There’s a saying in the disabled community: nothing about us without us. Stemming from a painful history of institutions and freakshows, the saying champions disabled autonomy rather than the ideas and ideals of non-disabled folk, which unfortunately often fall into the charitable or medical models of disability*. In today’s theatre landscape, Relaxed theatre sits at a moral fork in the road: one path following the charitable model, seeing disabled engagement in art as an opt-in add-on to “standard” theatre; the other, an opportunity to foster a radical system that necessitates not just disabled autonomy and art, but the autonomy and art of every othered individual and community**. This system arises from expanding the principles of Relaxed theatre, thus applying its key concepts to the whole artistic process. Here, I’ll look from the perspective of othered communities at why radical Relaxed theatre is a vital and enriching movement in the Arts today, and will address its personal, artistic, and societal benefits.
Opening the stage door
In all their various iterations, Relaxed performances have two key factors: that the audience is free to move around, and that the audience is free to make noise. It’s a strong foundation, immediately bucking theatre’s sit-down-and-shut-up tradition. From this point on, various venues and companies add their own tweaks: guaranteed wheelchair access, adjusted lighting and sound, a quiet space outside the auditorium, content warnings, affordable ticket prices - a huge array of techniques in place to simply make watching theatre more accessible. With these alterations, the door is opened to new audiences. Yet, when venues and companies stop here, it’s only the audience demographic that changes. The change doesn’t reach rehearsal rooms, lighting boxes, or directors’ chairs.
By expanding Relaxed theatre’s format to apply to the whole artistic process, creating and partaking in theatre can also be made accessible. Rehearsal spaces and meeting rooms become accessible: physically, socially, economically. Creative practitioners are able to bring their whole selves to work, knowing they’ll be welcomed.
In concrete terms, a Relaxed workspace might look like:
Awareness of, and provision for, team members’ needs, and flexibility for needs to change, allowing practitioners to pursue their wellness in conjunction with their artistic development.
Always offering and receiving a choice, accompanied by full information surrounding the choice, such as when requiring contact work from actors, the use of headsets by technicians, or the exploration of potential triggering content by writers. This prioritises the practitioner’s agency, and realigns the creative process as a collaborative endeavour.
Acknowledgement of team members as whole individuals: no part of them can be left at the door. When practitioners are permitted to acknowledge all parts of themselves, they are permitted to work with all these parts too, in a way that is beneficial to them, their team, and their art.
Whilst Relaxed performances that widen audience demographics are a vital step, they’re just that: a step in the journey. By allowing othered communities in through the auditorium door but not the stage door, a message is sent loud and clear: look, but don’t touch. This message is a painful and frustrating symptom of the charitable model. Investigating the barriers to careers in the arts and providing sustainable, meaningful solutions to them is the next vital step in the journey.
Othered art
When othered communities take charge throughout the creative process, two shifts occur: the stories that represent otherness become authentic and diverse, and so do the perspectives that we use to tell them. Being able to tell the stories we want to tell - be they our stories, fictional stories, or the stories of our ancestors, neighbours, or friends - gives a rich, pluralistic, and truthful representation of our communities. Stereotypes littered across mainstream media come under fire, the complexity of identities is celebrated, and universal truths filter through a fresh prism.
As othered groups tell stories, signature perspectives for storytelling emerge - systems of values that are often at odds with what has come to be accepted within mainstream media. Yinka Shonibare, the British-Nigerian artist, described disability arts as “the last avant garde”, perhaps relating to its celebration of non-normative bodies and minds, or its position at odds with a capitalist society, or its pursuit of justice, pride, and solidarity which beckons artistic thinking in new directions. Black arts, driven by companies like Talawa Theatre Company and The Upsetters Theatre Company, challenge systemic mis- and under-representation of people of colour, pushing against a colonial mindset. Queer arts, championed by companies like Outbox and festivals like Homotopia, overthrow cisheteronormative values and reject conventional societal roles. These perspectives - and those belonging to feminist art, working class art, international art, and more - are sorely needed in the arts, and can only exist where these communities thrive throughout the artistic process. With a system of Relaxed theatre in place throughout this process, the artistic product becomes more whole, more representative, and more radical.
Upheaval, transformation, justice
Where there’s resistance to Relaxed theatre, it often says more about the reasons to fight harder than the reasons to back away. A common obstacle to physical accessibility is a theatre’s status as a listed building. Listed status prevents any permanent changes to the building’s architecture, including details as small as changing the height of handrails or installing a permanent ramp. It’s a callous roadblock in the progression of the accessible movement, allowing theatre managers, governing organisations, and local councils to each be complicit whilst never taking full responsibility. It can serve as a harsh reminder that it’s difficult to reform a society that values buildings over disabled lives.
Change is well underway, though. From companies that lead with accessibility and inclusion at the forefront, like Graeae, Tourettes Hero, and Tramshed, to venues and companies employing practitioners dedicated to improving access and inclusion, the movement is constantly gathering momentum. In upholding the experience of othered communities in the artistic process and fighting for the necessity of othered art, Relaxed theatre is inherently radical: we are positioned at odds with the status quo. With the many companies, venues, and individuals that are already working towards this aim, and the many more that are joining us, a society that values disabled lives over buildings, and othered communities over the status quo, is in sight.
The progress that is being made in Relaxed and accessible theatre is vital, but for as long as these changes have their roots in charitability, the progress will be erasable. All it takes is one director, theatre manager, or organisation to see accessibility as an opt-in choice, rather than a foundation for art, for the work to be set back. Seen through a charitable lens, venues are applauded for installing a ramp, and companies are applauded for using sign language interpreters. These efforts are vital, but in isolation, they are ego-boosting and quota-filling for the ruling organisation, regardless of whether they benefit the audiences that need them. Each tweak and upgrade can’t exist in a vacuum - they need to exist within an alternate, radical system for theatre that accounts for the entire artistic process, from the inception of ideas to their performance before an audience. This system encompasses not just othered audiences, but othered performers, creators, technicians, and organisers. Within this system, the work of othered creatives is essential. Companies like those mentioned above have been expanding the definition of accessible and inclusive theatre for years, cementing their progress for the future. An expanded vision of Relaxed theatre reveals that accessibility in the arts is a transformative and radical necessity: for individuals, for art, and for society.
*The models of disability are conceptual alignments for how disability is thought of. The medical model seeks to “treat” disabled people and “cure” us of our disabilities, and thus is not very popular amongst disabled people. The charitable model stems from the medical model, and views disabled people as dependents to be pitied and helped by non-disabled people - so is not very well thought of either. The social model is favoured by lots of disabled people (although not all) and seeks to remove the barriers which disable people. For more information: https://www.scope.org.uk/about-us/social-model-of-disability/
**Othering describes a dominant in-group (white, cisgender, heterosexual, male, economically stable, abled) stigmatising difference, thus ostracising non-dominant out-groups. For more information:https://othersociologist.com/otherness-resources/
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