Performers with Learning Difficulties and Issues of Identity, Resistance and Collaboration

Performers with learning difficulties and issues of identity, resistance and collaboration: 'No More Hiding Behind the Curtain' Irene Kappes Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Education University of Sheffield July 2010 ALL MISSING PAGES ARE BLANK IN ORIGINAL Summary This research focuses on the performing arts lives of four performers with learning difficulties, who were all employed by the Razor Edge Theatre Initiative and had been involved in performing arts for many years - as either actor, musician or dancer. The researcher was a joint director of this organisation. The research proposes the use of performing arts methods in inclusive research with artists with learning difficulties. It demonstrates the potential for performers with learning difficulties to explore, reflect on, embody and communicate their thoughts and feelings through their art and thereby contribute to disability research. Performing arts methods become a tool for collecting data, for enabling participants to contribute their views, for presenting findings. The practice-based approach offers an alternative to methods involving verbal interviewing and written representations and contributes to the debates in the literature about finding ways to include verbally less-articulate individuals. In an attempt to build on the work of other inclusive researchers a research process evolved where very little was preordained, in order to leave room for the artists to influence the direction of the research. Collaboration with the artists to develop research that was transforming and useful for them as developing artists became a central concern. Development of an artistic identity can be a means for people with learning difficulties to challenge reductive notions of learning difficulties, as is evidenced by the Disability Arts movement. By foregrounding their claims to an artistic identity and focusing on the participants' skills and ambitions as artists, the stories in this research project emphasise the multi-faceted and transient nature of the artists' identities, as well as their abilities to use their skills as a means of reflection and expression. Artists with learning difficulties need opportunities to develop their skills. The struggle to achieve recognition as an artist can be connected to lack of effective inclusion policies, lack of funding, and to exclusive academic values and aesthetic perceptions based on notions of normal/abnormal. Performers with learning difficulties have to forge their own pathways, create their own opportunities with non-disabled allies in the arts. This they do in the context of theatre, music and dance companies that comprise an artistic community aiming for inclusion. The research suggests that opening up access to Higher Education in performing arts may enable performers with learning difficulties to make contributions to aesthetic developments and debates and to use their art to contribute to disability research. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their support and encouragement: Thanks to my husband, Panik Pantziarka, for getting me into this mess in the first place and for redeeming himself by his constant technical support and his enduring ability to listen, support and encourage. To my supervisor Michele, thank you for your continual support and guidance, and for encouraging me to have the confidence to 'follow my nose', even when I had no idea where it was leading me. Thank you to Robert, Walter, David and Vince for your loyalty, friendship, hard work and all your contributions, without which this project would not have happened. Thanks to Rachel Ferriman for giving her time and expertise free of charge and making the DVDs Thank you to members of the Board of Governors of Razor Edge, especially June Mitchell, who recognised the value of this research and allowed me to use work time to carry it out. Also, thanks to my co-director, Mike Ormerod, for the same reason and for his continuing support and friendship. Finally, thank you George and Louis for watching the performance, assisting with the lighting, looking at the stories and giving useful feedback, as well as putting up with bits of paper all over the living room floor and dinner being late again. iii Contents Summary Acknowledgements iii Chapter One: Introducing the Research Project 1 Chapter Two: A Theoretical Framework 43 Chapter Three: Policy and Practice in Performing Arts Education 77 Chapter Four: Methodology and the Research Process 117 Chapter Five: Describing and Evaluating the Process: some findings in 161 relation to methodology Chapter Six: The Stories of the Four Artists 229 Chapter Seven: Analysis of the Artists' Stories 291 Chapter Eight: Conclusions and Recommendations 381 References 407 Appendices 419 v Chapter One Introducing the research project The Project in Brief In this thesis the reader will find an account of a research project carried out with four performers with learning difficulties, which has resulted in the production of stories about their lives in performing arts. Following a presentation of the research aims and broad agenda, the thesis will layout the theoretical framework for the research, reflecting the position of the researcher and the theoretical arguments that have guided me. In relation to this, the reader will find discussions around the social model of disability (Oliver 1990, 1996, 2009, Shakespeare 2006, Thomas 2007), the social construction of learning difficulties (Goodley 2000a, 200 1, MeVittie et al 2008), the writings of the educationalist, Paulo Freire (1993, orig publ, 1970) and the theatre practitioner Augusto Boal (1979, 1995, 1998, 200 I), as well as literature about the self-advocacy movement (Chappell et al 2001, Goodley and Armstrong 2(01) and Disability Arts movement (Vasey 1990, Barnes 2003a, Heart 'n Soul 2007). The discussions of these writers will serve to show that my perspective is coloured by a belief that people with learning difficulties have been disadvantaged by the label of 'learning difficulties', which has been bestowed by clinical experts (Beart 2005), is based on a medicalisation of disability (Oliver 1996, Oliver and Barnes J 998, Oliver 2009) and on a relational comparison to a mythical 'norm' (McVittie et al 2008). The 1 research described in this thesis should be seen in the context of people with learning difficulties in the self-advocacy and Disability Arts movements, who are grouping together to challenge reductive notions of the label 'learning difficulties' and lay claim to their rights as full citizens (Goodley 2000a, Chappell et a12001, Heart 'n Soul 2007). This thesis attempts to show that there are performers with learning difficulties who, through their art and their artistic identity, are speaking out for themselves and presenting their identity as people behind this label (Karafistan 2004). Access to training to develop the knowledge and skills to become recognised as a professional performer is a key issue for aspiring performers with learning difficulties (Razor Edge 2004). The thesis examines recent disability legislation and its limitations in enabling people with learning difficulties to access performing arts training. It shows how aspiring performers with learning difficulties, such as the participants in this research, are having to forge their own pathways, with the help of their non- disabled allies (Heart 'n Soul 2007) and it examines some of the aesthetic perceptions (Conroy 2003, Kuppers 2(03) that may affect attitudes to these performers and perpetuate their exclusion (Anjali 2(07). It examines the artistic communities that attempt to nurture the talents of performers with learning difficulties. The reader will see that the development of an inclusive methodology has been at the centre of this project. Ideas, from authors who propose methodologies to make research accessible and useful to disadvantaged groups, are introduced, including discussions about research with indigenous peoples (Tuhiwai Smith 1999), inclusive research with people with learning difficulties (Box hall et al 2004, Townson et al 2004) and the use of performance ethnography with African American groups (Denzin 2003). 2 The heart of this thesis is exposed here, with a focus on dialogic, collaborative approaches to research and to the production of knowledge, which draw on feminist perspectives on research, as put forward by Oakley (1981). Notions of the independent researcher are rejected, as well as notions of the independently achieving indi vidual. On the contrary, creative collaboration (John-Steiner 2000, Sturges 2008), to develop skills and produce knowledge, is seen as a means to enable participation in education and research - by individuals who have previously been excluded from both (Chappell 2000, Boxhall et al 2004). The research process described includes the use of performing arts methods to enable the performers in this study to speak out for themselves, in their own ways, foregrounding their claims to an artistic identity, and adding their voices to an emerging history of people with learning difficulties, as told by themselves (Atkinson and Walmsley 1999, Atkinson 2004). The main focus is on the process of developing one story, in particular, into a short performance. The evaluation of this process (in Chapter Five) and the analysis of the performance (Chapter Seven) show how exploration and presentation of ideas through dance enabled both performer and audience to access levels of emotional depth that served to

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