Luke Pell: What if we were all agents for change?

A Note:

These words are a remembering, a revisiting of words found for symposiums and papers in the past for this widening field, as well as some new ones found for here and now.

They include words from: Begin With What You Know 2011; In Dialogue for Candoco 2015; Below The Water Line written with Caroline Bowditch for Reflect, Restock, Re-think: Live Art and Disability 2011; What’s Not Lost? for the Invisible Difference project 2015; Some Gathered Musings for Get Better Soon? from Dan Daw and Kate Marsh 2015; and recent writing Speak: Differences with Claire Cunningham and Jess Curtis 2016.

As we look to the future, to what’s next. Let’s not forget where we’ve come from, what work has been done and by whom. The ground that we move from and those who cared enough to tend to it.

A driech day at my desk, to the left from my window, slate tiles shine as I wait for some words to come. To the right on my fridge, a magnet with words from John Cage. Begin Anywhere.

I find that liberating and sometimes daunting. So, when I’m making I often say ‘Begin with what you know’.

What do I know?

Words. I work with words in a particular way.  For me language is physical.  I understand it as of the body.  I work with words and movement, words as movements. Words can bring things into being with greater clarity.  And dances, can say so much when words fail.  The poetry of the body.

Words are a way of asking questions and making invitations.  I think of a question as an opening, a space of possibility. And an invitation as a gesture. So these words are to ask some questions: Where have we come from?  Where are we now? Where might we go? What’s next? Who’s next? How? What, if, we were all agents of change? These words are an open invitation to imagine other possibilities, to imagine those we don’t yet know and they are an invitation to act.

What else do I know?  I am an artist.  I am a maker and curator.

I am a body with a body of work. My work is to listen, to touch, to transform, to care. What I do is relational. I have a whole series of relationships, collaborations, connections, encounters, lived experience to reflect upon, to draw from and to question. We all do, we all have some wisdoms for living to share.

I am an artist. I am a quiet activist. I don’t want to ‘get better soon’, my difference, my deviation, ditherings and disruptions, my ‘deficit’, my dances are amplifications of empathy, (little) political acts of love.

Together, we are a gathering of differing cultures, contexts, and sensibilities. Not just in terms of a disability politics or a dance history and the particular lineages of those movements and artists in our countries, our communities, but the lineages of differing cultural politics, people politics, aesthetic sensibilities, ethical practices, economies and ecologies.

All of our very different lived experiences and realities intersect, they come from the margins and from the mainstream, and they can collaborate, they can wrestle, listen, laugh, touch, and dance together to make something greater than the sum of their parts. But this is only possible by being open to difference, to really being open to difference, by not disappearing difference.

In preparing these words I reflected on what I’ve witnessed, what I’ve experienced in the past 5 years. And I have been reminded of what some call loss…. of my nana, of my partner, of friends and lovers, of peers, of politics, of places, faces, visions and values. And in remembering I have been reminded of their influences, how they changed me, how they transformed my reality and what I thought was possible

Influence at this time seems to be an important thing to consider, as across the arts and these islands we come to know our landscapes and communities in other ways. Over the next five years we may see the support and the influences we have grown with or indeed nurtured, transform and disappear.  This is a pertinent time for reflection, while we grapple with change.

In 2011 I gave a paper Begin with what you know… whilst working for the now mainstream dance company Candoco, in it I said… 

“our work is very much about influence and preparation – about who is being prepared for what and about influencing the mainstream. Mainstream understandings of disability differ depending on context. In Film – Television – Sport – Theatre - Dance We might challenge and question some of these representations or misrepresentations but I think it’s important to acknowledge they are where many people are at – people make meaning from the information available to them, the preparations they are afforded. To make change we need to begin there.
Begin with what they know”

I went on to say:

“… it feels that there is a sea change upon us.  Not just for the company, but for a sector often described as dance and disability.  Disability arts and contemporary dance in the UK are now maturing art forms/movements. For 2012 Unlimited will make a significant investment in the work of some disabled artists.  New work to be seen by new audiences and hopefully many, young disabled people and emergent artists.  A significant body of work has been produced.  An expertise that can be distilled, shared, offered up to inform, advise, signpost – to support emerging generations in choosing where to start – as well as being an excellent pool for those maturing artists to reflect on, draw from, move on from.”

