Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• ”Racheal Missingham, Bree Hadley (2022) Oppression and allyship in Australia's Deaf Arts. Australasian Drama Studies, 80, pp. 304-332.”
  "In this article, we investigate the history of Deaf theatre in Australia, through the lens of oppression and allyship. Through a review of the to date limited academic, industry, and media literature, in conjunction with survey and interview research with Deaf theatre practitioners, this research sheds light on Deaf theatre makers’ perceptions of the ways in which ally support can operate to create both social benefits and barriers, and how this has impacted on the non-linear development and recent decline in Deaf theatre companies in Australia. It finds that, in developing a framework to scaffold stronger allyship relationships with d/Deaf and hard of hearing artists, it is critical to consider the accessibility and cultural requirements not just in relation to theatre methodologies, but in relation to arts management practices, which support continuing company production, too."
• "Nola Colefax and Annee Lawrence (1999) Signs of change : my autobiography and the history of Australian Theatre of the Deaf 1973-83. Deaf Resources Australia"
  "The story of a small group of people making theatre history in a little known Australian community. The book interweaves the personal history of Nola Colefax with the history, culture and development of the deaf community." More on Nola Colefax's contribution to Theatre of the Deaf at https://web.archive.org/web/20241113210108/https://deafinnsw.com/nola-colefax.
• "Bree Hadley (2022) A ‘Universal Design’ for audiences with disabilities? In Reason, Matthew, Connor, Lynne, Johanson, Katia, & Walmsley, Ben (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, pp. 177-189.”
  “Understanding of how to create inclusive performance experiences for spectators with disabilities remains nascent in research, policy, and practice. In this chapter, I survey the state of knowledge in this field – or, as it turns out, fields, given that specialist knowledge of sign language interpretation for d/Deaf spectators, audio description for blind spectators, and relaxed performance for neurodiverse spectators, has developed separately, without intersection. I then investigate recent efforts to create inclusive aesthetics that incorporate accessibility features into performance work, as an integral part of the aesthetic, rather than as interpretations, captions, or descriptions alongside the work. I examine why this ‘Universal Design’ approach has been embraced with enthusiasm, both by disabled producers and spectators, and by non-disabled producers and spectators.”
• "Morwenna Collett, Gill Nicol (2024) Building Strong Foundations: Research on arts and disability needs and opportunities, Creative Australia, 2024."
  "This report is a summary of an arts and disability needs and audit conducted in 2023 for Creative Australia. Through desktop research and consultation with d/Deaf and disabled artists and creative workers, peak bodies and broader arts and cultural organisations, this research provides insights into needs and opportunities in the arts and disability ecology in Australia."
• "Simon Darcy, S., Hazel Maxwell, Simone Grabowski, Jenny Onyx (2019). Artistic Impact: From Casual and Serious Leisure to Professional Career Development in Disability Arts. Leisure Sciences, 44(4), 514–533. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2019.1613461"
• "DADAA Inc. (2014). An evaluation of a year-long mentoring program for artists with disability in western Australia. Perth, Western Australia: Department of Family and Community Services."
• "Catherine Grant (2013). Participating in arts- and cultural-sector governance in Australia: Experiences and views of people with disability. Arts & Health, 6(1), 75–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2013.826259"
  Reads, in part "This study sought the perceptions and experiences of people with disability relating to their potential or current involvement in the governance of arts and cultural organisations in Australia. Methods: A total of 32 people participated in an online survey, and results were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results: The findings revealed that those participants who had been involved in governance benefited from it in terms of self-esteem, participation in society and well-being." Contains tables with survey data.
• "Australia Government (2019) My Art Goals: NDIS and the Arts. Canberra: Department of Communication and Arts."
  Reads, in part "My art goals shows some of the ways National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants who have creative or cultural jobs, or who want to participate recreationally in the arts, can reach their goals. My art goals provides information about how the NDIS might support participants with arts goals, or about what supports or services might be available outside the NDIS."
• "Queensland Government (2024) Arts and Disability Plan. 25 September 2024. https://www.arts.qld.gov.au/projects-and-initiatives/arts-and-disability-plan-web"
  Reads, in part "The Queensland Government acknowledges the rights of people with disability to participate equally in the state’s cultural life and to have the opportunity to develop and use their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, as recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability."
• "Screen Australia (2023) Seeing Ourselves 2: Diversity, equity and inclusion in Australian TV drama. Screen Australia"
  Reads, in part "Screen Australia has released new research into diversity on Australian screens, titled Seeing Ourselves 2: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Australian TV Drama. A follow up to the landmark 2016 study, Seeing Ourselves 2 examines the diversity of main characters in 361 scripted Australian TV and online dramas broadcast between 2016 and 2021, how this compares to the Australian population, and what has changed since the previous Seeing Ourselves report."
