Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• John Martin
• John Gielgud
• John Cousins
• Jo Kennedy
• Joey Kennedy
• Jethro Heysen-Hicks
• Jane Scott
• Jan Sardi
• Helen Dowell
• Googie Withers
• Geoffrey Rush
• Ella Scott Lynch
• Danielle Cox
• Chris Haywood
• Camilla James
• Beverley Dunn
• Armin Mueller-Stahl
• Alex Rafalowicz
• "International Year of the Disabled Person (IYDP)"
  In 1976, the General Assembly proclaimed 1981 would be the Year of the Disabled Person. The 1981 International Year of the Disabled Person inspired an increase in awareness and disability arts. While UN theme was “full participation and equality” the theme in Australia was “Break down the Barriers”, raising the prole and issues of people with disabilities. The international year of the disabled persons was a catalyst for connecting Australian disability activists to each other and the international disability rights movement (Royal Commission, 2021, p. 6). Australia saw an increase in disability-themed theatre from 1981 to 1984; however, these performances were largely staged with non-disabled casts. Records of these productions can be found on the AusStage database.
• "Amanda Cachia (2022) Networks of Care: Collectivity as Dialogic Creative Access, in Amanda Cachia ed. Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation. London: Routledge, 219-230"
  Reads, in part "The collectives that have formed in recent years and that will be the subject of this chapter include the Feminist Health Care Research Group (FHCRG), the Sickness Affnity Group (SAG), and Power Makes Us Sick (PMS). Each of these groups attempts to be intersectional in their approach, focusing on feminist and crip revisions to health care. Feminist and crip unite in the groups as the participants all identify as both women and as disabled. In shared spaces, which can be found in physical spaces, such as an art gallery or an artist’s home, or online through Zoom, artists can offer mutual understanding of their experiences with chronic illness, disability, the medical industrial complex, and simply be a shoulder to lean on in times of anxiety, anger, and sadness. The collectives also offer an opportunity for the artists to lift each other up, creating an environment of respect, dignity, and self-worth, becoming a strong circle of empowerment, affrmation, and allyship. The proliferation of these support groups shows a general shift in social norms, where the medical feld no longer holds the only authoritative voice on health. This phenomenon also indicates how nonmedical health based groups are flling a need and making up for a lack in social support networks elsewhere, particularly within sanctioned medical arenas."
• "Bree Hadley (2017) Disability, Sustainability, Austerity: The Bolshy Divas Arts-Based Protests Against Policy Paradoxes. Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts Journal 18 Spring. http://www.sustainablepractice.org."
  "In this short article, I want consider some of the ways theatrical artists, activists and advocates in Australia are tackling the paradoxical relationship between sustainability and austerity discourses, and, as a result, some changes this may be starting to produce in disabled people’s aesthetic prerogatives. For the last 30 years, artists, activists and scholars in Australia and beyond have avoided casting disability in terms of trauma, crisis, catastrophe and disaster. Accounts of the way disability theatre challenges stereotypes , as well as analysis of disability signifiers in screen, stage, and social performance , have expressed concern about deploying disability as a metaphor for disaster, or defining disabled people as monstrous, tragic, stoic, or inspirational, the way the medical model of disability traditionally defines us. Instead, modern disabled artists and the scholars who analyse them have advocated for work that deploys live art, performance art, and performative intervention in public space to challenge stereotypes, oppressive institutional systems, and other factors the social model of disability sees as the cause of disability oppression .In the last few years, though, there has been an increase in work that does associate disability with trauma, tragedy and disaster, in what seems to be a response to austerity, accountability and economic sustainability agendas that call for cuts to disability services spending to make our societies more sustainable going forward."
• "DADAA Outreach and Partnerships Webpage, captured 2023"
  DADAA Outreach and Partnerships Webpage, captured 2023 – reads, in part "In addition to its three main hubs, DADAA works with other organisations to take our services and programs to communities, or to develop new services and programs that enhance access to arts and cultural activities for artists and audiences. Arts programs can be customised to respond directly to the needs of your community or clients, to ensure inclusive practice or to bring new audiences to your organisation."
• "Hot Pink Goanna Studios - Deadly With Disabilities, Website captured 2024"
  Hot Pink Goanna Studios: Deadly With Disabilities, website captured 2024 - with About, Gallery, Commisions, and Prints sections - reads, in part "Hot Pink Goanna was developed by Uncle Paul Constable Calcott a proud Wiradjuri man and artist living with a disability on Gubbi Gubbi Country. Hot Pink Goanna showcases the works of Uncle Paul and other First Nations artists living with a disability."
• "Access Arts - Grants"
  Website reads "Access Arts can help you make the first, or next step through one of our grant funding opportunities. Provided with support and in partnership with other arts organisations, our grants and awards fund the development opportunities, guidance, and exposure artists with disability or disadvantage need to pursue their artistic practice."
• "Restless Dance - Our Work"
  Restless Dance Theatre website, ‘Our Work,’ captured 2020 – links to pages on history, performances, workshops, resources, gallery, shop, and bequests – information about the core Company, workshop programs, and other opportunities