Abstract:
A new piece authored by Edward Wadsworth and Cyrff Ystwyth. Wadsworth is a learning disabled person. ‘Psychedelia’ developed as a response by Wadsworth and the company to media reports of high levels of hate crime and hate speech committed against learning disabled people in Britain. This difficult and disturbing theme was threaded through Wadsworths’ interest with the 1960’s cultural cliches of psychedelic music and fashion. Through discussion led by the Investigator embodied articulations of resistance and escape were formulated into choreography. The result was a performance that expressed issues of power and powerlessness, and ultimately dealt with the experience of dependancy, and the necessity for, care and support, whilst offering a challenge to social constructions of disabled people as deviant and as Snyder and Mitchell state: ‘The re-deployment of disabled bodies serves as more than a tool of integration; it becomes a tool of art itself by reclaiming that which has been historically viewed as dysfunctional ( Snyder and Mitchell 2001: 386). Synder, Sharon, L and Mitchell, David, T. 2001. Re-engaging the Body: Disability Studies and the Resistance to Embodiment. Public Culture Volume 13 No. 3 pp.367-389.
Description:
T.Dyfeisiwyd/Devised by – Edward Wadsworth. Cyfarwyddwr/ Director/ Researcher - Margaret Ames. Lighting Design - Becky Mitchell. /Production Staff TFTS. /Publicity nad photography - Nick Strong. Performers - Carwyn Daniel, Andrew Evans, Helen Evans, Sam Evans, Heather Giles, Adrian Jones, Patricia Marks, Lucy Smith, Jo Strong, Edward Wadsworth. Helen Williams.
Description: 1. What kind of dance performance might evolve through the agency of a disabled dance author? 2. In what ways might this work interrogate aesthetic principles of beauty in dance and the dancer’s body? 3. How does the disabled and untrained dancer see her/himself? 4. Can the large discrepancies in technical performance of choreography in this work, be perceived as contributions to a radical challenge to conventional notions of beauty and entertainment in performance? How might the inscription of disability in bodies reveal radical beauty and redefine new performance in rural Wales? How might the disabled artist communicate specific artistic visions and proceed through the creative process? How might asking these questions through practice, contribute to the process of a minority culture defining itself within Britain?