In the same year, when Caroline Bowditch was Dance Agent for Change at Scottish Dance Theatre and I was still working as Head of Learning and Research with Candoco we gave a provocation Below the Waterline in response to a series of reviews in newspapers at the Live Art Development Agency event Restock, Reflect, Rethink 2: Live Art and Disability. 

This was the first time that I had been part of what seemed to be a genuine convergence between peers and colleagues practicing in live/performance art, disability arts, contemporary dance and choreography in a proactive and provocative way. The symposium spoke not only to physical diversity, but to a spectrum of diverse aesthetics, ideologies and embodied experiences.

In our paper we noted at that time, in that year, Candoco was celebrating their 20th anniversary and Scottish Dance Theatre their 25^th. This year Candoco turns 25 and SDT 30. We explained:

“Although each company has historically been funded to make and tour dance in the mainstream our roles had become either increasingly concerned with or explicitly dedicated to exploring gaps in the sector broadly described as dance and disability. In reviewing a number of dance critics write ups in mainstream newspapers we have noted that in two decades a focus upon the visibility of impairment, on any difference from normative corporeal ideas of a typical dancer hadn’t really shifted.  We think it would be fair to say that these preoccupations with physical difference are indicative of where understanding remains in the wider public consciousness.  As if it is only what is seen that constitutes the totality of disability.  Key to our discussion is acknowledging that the visibility of any impairment does not directly correlate with an individual’s experience of disability. Visual deviations from familiar structures are more easily observed, alerting us to difference.  However, what many critiques don’t do is go beyond noting this to address how alterity might enhance our art form.  Nor do they draw from notions of disability other than the medical model.  Such as disability being socially constructed, affirmative or anywhere between. This is perhaps felt profoundly in contemporary dance in the UK an art form informed by ideals of modernity and mobility that - for many - is inherently about form.  The few disabled artists emerging frequently come to their practice later in life having carved out informal pathways with little signposting, recognition or validation available in the places their non-disabled peers might look.  As Dance Agent for Change - a title reminding us of the work to be done - Caroline has had significant impact across the UK.  Increasing the visibility and understanding of gaps by listening sensitively to disparate groups and empowering those who feel isolated and marginalised.  In 2012 SDT will host a symposium Pathways to the Profession addressing the issues that inhibit inclusion of disabled people in the performing arts.  Caroline is explicit that as an artist she doesn’t want to make beige work, despite a feeling amongst some in the dance and disability sector that it is this kind of homogeneity that has most currency in mainstream touring. What is clear for us, as we imagine new contexts for making and engaging with disability in dance are the merits of effecting change in both visible and invisible ways.  The need to recognise, articulate and celebrate the complex nuances of these artists work, the subtle corporeal and environmental demands that might interrupt form, break binary understandings of disability and depolarise practice. To go below the waterline.”

This was the year before London Olympic and Paralympic games of 2012, which – I think - were a significant catalyst in the increased visibility, understanding, resourcing and ‘mainstreaming’ of work by and with disabled artists. Here in Scotland we have benefitted from dedicated strategic initiatives and funding streams to develop our work in this area including; The Dance Agent for Change, Promoting Equalities Programme, Talent Hub, Creative Thinking Network and Unlimited. As a result we have rich, vibrant examples of excellent work in this area, but in numerous conversations of late we’ve noted that we’re all beginning to ask questions about what’s next, who’s next, how?

Where are we now? Five years on discourse and action in this territory in the UK has focussed upon addressing deficits, inequalities and invisible differences.  Whilst this work is critical and needs to continue, I believe we’ve only just begun to consider and really value the independent artists, cultural activists working throughout the world, who through their art making offer possibilities for considering what’s not been lost - despite the exclusion of different bodies and ways of being in the world - from dance. Attending to why equality – I believe - shouldn’t be about assimilation into what already exists, how we might re-imagine notions of loss and the importance of artist as agent for new aesthetics and politics in the 21st century.

