Aidan Moesby on Unfixed

In the last 10 days I have been at the Unlimited Southbank Festival followed by a week long residency at the Pervasive Media Studio in Watershed, Bristol. The residency brought together artists from the UK and Australia to explore Digital and Disability - a conversation which started in Adelaide last October - under #Unfixed. A collaboration between Australian Network for Art and Technology and Unlimited.

I mention this because I have felt both incredibly supported and liberated by being surrounded by people with disabilities within this context and yet it has raised many conflicting feelings too.

In London there was no hint that you had to justify or explain your disability. You were not any less or more of a person because of it. I knew I was existing in a tolerance bubble. Outside on the other side of the world the Paralympics were going on in Rio. The heroes and inspirers - Channel Four took out huge billboard adverts with Paralympians posing and the word ‘disability’ below with the ‘Dis’ crossed out. In one mark denying so many people of their identities or part of their identity. What if you aren’t a hero, what if you don’t inspire - what then for your worth as a human being, as a person. What if you can’t get out of bed or dress yourself? What if you need assistance and can't walk 10metres let alone run 26 miles? This insidious disability inspiration porn and the hero tropes hung over the southbank - a dark weighty cloud of malevolence.

To add to this, for me, there is a lack of representation in the paralympics of hidden disabilities. Of particular interest to me is the complete lack of Mental Health acknowledgement - no classes for us there. We are denied a presence and a voice.

In some way this resonates with me around issues in the arts and disability world. Performance by disabled artists has improved in quality dramatically over the last few years. Last year at Edinburgh Fringe Festival a huge number of disability lead performances drew in the mainstream crowds, and rightly so. This year at Edinburgh, as a writer with The Sick of the Fringe, I saw a huge variety of issue based live works. The Unlimited festivals continue to invest and showcase the best of the best in performance, dance and live arts. Long may it continue.

Conversely, as a visual artist with a hidden disability - I feel under represented, under acknowledged, not just me, but I look around for my peers and wonder where they are. I wonder where are the white cubes, the hallowed conceptual walls, the abstracted spaces of the galleries, the cathedrals of modern art to be showcased in. 

I meet producers at events and I am glad of it, but where are the curators? Surely the ‘Producer’ model of performance is similar to the ‘Curator’ model of art. Somewhere there is a dis-connect, that for me, does not quite add up. 

This brings me back to Bristol Watershed, the Pervasive Media Studio, where diversely disabled writers, producers, theatre makers, photographers, visual artists, filmographers and technologists met and worked together. I had a glimpse of a possible future and I took my first steps towards it.

Aidan Moesby's Periodic Table of Emotions is exhibited as part of the What Works strand of the Tramway's Unlimited Festival: What? programme. He is part of the panel for Unfixed: In Conversation on Friday 23 September 2016. 

Image: Aidan Moesby's Periodic Table of Emotions

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.