Disability Arts: Good or bad?
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Mat Fraser talks about the support he's had from the Disability Arts world and the need for more constructive criticism.
criticism not judgement
We have to hang on to the idea of Disability Arts as a safe environment where disabled people who decide they want to perform, can explore who they are and find their voice as an artist. We can all benefit from the scene whether we are interested in producing work that is about impairment issues, or not. It's important that someone like Susan Hedges, for example - doesn't feel they have to write more than one song about their impairment, to be a part of the Disability Arts scene. In a world that tells us we're shit because we're disabled, it's especially important that we have a unique place that provides peer group pressure and support.
Whether what we create is 'good' or 'bad' - is the line where argument, concept, discussion and progression all meet. We need criticism. More than ever there is need for harder criticism. At the same time we need to stay free from the sort of judgement values that come from the mainstream, that deny our expression. There were problems with the recent Graeae production On Blindness, for example. Being told by critics that we were bad actors and that the play could have been better produced, was necessary. Being told by Charles Spencer - the Daily Telegraph critic - that the notion that a short-armed man could be a painter, was not credible. Well that is just ridiculous disablist crap.
It is important that we look at the levels of professionalism within Disability Arts. We need to move the line and decide which side of it we're on. If what a company does is to use Disability Arts to explore who and what they are as performers and as disabled people, that is fine. But we need to be clear that the work is about the process. When it starts to become about the product, we have to take on board that it will be subject to the levels of criticism that all art is subject to. That's a good thing.
It's about deciding who you want your audience to be. I've total respect for disabled artists like Johnny Crescendo who have stuck by their guns through their whole career. But it's one thing if you want to play to a disability audience and another if you want to be on ITV at 6pm. You're going to have to be able to deal with a lot of flack if you want to attack the mainstream - which has been my ambition. I need to be good at what I do and take great pains to be as professionally competent as possible - and still be in a position to take the political agenda forward.
last updated: 2004-11-01 00:00:00
More by this author : Disability Arts Cymru
tags : disability arts political definition professional development review performing arts