• "Screen Australia (2016) Seeing ourselves: Reflections on diversity in Australian TV drama. Screen Australia"
  Reads, in part "Whose stories are our TV dramas exploring? Screen Australia has benchmarked current levels of diversity in Australian TV drama and explore the challenges and opportunities involved in making TV drama more broadly representative of Australian society."
• "Cultural Ministers Council (2009) National Arts & Disability Strategy."
  Reads, in part "On 9 October 2009, the Cultural Ministers Council agreed to the National Arts and Disability Strategy, which sets out a vision for improving access and participation in the artistic and cultural activities for people with disabilities. The Strategy provides a framework within which jurisdictions can assess and improve existing activities. It also identifies new priority projects that could be progressed as national initiatives or by individual jurisdictions."
• "Bree Hadley (2019) Advocacy, allies, and 'allies of convenience' in performance and performative protest. In Grehan, H (Ed.) The Routledge companion to theatre and politics (Routledge Theatre and Performance Companions). Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 85-88.”
  "Though allies have always played a role in the production of political performance, analysis of the work of disabled artists, women artists, queer artists, and artists of colour has yet to be combined with analysis of the work of allies addressing the same issues. In this chapter, I consider the practice of allies in a specific context, social media performance, as a newly emerging platform for political activism. After tracing the way allies are typically involved in political performance about, with, and by marginalised people and communities, I point to complexities arising when activists, campaigners, entertainers, and pranksters use new online platforms in performance that purport to support the same cause.
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2018) Creating Pathways: Insights on support for artists with disability. 19 September 2018"
  Reads, in part "This report brings together findings and insights from a range of research undertaken in 2017–18 to inform the Council’s approach to future support for artists with disability."
• "Bree Hadley (2021) What's in a name? The politics of labeling in disability performance. In Rai, Shirin, Gluhovic, Milija, Jestrovic, Silvija, & Saward, Michael (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Politics and Performance. Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 531-543.”
• "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."
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2018) Arts and Disability a Priority as Australia Council Commits Significant New Funding. 24 September 2018."
  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."
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2022) Australia Council releases Towards Equity: a research overview of diversity in Australian arts."
  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."
• ”Bree Hadley, Donna McDonnald (Eds.) (2019) The Routledge Handbook of Disability Arts, Culture, and Media. Routledge International Handbooks. Routledge, London; New York.”
  “In the last 30 years, a distinctive intersection between disability studies – including disability rights advocacy, disability rights activism, and disability law – and disability arts, culture, and media studies has developed. The two fields have worked in tandem to offer critique of representations of disability in dominant cultural systems, institutions, discourses, and architecture, and develop provocative new representations of what it means to be disabled. Divided into 5 sections:- Disability, Identity, and Representation; Inclusion, Wellbeing, and Whole-of-life Experience; Access, Artistry, and Audiences; Practices, Politics and the Public Sphere; Activism, Adaptation, and Alternative Futures - this handbook brings disability arts, disability culture, and disability media studies – traditionally treated separately in publications in the field to date – together for the first time.”
• "Bree Hadley, Donna McDonnald (2019) Introduction: disability arts, culture, and media studies - mapping a maturing field. In Hadley, B & McDonald, D (Eds.) The Routledge handbook of disability arts, culture, and media. Routledge, United Kingdom, pp. 1-18.”
  Reads, in part "In this book, an internationally recognised collection of established and emerging scholars, artists, and activists from across the US, UK, Europe, Asia, and Australasia come together to trace the development of disability arts, culture, and media studies in recent decades, flag current interests, and forecast future concerns."
• "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."
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2014) A Million Dollar Commitment to Artists with Disability. Australia Council for the Arts. 28 October 2014"
  Reads, in part "Australia Council Chief Executive Officer Tony Grybowski made the announcement today at the Arts Activated Conference in Chatswood, Sydney. Mr Grybowski said the decision to extend the dedicated arts and disability funding was made after a successful pilot was run earlier this year."
• "Australia Council for the Arts (2014) Australia Council Promotes Disability Leadership in the Arts. Australia Council for the Arts. 25 June 2014."
  Reads, in part "The Australia Council for the Arts is presenting a suite of activities from next month to develop the leadership skills of people with disability and enhance their access to leadership roles across the cultural sector."
• "David Throsby, Katya Petetskaya (2017) Making Art Work: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia, Australia Council for the Arts, 2017."
  Reads, in part "Making Art Work: An Economic Study of Professional Artists in Australia by David Throsby and Katya Petetskaya is the sixth in a series carried out independently over thirty years by Professor Throsby at Macquarie University, with funding from the Australia Council. The series tracks trends in the lives and working conditions of Australian artists over 30 years and identifies challenges and opportunities for artists’ careers into the future."
• "Amanda Cachia (2022) Curating Access: Disability Art Activism and Creative Accommodation. London: Routledge"
  Reads, in part "This book is an interdisciplinary collection of twenty-four essays which critically examine contemporary exhibitions and artistic practices that focus on conceptual and creative aspects of access."