Ruth Gould: Creative Force in Disability Arts
A profile of Ruth Gould, Creative DIrector of North West Disability Arts Forum, by Joe Bidder.
Ruth Gould in 1980's mime performance
Raised in Croxteth, one of Liverpool’s toughest neighbourhoods, Ruth Gould has forged a unique and influential position for disability arts in her native city.
North West Disability Arts Forum, NWDAF, played a vital role in securing European Capital of Culture status for Liverpool for 2008. As Creative Director for NWDAF, Gould has crafted many enduring partnerships and succeeded in placing disability arts at the forefront of Liverpool’s arts and culture.
In 2005 DaDaFest (NWDAF’s annual deaf and disability arts festival) was named Merseyside Tourism Award best small arts event alongside Antony Gormley’s statues in the sea which won best large arts event.
Disability Arts and NWDAF have a high profile in Liverpool, which is probably the only town in Britain to publicly acknowledge the contribution that disability arts makes to the vibrancy of the city. This status does not come as a right; it comes from vision, creative drive, years of patient networking, teamwork and a tremendous amount of hard work. As a consequence, NWDAF has earned its place at the forefront of disability arts movement in Britain: it is the largest disability arts agency in Britain and Ruth Gould is a major figure in the arts.
The early years
Gould’s early years were not easy. A genetic hearing impairment was unidentified until she was seven, when she was made to wear a wire and box hearing device safety-pinned to her dress, and then underwent several experimental operations. Gould says little about it but one can imagine the victimization and exclusion she must have endured in ‘60s Liverpool. It was a negative experience and her self esteem was low.
“My mother was an important influence” Gould says “and never stopped fighting for me to be included in mainstream schools” and adds with some pride “In school holidays she was an artists’ model at Liverpool Art School when David Hockney was there.”
She failed the 11 plus and went to a comprehensive school. During this period her mother qualified as a teacher and continued a successful fight for Gould’s rights to a mainstream education and intensive speech therapy.
“I got five O’levels” she recalls “the second best result in my year, but when I tried to get work, successively as a midwife, a teacher, a physiotherapist, I was rejected for all of these because I was deaf”
“I left home when I was eighteen and worked as a local government pen-pusher” Gould recalls “It was depressing and isolating and I lived in a small council flat.”
In 1980 she met Tom, her future husband, a musician and illustrator, and then fell pregnant. “It was a positive turning-point” she says “It gave me a reason to live.”
Gould became involved with dance and movement via Liverpool’s Houghton Jacobs Dance School and the Bluecoat Arts Centre. It was to be a significant time for her “I discovered my body could be used as an instrument. I was supple; I could do the splits; I could mime” she recalls “I was turned on by performance. A spark had been ignited within me.”
In 1983 she successfully auditioned for the Liverpool Theatre School, when 400 applicants competed for 60 places, with an interpretive dance piece based on Eliot’s poetic masterpiece “The Wasteland”.
“The Theatre School was my first positive experience of being educated” says Gould “I began to surmount all the negative experiences of the past, gaining confidence in speech and public speaking” But in 1985 Gould had a second baby and had to quit theatre school a year before the course ended.
For three years there was a constant struggle to survive in a Merseyside stricken with rapid industrial decline and political self-destruction. The Goulds made a decisive move in 1988. “We heard about the School of Creative Arts in Sydney” she states “Around that time we just couldn’t make it, couldn’t get work, couldn’t get off benefits … so we applied for the one-year course in Australia and were accepted” and adds emphatically “We sold everything we had, which wasn’t much, and left Liverpool.”
Ruth discovers Disability Arts
last updated: 2008-05-08 09:29:29
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