Faced with the task of looking back at the development of Disability Arts - I had to laugh - I realised how much a part of it I have been. You see, dancing was my thing too - as a deaf child who had not learnt sign language - with difficulties of communication deaf children are often desperate to express themselves, to release the pent-up emotion and frustration - otherwise it can take a toll on their mental health. Fortunately, dance was the 'key' to me, and Elmhurst Ballet School took pity and let me stay even though I was not Royal Ballet fodder. I did not hear all the instructions so my technique was poor and when I was doing pirouettes and spins my hearing aid would fall out. Isadora Duncan was my heroine and it showed in my dancing - my port de bras and my expression revealed that dance was my only real outlet for self-expression.
After Ballet School, I discovered sign language. I knew I wanted to put the two together to create Sign Song - but it took me a few more years before I found other people who understood what I was on about. Whereas Nabil Shaban and Richard Tomlinson managed to find each other at University and they gave life to Graeae Theatre Company in 1980, the first professional company of disabled people to challenge the dominance of non-disabled people in theatre.
When Shape London was formed over 25 years ago it only took a few more years for each region to gain a Shape-like organisation that was linked to a Regional Arts Board (RAB). These were mostly providing participatory arts projects for disabled people in long-stay institutions, sometimes this was the first experience of arts for a disabled person.
But I am jumping ahead a bit - consider the time - which was not so long ago and is not so far away - when disabled people were not respected or valued in society generally, were not given the freedom to control their own lives and make their own choices. Disabled people's appreciation of and contribution to the arts was not considered important or even possible in some cases. It really helped to shift things when 1981 was marked as the United Nations Year of Awareness of Disabled People, as Paddy Masefield has said, 'It became an inspiration for a new political awareness of the issues of arts and access to them for Disabled People'.
This growing political awareness brought about the settings up of London Disability Arts Forum (LDAF) and the magazine Disability Arts in London who were really concerned with, and putting all their energy into promoting and supporting Disability Arts described as 'creativity that is determined by the experience of being disabled'. This challenged the way that the Shape organisations were working, as they were not moving with the times and in Paddy's words, had made the mistake of SHAPING decisions on behalf of their disabled clients .
Meanwhile throughout the 1980s, inspired by the Disabled Peoples' Movement, LDAF sprouted regional Disability Arts Forums and also the National Disability Arts Forums. There was the first 'Movin On' Festival and the creation of the most useful arena for disabled artists to explore their talents - this was cabaret. Disability cabarets took place in day centres, institutions, halls and arts venues making a real noise about whom we were and bringing an explosion of creativity that was shaking the grounds of oppressive systems. Some disabled people developed whole new art forms such as Signed Song and Sign Poetry. We were seeing the development of Disability Arts Culture and in this time the musical theatre company Heart n' Soul was founded giving life to what we can now call Learning Disability Culture - an infectious, loving, theatrical experience which is filling out major club venues as we speak.
In 1991 LDAF held its 'Euroday' Disability Festival and commissioned Tony Heaton to make 'Shaken Not Stirred' - this was a sculpture of a pyramid made with charity collecting tins, which he knocked down by throwing an artificial leg at it. Disabled people against the Telethon repeated this 'kicking' moment at the press launch for the demonstration. The debates and our creativity was hotting up...
What was it all about? Were we trying to say something?
We chanted 'rights not charity!', talked 'tragic but brave' made images of the Deaf experience through signed poetry; made jokes about having epileptic fits in the street; Signing a Song - 'Opposites Attract', singing 'I love My Body', 'I Wanna Dance to a Different Drum'; 'Peace on Earth'...
We wanted to be accepted as artists we wanted access to arts training, to arts venues, arts companies and organisations. Well - what would you say... did we get anywhere? No, I mean really - what do you think?
As we gained ground, more disabled role models attracted more artists and more disability arts companies were formed. Shape and its network of organisations could no longer ignore how vital it was to train artists and empower disabled people and accordingly they altered their practice and sometimes their names to reflect this shift in the way they were working.
In 1991 Candoco swooped into the mainstream with integrative dance work that astounded mainstream audiences. Candoco forced the likes of funders and critics to re-evaluate their whole aesthetic of dance. It made them recognise the need for training companies like Candoco, Graeae and Heart n' Soul who provided education and outreach programmes which inspired and empowered new groups of disabled people to explore and produce their own creativity.
Between 1991 - 1996 Disability Arts Magazine, a quarterly colour glossy gave new space for disabled artists to discuss the aesthetics of their work. This rumbled the debate of Disability Arts and Arts and Disabled People, it created a space for those who viewed themselves as artists first. It reminded those in the funding system that disabled people are people - are artists.
In 1995-1996 the Arts Capital Lottery fund was being drawn up. Paddy Masefield helped to slip in a stipulation that all recipients of the Capital Lottery had to make their buildings 100% accessible to disabled people. Then the Lottery A4E fund and Regional RALP programmes which, for all their administrative nightmares, have seen immense investment in the development of disability arts and organisations such as DASH, Artshare, Graeae, Missing Pieces, Art and Power, Fittings Group and the Living Room Project have benefited.
Also we should not forget the Disability Discrimination Act: we are in the middle of witnessing just how much this legislation is going to affect us in the arts world.
So you could say - Ah Hah! We are in the door. But, do you know how to be with us? Do we know how to work with you? Can you help us tap our creativity - or shall we best do it on our own? Are we serving you or are you serving us? Is there anyone who is an expert on all this? Perhaps there is not an us and them, perhaps its all of us together.
Perhaps it is OK now to celebrate our progress - let it give us the faith in our strength that we are sure to need for the debates and struggles that have yet to come. We are still facing issues around access - in the case of arts buildings it seems we can get in only as long as we come one at a time or in neat groups of not more than three (or some such number) and so long as we are cool about going round the back, up the side and in the goods lift.
We are now in a good place to look more closely at issues of empowerment, how do we as disabled people become more central to creative development as leaders, teachers, managers and artists within dance as professionals as well as participants? Having got this far how can we all within this field of work ensure that disability remains a priority in the arts funding system so that funding and support we have witnessed is maintained at the very least?
In the words of Paddy Masefield:
'Precisely because dance is leading the field in this country for making connections between distinguished professionals, disabled and disadvantaged people and young people, it is CRUCIAL that the Foundation for Community Dance sets a national example of what can be achieved when Disabled People are handed artistic control of their own creativity and are allowed to choreograph and manage as well as participate and perform.
I should like to be there when your fire-work of dance explodes across 2002, making rockets, Catherine wheels, sparklers and bangers of Disabled Dancers.'
Sarah Scott, independent consultant. Email: sascott@ontel.net.uk