself, but the conflict between those who objected to the play’s representation of autism, and its creators, who defended their choices by citing their disability-adjacent identities and processes of consultation. For critics, the fact that the creators did not take the community’s concerns seriously was a source of trauma. This article uses this conflict to draw out lessons about how we might better negotiate the right to tell disability stories and strengthen frameworks to support that negotiation. We propose a decision tree diagram to assist artists in understanding the meaning, role, and most importantly the potential consequences of consultation – up to and including a community saying ‘no’ to an artist’s planned representation."
• "Bree Hadley (2020) Allyship in disability arts: Roles, relationships, and practices. Research in Drama Education, 25(2), pp. 178-194.”
  "In this article, I propose that investigation of allies, ally skills, and allyship in disability arts is overdue. I articulate some of ways in which non-arts approaches to allyship need to be adapted to meet the needs of disabled artists, given the aesthetic as well as professional and social dimensions of allyship distinctive to disability arts. In doing so, I highlight the need for new theory, terminology, and frameworks to define the different approaches to allyship, developed by different artsworkers, operating in different roles, across the different domains of disability arts and/or arts and disability practice."
• "Carriageworks (2015) NSW Arts and Disability Partnership Launched at Carriageworks Including $100,000 Support for Two Major New Works. Carriageworks, 30 January 2015"
  Reads, in part "Sydney, Australia: The NSW Minister for Disability Services, Minister John Ajaka MLC, today launched an extension of the NSW Arts & Disability Partnership, announcing funding of $475,000 for 2015 to support four programs that promote social inclusion through the arts and disability sector. The Partnership includes $100,000 support for Carriageworks to commission two major new works developed by artists with disability in collaboration with NSW arts companies and artists."
• "Bree Hadley (2015) Participation, politics and provocations: People with disabilities as non-conciliatory audiences. Participations: journal of audience and reception studies, 12(1), pp. 154-174.”
  "Disability has always had a prominent place on the theatrical stage. Throughout the C19th, C20th and C21st to date, disabled characters have been used to signify corruption, innocence or suffering, and, of course, as salutary examples of how to overcome such suffering. In the past three decades, the work of disability scholars, activists and artists has also provided opportunities for people with disabilities to produce their own plays, performances or installations challenging these stereotypes. Interestingly, though both the body of literature on theatre makers with disabilities and the body of literature on theatre audiences has grown apace over the past decade, there is still surprisingly little written on people with disabilities as theatre audiences. In this article, I draw on observations made during five years of practical, empirical and theoretical research into disability theatre to discuss how people with disabilities work as a distinctive sub-group of spectators, with distinctive spectatorial processes, modalities and preferences, within contemporary theatre audiences. I begin with the factors that make attending theatre difficult for people with disabilities. I note that people with disabilities respond to the challenges they face in attempting to become active audiences of contemporary theatre in three common ways. I then unpack what these spectatorial modalities teach us about people with disabilities as audiences, other marginalised groups as audiences, as well as about audiences, audiencing and the part audiences play in theatre practice more generally."
• "Bree Hadley, Clark Crystal (2017) Style, stage presence, and the poetic subversion of stereotypes: A case study of Blue Roo Theatre Company. Social Alternatives, 36(4), pp. 15-21."
  "In this article, we consider the work of Blue Roo Theatre Company (http://www.bluerootheatre.org.au/), a Brisbane-based theatre company which “creates contemporary performances lead by the artistry, experiences and imaginations of an ensemble of artists with diverse ability and impairment” (http://www.bluerootheatre.org.au/). Writing from a dual insider-outsider perspective – as a scholar of disability theatre and a creator of disability theatre in conversation – we discuss the work done in the training and rehearsal room in the lead up to Blue Roo Theatre Company’s performances, such as the company’s recent sell-out performance of Orpheus and Eurydice in collaboration with Opera Queensland at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts, and the way it creates a distinctive performance style, poetics, stage presence, pleasure for the spectators who come along to witness the results of the work, and sense of community. We document moments in which facilitators, collaborators, co-creating artists, audiences and the media alike feel the physical, psychological, and aesthetic focus and force of voice, movement and character work by people with disabilities. We identify ways in which this stage presence can subvert dominant depictions of people with disabilities as innocent, childlike, or inspirational as significantly as the content of a show. In doing so, we provide insights into Blue Roo Theatre Company’s processes, and the aesthetic results it produces, and contribute to a growing body of commentary around disability theatre and performance, which – though increasingly well understood by those working in the form – clearly can still provide surprises for audiences and commentators anticipating conventional representations of people with disabilities onstage."