We have begun to see a proliferation of permutations rather than assimilation into what has gone before. Artists such as Kate Marsh and Welly O’Brien, Caroline Bowditch, Claire Cunningham, Dan Daw and Catherine Long have drawn upon their unique lived experiences, the particularity of their non-normative movement patterns, morphologies and sensorial differences to further expand understandings of who can dance, what dance and the choreographic can be, what it might, look, feel, sound like and what other kinds of spaces and structures this work might manifest in, as well as the ‘mainstage’ repertory companies

Since 2012 Scotland based artists from this territory working both in the margins and the mainstream have presented work at Unlimited Festival London, Edinburgh Fringe, Buzzcut, at Tramway as part of Dance International Glasgow, Gathered Together and now Unlimited Glasgow, they have local, national and international significance and influence

Caroline Bowditch, Ian Johnston Independance 4, Janice Parker, Y Dance’s Project Y, Dirty Feet, Marc Brew with Scottish Ballet and Independence 4, Craig Simpson, Talent Hub, Waterbaby, Jodi Taylor, Jak Soroka, Adam Sloan, Neil Price, George Adams, Jade Adamson, Alex McCabe, Gail Sneddon, Hayley Earlam, Linda Payne, Robbie Synge, Christine Devaney, Kim Simpson.

We have such a brilliant spectrum of practice, from people who call Scotland home. As a community of artists, arts organizations and advocates we are increasingly being referred to as leaders in this field worldwide. Many of the leading disabled dancers and choreographers are based in Scotland, a number of disability focused organisations are now part of the CS Regularly Funded portfolio and our dance artists, companies, dance centers and festivals have said they are committed to championing this work and its significance as part of an evolving art form and diverse dance ecology.

What Next? Many of our artists and advocates are at capacity and whilst we can cite numerous examples of established artists and experts working in both the margins and mainstream, we wonder where the next generation will come from and what else needs to happen to ensure we can continue to nurture this growth in Scotland.

As a result of our conversations, a consortium of artists and organizations have been trying to come together to review where we are at as a community, re-fresh our thinking and practice and ask what we - as a community - want and need to happen next.  In Spring YDance, SDT, Festival Theatre Edinburgh, Tim Nunn, Dance Base, Indepen-dance, Scottish Ballet, Waterbaby, Janice, Claire, Caroline, Robert Softley Gale, Kim and I arranged a meeting. Of the 14 folk who had hoped to make it for the two days only a handful could turn up.

We had hoped it would be an opportunity to come together and update one another on what we are up to, what’s working and where the gaps might be, to review where we are at as a community, to consolidate and distill our work into propositions for action going forward and invite some guest artists to offer other perspectives that would enhance our thinking and practice. We wanted to share the results at Indepen-Dance’s, Gathered Together and Unlimited, Glasgow.

Katie Miller a recent dance graduate was one of the handful of folk who could turn up, told us that there are so many people who want to be part of this work but they don’t know how to get in.

And so this is a very simple open invitation. We began to draft an application. But I’m not sure. I am not sure about another working group or another consortium, another layer of administration absorbing resources that should go to artists to make art.

But we don’t want these artists or others to disappear. We don’t want to lose that space of possibility, this spectrum of practice.

There are questions of capacity. And there are questions of priorities. Of transparency and permeability. It’s not one persons or organization’s responsibility. No one is an island. It is about all of us. About the what’s in between. The continued development and support of people and practices that enrich and evolve our art form. Our realities and the realities of those we don’t yet know.

This is an open invitation for action, to gather together.

What if we all acted as agents for change?

Watch Luke Pell delivering this talk for Gathered Together in Glasgow 2016. 

Luke Pell will also be part of the What Is Unlimited conversations on Evolution and What Next? on Sunday 18 September at 5pm at Tramway. He will also be co-facilitating Day 2 of the What Next? symposium at Tramway on 22 September. 

Ramesh Meyyappan: To sign or not to sign?

Unlimited!  Unlimited access to…Unlimited exposure of... Unlimited opportunities.  I like to think that Unlimited provides an opportunity for deaf and disabled artists to access the funding, the venues, that for a long time were far from Unlimited – the limits did have bounds!  I like to think that Unlimited provides exposure to deaf and disabled artists who for quite a while didn’t have the venue support or the platforms to present their work.  I like to think that Unlimited provides an endless sea of opportunity particularly to those for whom those opportunities where limited.

Unlimited – What?  What exactly am I doing here?  What is it I have to say and how is it relevant to Unlimited. 

I’m here because I’m Deaf.  I’m here not just because I was the recipient of 2 very generous Unlimited funding awards – but rather, I’m here because I have an opportunity to talk, to share my experiences and to explain why I have chosen to ensure that I don’t limit my opportunities and describe why I do what I do.

