Disabled artists have resuscitated the principles of an almost-forgotten socio-political art movement in a bid for visibility within the occasionally elitist art world. You didn’t know it, but Dada is alive and well and based in South East England.
Dada, or Dadaism, was originally a loose, collectivised counterculture of “anti-art” actions and aesthetics of the 1910s and 20s, which pitted itself against the exclusive and bourgeois art establishment. The Dada of the South East, on the other hand, is a pioneering organisation with a vision and a mission, not to mention a killer acronym. The Disability Arts Development Agency cites part of the original Dada manifesto on their website as a call to arms, as a statement, and as an expression of their strategy:
“Dada is here, there and a little everywhere, such as it is, with its faults, with its personal differences and distinctions which it accepts and views with indifference. Ladies and Gentlemen: I don’t have to tell you that for the general public and for you, the refined public, a Dadaist is the equivalent of a leper. When these same people get close to us, they treat us with that remnant of elegance that comes from their old habit of belief in progress. At ten yards distance, hatred begins again. If you ask me why, I won’t be able to tell you. It is diversity that makes life interesting.”
Dada-South is one of many organisations fighting to bring that very diversity into both visual and performance art. The struggle is not only in bringing disabled artists into the public domain. In demanding the right to be seen and heard, it has become apparent that there’s a need to redefine the very nature of the medium.
One stunning example of this is Blindart, a charity promoting excellence in the visual arts regardless of visual ability. Blindart seeks to challenge the assumption that an artist must be able to see in order to create a work of visual art. Now, that’s a big assumption to challenge. It is, in fact, the basis of the whole paradigm of “visual art”.
Professor Glynn Williams, Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, admitted in a speech given at the 2006 exhibition Sense and Sensuality (in which the works of visually impaired artists were featured alongside those of sighted artists, and the viewers challenged to tell the difference) that he had always believed that he would be forced to abandon the visual arts should anything happen to his sight, and maybe take up writing instead. Since becoming peripherally involved with Blindart, though, Professor Williams had learned to change his mind. “Why should skies be blue, grass green and why should figures stand rooted to the ground or pots and pans to table tops?” he asked. “Why should the marvels of process handling in painting and sculpture – the liquidity of paint media and the malleability of clay – be only for those with good sight to look upon?”
Sense and Sensuality, so-named because of the stipulation that all works must have a tactile aspect, broke important new ground, introducing all five senses to the viewing experience, and breaking away from literalist dogmas into the anti-modernistic arena governed by imagination and physical form.
In the performance arts, too, there are pioneering companies working to change our minds and our culture. Leading by example, CandoCo is a highly acclaimed “integrated” contemporary dance company, which means that the company is made up of both disabled and non-disabled dancers. The world of professional dance is notoriously exclusive and elitist, with highly particular standards of what a body ought to look like. The idea of dance being accessible – and permissible – for everybody, and for every body, was, and to an extent still is, of course, a huge taboo.
The brave and controversial work of companies like CandoCo has legitimised different kinds of bodies in performance and has “stripped disability art of its last vestiges of political correctness” according to The Guardian. CandoCo have taken their ethos and made it global with a formidable touring schedule and an award-winning education and workshop program, creating opportunities where none previously existed in over 50 countries and building a growing legacy of community and local groups with the same principles of “dance for all.”
Theatre, like visual art and dance, is also being reclaimed and remade, being re-imagined based upon new inclusive methods. The classic drama training, for example, makes much of en-un-cee-ay-shun and the voice as we hear it; Shapearts, meanwhile, an organisation promoting the involvement and inclusion of deaf and disabled people in the arts, offers masterclasses and an accredited summer course in Deaf Theatre, taught exclusively in British Sign Language (BSL).
For deaf audiences, SPIT (Signed Performances in Theatre) was formed in 1994 to facilitate BSL-interpretation during plays, without which those with impaired hearing would have no recourse to theatre. SPIT began as a lobby group of sorts, demanding not only that the deaf community be catered for but also that venues and companies be better-educated as to the needs of that community as members of an audience. SPIT currently boasts venues such as the Almeida and the Barbican amongst its members and publishes an extensive list of all interpreted performances on the website.
Maggie Woolley, the former director of Shapearts London and herself regularly in attendance at BSL-interpreted theatre, said that “When you stage sign language interpreted theatre you become part of building a society that recognises deaf people’s rights. In the 21st century I hope that our children’s deaf children will enjoy theatre too.”
And with high culture and the beaux-arts enjoying a revolution in inclusivity, youth and pop culture aren’t far behind in making sure that deaf and hearing-impaired hipsters don’t get left out of the scene. DeafRave – “Organised for deaf people by deaf people” hosts some of the wildest parties in town, by all accounts. A DeafRave would look a lot like any other rave, except that the bass is turned right up to 11 so that the music can be “felt” in the body through the vibrations.
Shahid Hussain travelled from Bolton to London for one party – “I could feel it in my chest and my feet; it made me feel like I am flying.” There are psychadelic lights, changing with the music – just like any other rave, but here the stage lights are brighter, illuminating BSL MCs and song-interpreters. One recent DeafRave at Plastic People featured a rap battle in sign language.
The continued work of organisations like those listed above – and the many others in Great Britain and elsewhere – is hugely important for those who don’t consider themselves disabled as well as for the communities they address. Exclusivity – and discrimination – in the arts is found everywhere, in every medium, and not only on the grounds of disability but also on the grounds of sex, race, class, gender, sexuality and culture, and any means by which this status quo is challenged has to be called revolutionary, on some scale.
The them/us paradigm is what trips us up, culturally and as a society – when we are all given the right to create and partake in the artistic experience, who knows what we could come up with?
Think about it: if it’s possible to paint without eyes – dance without legs – dance to music that you can’t hear, what else is possible? What could we do? What couldn’t we do?
To find out more:
www.blindart.net
www.spit.org.uk
www.shapearts.org.uk
www.candoco.co.uk
www.deafrave.com