• "Hickey Moody, Anna. 2009. Unimaginable Bodies: Intellectual Disability, Performance and Becomings. Rotterdam: Sense."
  Reads, in part "Unimaginable Bodies radically resituates academic discussions of intellectual disability. Through building relationships between philosophy, cultural studies and communities of integrated dance theatre practice, Anna Hickey-Moody argues that dance theatre devised with and performed by young people with and without intellectual disability, can reframe the ways in which bodies with intellectual disability are known."
• "Helena Grehan, Peter Eckersall (2013) ‘We’re People Who Do Shows’: Back to Back Theatre – Performance Politics Visibility. Wales: Performance Research Books."
  Reads, in part "This book gathers key perspectives on Back to Back Theatre including interviews, documentation and scripts selected by the company and here made available to the reader for the first time."
• "Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin, Beth Haller, Rosemary Curtis ed. (2019) Routledge Companion to Disability and Media. London & New York: Routledge."
  Reads, in part "An authoritative and indispensable guide to disability and media, this thoughtfully curated collection features varied and provocative contributions from distinguished scholars globally, alongside next-generation research leaders."
• "Kate Maguire-Rosier (2016). Moving “Misfits.” Australasian Drama Studies, (69), 29–55. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.590682266081795"
  Reads, in part "In Dianne Reid's recent work Dance Interrogations (a Diptych), performed as part of the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival by Reid and collaborating artist Melinda Smith, spectators had no seats but rather roamed, observing two mature dancers. In this article, I explore Reid and Smith's live performance, a combination of structured movement improvisation and screendance, as a provocation of the relationship between movement and agency. I address the theatrical event through the multifaceted lens of the performers' experiences, spectators' responses and my own observations."
• "Ayse Collins, Ruth Rentschler, Karen Williams, Fara Azmat (2022) Exploring barriers to social inclusion for disabled people: perspectives from the performing arts. Journal of Management & Organization. 2022;28(2):308-328. doi:10.1017/jmo.2021.48"
  Reads, in part "We answer the following research question: What are the barriers to social inclusion for disabled people in the arts?"
• "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."
• "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.”
• "Gerard Goggin, Christopher Newell (2003). Digital disability: The social construction of disability in new media. Rowman and Littlefield."
  Media representation of and for the disabled has been recharged in recent years with the expansion of new media worldwide. Interactive digital communications--such as the Interact, new varieties of voice and text telephones, and digital broadcasting--have created a need for a more innovative understanding of new media and disability issues. This engaging analysis offers a global perspective on how people with disabilities are represented as users, consumers, viewers, or listeners of new media, by policymakers, corporations, programmers, and the disabled themselves.
• "Anthea Skinner, Grace Thompson, Katrina Skewes McFerran (2022). Professional Pathways for Musicians with Disability in Victoria, Australia. Musicology Australia, 44(1), 21–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/08145857.2022.2088930"
  Reads, in part "The work of disabled musicians has become the focus on of an increasingly large body of academic work; however, existing literature rarely provides details about the educational experiences of these musicians, or how disability impacted these experiences. This study interviewed eleven performing musicians living with disability in Australia to elucidate the barriers and enablers that they faced in their music educations and careers."
• "Anthony White, Anna Parlane (2019). Outsider Art in Australia: Artists' Voices versus Art-world Mythologies. Art and Australia, 56 (1), pp. 80-95."
  This article explores the questions: Have you ever come across the category 'outsider art'?... What do you think of that phrase in terms of a way of describing artwork?
• "Katie Ellis, Gerard Goggin (2015). Disability media participation: Opportunities, obstacles and politics. Media International Australia, 154 (1), pp. 78-88."
  This article discusses participatory media from a critical disability perspective. It discusses the relative absence of explicit discussion and research on disability in the literatures on community, citizen and alternative media. By contrast, disability has emerged as an important element of participatory cultures and digital technologies. To explore disability participatory cultures, the article offers analysis of case studies, including disability blogs, ABC's Ramp Up website and crowd-funding platforms (such as Kickstarter).
• "Katie Ellis, Tama Leaver, Mike Kent, M, eds. (2023). Gaming Disability: Disability Perspectives on Contemporary Video Games. London and New York: Routledge."
  This book explores the opportunities and challenges people with disabilities experience in the context of digital games from the perspective of three related areas: representation, access and inclusion, and community. Drawing on key concerns in disability media studies, the book brings together scholars from disability studies and game studies, alongside game developers, educators, and disability rights activists, to reflect upon the increasing visibility of disabled characters in digital games.