Skip to main content

Advertisement

Advertisement

SIFA 2014: A special night out with Disabled Theater

SINGAPORE — If the thought of watching (and enjoying) people with special needs dancing their hearts out makes you uncomfortable or just seems off to you, I encourage you to reconsider this position. Disabled Theater is “special”.

Let's groove: Theater HORA performers let their hair down in the group's collaboration with Jerome Bel titled Disabled Theater. Photo: Kevin Lee

Let's groove: Theater HORA performers let their hair down in the group's collaboration with Jerome Bel titled Disabled Theater. Photo: Kevin Lee

Follow TODAY on WhatsApp

SINGAPORE — If the thought of watching (and enjoying) people with special needs dancing their hearts out makes you uncomfortable or just seems off to you, I encourage you to reconsider this position. Disabled Theater is “special”.

That description didn’t come from me, though, but from one of the performers who were asked, as part of the show, what they thought of the piece itself. They weren’t just performers but informed ones who have opinions about what they do, which is theatre. In this particular case, it’s theatre Jerome Bel-style.

“For me, theatre is precisely about being able to see what you’re not used to seeing, what’s hidden and concealed from view,” the French enfant terrible explains in the programme booklet. And on the issue of watching people with learning disabilities performing in a public space: “The only method is confrontation.”

Which is what we have here: 11 members of Swiss group Theater HORA performing onstage and us acknowledging their presence.

Which was, at first, initially awkward. What do we do when confronted by performers who took turns looking at the audience for a minute? We applaud tentatively.

In Bel’s usual detached, stripped-down style, everything is done in point format as a musician/translator takes us through the show step by step: Everyone introduces themselves, names their handicap, dance their solos, share what they think about the piece…

It feels both spontaneous and staged — and it probably is both. Performers bob along to their fellow performers’ solos, joke with each other, as they all sit in a row waiting for their turn. One of them, for reasons unknown to us, had to temporarily leave the stage, seemingly distraught about something. But at the same time, there are also dead giveaways that there’s a structure involved here.

They are, after all, professional theatre actors under the Swiss group — something every performer announces as their occupation. And once you get into that mindset, like I eventually did, things are clarified. The staged feel of Disabled Theater, its own contrived awareness of that aspect, is what pulls it back from being the “freak show” that some people may be apprehensive about (again, the term doesn’t come from me but from one of the performers who describes how a parent described it — but apparently liked it nonetheless).

Disabled Theater doesn’t (consciously) tug at heartstrings; far from it. And this kind of looks-detached-but-actually-very-involved format allows you to see the performers’ personalities shine: The shy one, the cool one, the smug one, etc. There is strength in numbers — and also in the variety of backgrounds. Some have Down’s Syndrome, some autism, epilepsy, hydrocephalus. Some describe themselves as “slow learners” or having a “learning weakness”. All are performers.

Poignant, poetic statements mingle with funny ones. “Autism is a kind of fear. I hate my fear, therefore I am in the theatre — to tame my fear,” says one. “I have one chromosome more than you,” goes another. Doing the show is like going for a doctor’s appointment, someone quips. “You enter, take a seat, wait for your turn.”

*Cymbal crash!*

And what of the dancing itself? It is, of course, at the heart of everything, the physical release, the expression of unrestrained freedom — whether it’s simply headbanging, spinning around, or a decently put-together dance choreography, all done to an eclectic mix of music (Gangnam Style to techno to Justin Bieber). The stand-out performer was also the one who gave me another goosebump moment: Julia Hausermann doing Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Care About Us, doing the crotch grab and splits. Woot.

“I don’t get it. It doesn’t look like theatre,” one of the performers comments about Disabled Theater to laughter from the audience. “It looks more like an audition, a casting call.”

In a sense, perhaps it’s a bit of that — a piece of theatre that asks its audience with such confidence: So how about it, folks, do they make the cut?

 

Disabled Theater runs until Sept 6, 8pm, at SOTA Drama Theatre. Tickets from S$30 to S$50 at SISTIC. For more info on the festival, visit https://sifa.sg/

Theater HORA will also be presenting a workshop performance on Sept 19 and 20, 8pm, at 72-13. Titled Into The Wild, it will include 36 Singaporeans from groups like Association For Persons With Special Needs Centre For Adults, Down Syndrome Association, The Y-Stars, among others. Admission is free. Register at https://sifa.sg/media/show-festivalheart.html

Read more of the latest in

Advertisement

Advertisement

Stay in the know. Anytime. Anywhere.

Subscribe to get daily news updates, insights and must reads delivered straight to your inbox.

By clicking subscribe, I agree for my personal data to be used to send me TODAY newsletters, promotional offers and for research and analysis.