Embodying the difference – Performing the experience (revised manuscript): on performance and disability

Abstract

This article stems from the author’s experience as a performer, curator, and applied drama and social theatre actor, playwright and operator. It is based on his research “Inclusive Production Methodologies in the Performing Arts for Diversely-Abled Performing Arts Practitioners”, supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (DE). According to the author, disability is not a sign of a lack, but rather a way to encourage people to reduce distances between one another, live in solidarity, and break commonplaces. Considering authenticity as a fundamental quality for performing, he discusses that disabled performers have a genuine immediacy to immerse themselves in the nowness of the action because their vulnerability on stage is unfiltered. In that, he sees stigma as a source of creativity and a qualifying sign capable of eradicating preconceptions and biases. Performance practices are not just a question of ability and skills collection but rather, in Grotowski’s words, an eradication of blocks to adhere to one’s true self. The performer’s body is the prima materia to produce meanings that turn into living images and come into reality. This is regardless of the performer’s physical condition. The article offers examples of performers affected by different forms of disability, such as Felipe Monteiro, Nicola Fornoni and Enok Ripley who report on their specific clinical condition. A particular reference has been made to the collective performance opera Underscars conceived and organised by the author, his partner German artist Verena Stenke and their collaborators in Venice in December 2022.