I’m asking here; ‘To sign or not to sign’.  This is not an easy question to ask myself – I’m deaf, sign language is my language, for all of us our own language is what helps identify us, it’s central to who we are – it is our identity, all our thoughts and experiences are shared and communicated through our language.

I make claims (sometimes) that I represent the deaf, my work gives the deaf a voice.  I state that I aim to raise awareness of deaf through my work, to challenge perceptions of what deaf is…and yet – I choose not to sign. 

As performers we have a unique opportunity to put ourselves on stage, bare our souls, show people who we are, share our thoughts our concerns, show pure and honest emotion – and yet I appear to deny myself the opportunity to do this using my first language – sign language!

I frequently ask myself why I don’t sign and there are other deaf who ask the same of me and I have had to remind myself and explain to others – why sign language is not my natural ‘theatrical language’.

Growing up and watching theatre – unable to hear the spoken word (stating the obvious!) – I learned to pick up on the visual, the expressions that spoke volumes and the movement and physicality that gave what I was watching meaning – this was theatre.  An intention or a thought was seen rather than heard.   Watching an interpreter at the side of the stage – I am doing just that – watching an interpreter!  I therefore miss everything else that is theatre, sign language in that context is not the theatrical language.

The basic function of any language it seems, is to facilitate communication, this is the same of any theatrical language – to communicate.    I want sign language to be that theatrical language – and there has been times it has been, but over the years I’ve witnessed sign language failing, purely because the audience watching didn’t understand the language, didn’t understand the sign.

Having participated in a number of international deaf theatre festivals, I have often found myself sitting in an audience completely confused and struggling to comprehend the story which is unfolding on stage. When a performance uses a native sign language – foreign to my own, I feel alienated and frustrated that I cannot understand.  During moments like these, I forget any notion of the captive beauty of sign language as I become overwhelmed by the desire to just understand the narrative – what is being shared by the characters on stage.

Of course, one could argue that during such festivals it should be anticipated that a range of native sign language from various countries will be on stage.  However, for many deaf theatre companies such festivals and international tours make up a large proportion of their performance calendar – and I wonder how much of their performance is accessible to the deaf communities from other countries. 

My simplistic logic is; why perform on an international or any stage if you are not going to be understood, theatre is about communication and that communication is most effective when people understand it.  I’m not ignoring the idea of theatre as self-expression but do we not owe it to ourselves to ensure what we are expressing is understood!

I have experienced frustration and disappointment on numerous occasions when ‘hearing’ haven’t understood that they can communicate with me.  One such occasion happened in Singapore – a theatre director (The God of theatre in Singapore) had seen one of my earlier performances and had waited to speak to me at the end – he explained how he loved watching me and that he really wanted to work with me.  He never did work with me, he didn’t know what to do with me, he assumed we wouldn’t find a common theatrical language.  I think if hearing actors and directors are honest with themselves and they haven’t experienced working with a deaf person – they will admit like this ‘theatre God’ admitted, they don’t know what to do with ‘US’!

Over the years I’ve been clear when asked about what my aim is, my mission!  It is to continually extend my visual theatrical vocabulary.  Describing my work as visual, with a visual vocabulary more people understand the vocabulary is one that is shared.  Indeed, in the development stages of my work we talk about finding the language, finding the vocabulary and the collaborators and myself work together to find it.

I don’t want to sound arrogant – and I hope I don’t, but by collaborating with others to find a shared language, I am representing the deaf, I am saying we can work with others, that deaf do not have to feel forced into insular working practices. 

My work continually changes, evolves -  working with the various collaborators the visual theatrical language develops for each piece of work.

I don’t think deaf should abandon their true voice – their first language of sign language – I would never advocate the abandonment of sign language.  

I look to a future where sign language is part of a shared theatrical vocabulary and that will only happen with more deaf voices on stage, sign language being ‘common place’ within the theatre environment.  I genuinely cringe at reactions to sign on stage by people who don’t understand what has been said, it feels patronizing when they say – it’s beautiful – how do they know!  Surely the beauty is in how eloquently or honestly a meaning / intention / emotion has been communicated and not because something ‘looks nice’.

The future I feel requires questions and discussion and hopefully action:

How do we get to a place where deaf and hearing first language share a stage, where there is a shared understanding of what is being expressed, felt and communicated?

Ramesh Meyyappan will be speaking as part of What is Unlimited? conversations on Sunday 18 September 2016 and will be offering a workshop Talking Visually as part of the What Do You Do? programme.