Performing disability history research to 21 st Century Audiences

1. Performing disability history research to 21st Century Audiences International Federation of Theatre Research 2012 Santiago, Chile Dr Sonali Shah Centre for Disability Studies University of Leeds

2. Biographical narratives/Life stories in research • Preservation of our past • Enabling emancipatory research practice • Inform younger generations of past cultures and practices – evidence of social change • Ensure accurate representation of the lives of oppressed minorities i.e. disabled people • ‘History is owned and documented by those in power, and invisibility and silence are cornerstones of oppression’. (French & Swain, 2000)

3. Textual stories • Disabled people’s memories preserved through written texts – interview transcripts, academic analysis • Textual narratives directed at academic audiences • Textual linear narratives permits literal reading of the story • One dimensional nature of textual representations prevent the mapping of relationships, social spaces and time • Separation of body from narrative reduces impact of emotions, interactions, individual/ collective cultural experience

4. Performing Text • Transform social science research into something accessible for non-academic audiences • Facilitate embodiment of narratives to help develop understanding of social issues • Recover multiple dimensions of lived experience lost in textual narratives • Bring research alive to enhance the knowledge base of younger audiences • Embodying historical narratives can change traditional perspectives shaped by social structures • Helps to encourage strategies for resistance and social change

5. ‘Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it.’ (Boal, 1992:xxxi)

6. Project Aims • Increase disability awareness and equality in schools • Encourage children to engage with disability stories from different times and work with disabled actors • Advance children's and teachers' historical understanding of disability • Engage with real stories to learn about different historical worlds • Build school children’s capacity as historical agents: • provide opportunities for them to embody and manipulate stories of disability history and culture in English society • Produce extended TIE Pack for 100 English schools

7. Background/Inspiration: 2 projects Project 1 (funded Nuffield Foundation) : Based on qualitative interviews to chart the socio-historical changes impacting lives of people with physical impairments since Second World War to the present day Project 2 (funded by AHRC) : Workshop project to explore performance potential of qualitative life history data http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9RAt6tBXwo

8. METHODS • Interdisciplinary and cross-sector team - academics, theatre practitioners, disabled actors, disability and education practitioners, secondary schools • Tool that cross disciplinary, methodological and epistemological boundaries of social studies and performance studies. • Provide space for school children to explore real problems and devise innovative solutions through embodiment of socio-cultural conversations

9. Process Stage 1: Talking Heads • Life story interview transcripts translated into dramaturgical material • Disabled actors perform life story monologues for Talking Heads film • Bear witness to real life testimonies - using Brechtian style delivery

10. Dan’s Story When I first left school, because all my family to sea, my Dad was in the Navy, my first cousin, Tony, who was just like a brother. he decided that when he left school he was going in the Navy and I said, “So am I” and I can remember, we both went down to the recruiting office in town, walked in, “I want to join the Navy,” the bloke looked at me and he says, “You can’t join the Navy”’ I said “why? I want to join the Navy.” He said “you won’t be able to march.” I said “they don’t march in the Navy, that’s the Army.” • He said, “no, I’m sorry.” And that then really, I think that brought, that was the first time it brought it home to me that, it would stop me doing something I really wanted to do. And I really wanted to go in the navy, because all our family’s gone to sea, either on trawlers, in the Navy, in the Merchant Navy, and I’d really set my heart on going in the Navy, and I’d come out of there, and I thought, bloody hell, marching, what do you have to march for?

11. Stories are (re) interpreted and (re) presented Narratives are representations, involving interpretation and selection in their construction (the ‘telling’), in their consumption (my ‘reading’), in their reproduction (my ‘re-presentation’), and in their further interpretation (your ‘reading’). (Thomas, 1999: 7)

12. Stage 2: Workshop methods • Theatre pathway • Process of devising short play – reading story, organise characters and actions into scenes • Installation pathway • Multi-stage process to transpose textual narrative, via movement, sound and visuals, into a performance narrative

13. The Pilot Schools • 3 mainstream secondary schools with performance arts focus: • Cathedral Academy of Performing Arts – 6th form – ages 16-19 • Garforth Academy – KS 3 Drama – yrs7-9 – ages 11-14 • Cockburn School

14. Some feedback from schools • ‘I will be a bit more aware in life about disabled people, they do struggle’. • ‘It was probably worse in the 1940’s than the 80’s because of the new discrimination act’. • ‘No access in the 40’s compared to the 80’s’ • ‘Performance is better as we got to show our own opinions through it’. •  ’Performance allows us to show how emotional we thought our story was’. • ‘Good to know how disability and the behaviour towards disability has changed overtime’. • ‘I found it easier to take stuff in by doing it through creative tasks. I don’t understand just reading it off paper but creatively I understand better’.

15. Performance of Dan’s story via installation method

16. Conclusions and challenges • Research process has potential to distort ‘real’ stories as (re) presentation is tinted by disciplinary lens • Success of workshops need right combination of facilitators, school interest and teacher enthusiasm • Development of methods influenced by several variables: objectives of project, abilities of facilitators, time allocated and socio-cultural environment of schools • Presence of disabled facilitators increased disability awareness among school children • Personal identities of disabled facilitators impact how they teach children about disability histories • Children’s performances shaped by their imaginings of disability and history

17. Thank you for listening Dr Sonali Shah s.l.shah@leeds.ac.uk