By Liam O’Dell When it comes to creating a work of performance art, sometimes it can be helpful to start with an image – and that image doesn’t have to be your typical, two-dimensional kind, either. Martin O’Brien is an artist who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and in his work, he challenges the common representation of illness – through physical endurance, hardship and pain-based practices. He also looks to examine what it means to be born with a life-threatening condition, with cystic fibrosis having an average lifespan of 30 years. In a workshop for members of the CRIPtic Creative Showcase,…
Category: Workshop Write-Ups
Social Media, Promotion, Networking and PR
As a writer working across forms – drama, fiction, non-fiction; not to mention non-writing work like speaking engagements, facilitation, and other things that occupy some kind of nebulous “creative” space but aren’t clearly defined or definable – as this kind of jack-of-all-trades creative, it’s sometimes really hard to tell people about what I do. I have a Google Doc with a bunch of different bios in it, depending on whether I’m working on a project which is more academic, or creative; to do with facilitation, or journalism, or creative writing. It’s like there are loads of different versions of me,…
Creative Captioning with Samuel Dore
My first blog for CRIPtic was on audio description and how it can be used as a creative tool; I left feeling energised and inspired to create work which truly integrates audio description, which treats accessibility as a consideration of equal importance to plot, language, and form. I felt similarly after the creative captioning workshop – I’ve always been interested in form, in disrupting audience expectations, in work that is surprising and captivating in new ways. I love the idea of captions which enhance a performance, rather than just describing it. Politically, I feel strongly that accessibility should be much…
3 resources to help you integrate British Sign Language into your performance with David Ellington
It’s one thing providing access; it’s another embedding it into your performance. In the case of British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation, artists are finding creative ways to integrate sign language into an act, rather than have an interpreter sit awkwardly at the side of the stage. In our latest CRIPtic workshop, Deaf actor David Ellington talked us through some ways to think about integrating BSL into performances. Here, we share David’s top resources to help you consider British Sign Language within the performing arts. Learn the BSL alphabethttps://vimeo.com/447637353/86de5e5a7a Before you can even begin to think about integrating BSL into a…
Arts Council England Funding for d/Deaf & disabled artists
In the most recent CRIPtic workshop, the focus was on Arts Council funding – how to get it, what to do with it. I’ve applied for ACE funding before – both times desperately last minute, wrangling with Grantium at 11pm on deadline day, vowing never to make the same mistake again. I’ve even attended workshops about ACE funding before, but what’s special about the CRIPtic workshops is the sense of being the target audience for once – access information isn’t half-heartedly added on at the end, it’s front and centre, and being translated into BSL as we go. It’s one…
Integrated and Creative Access with Touretteshero
CRIPtic meets Jess Thom: ‘Creativity can be a catalyst for change’ For deaf and disabled creatives working in the arts, it’s easier to produce art which is accessible to ourselves, with access bolted on to the end. Rather than thinking about how our work can be created with British Sign Language (BSL) at the very beginning of the process, for example, the question is often how the work can be translated into BSL. When it comes to making art, access needs to be right at the heart of everything we do. Yet in order to do that, the idea of…
Integrated Audio-Description with Quiplash
I’m a disabled writer working across performance, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Last month, I was invited to attend half the workshops on the CRIPtic programme as a notetaker and blogger, and jumped at the chance – to learn more about access, to develop my craft, and to meet other emerging disabled creatives. The first workshop, last week, covered integrated audio-description: the different types of audio description, ways to integrate it into your project, and some exercises that illustrated how audio description can be useful – or useless. I learned way more than I was expecting to, in terms of both…
