Staging accessibility: collective stories of Relaxed Performance

ABSTRACT

On the premise that performances and writing can be staged, and that no staging is ever innocent, we tell two unresolved, wonder-oriented phenomenological stories of Relaxed Performances (RP) that reveal ‘affective trouble’: the delivery of a ‘cripped’ fashion show at a university and a church-based ‘relaxed’ choir performance. We compose these narratives from the perspectives of eight participants in collaboration across three universities in Ontario, Canada. These RP moments reveal insights into disability arts as an emotive challenge to so-called proper comportment and introduce new, politicised elements of wonder about what it means to strive for accessible performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Relaxed performance
• crip theory
• affect theory
• disability arts
• fashion
• choir

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The reclamation of ‘crip’ exposes how disability and difference can disrupt taken-for-granted norms in creative, productive ways (Fritsch 2015 as cited in Hamraie and Fritsch 2019).

2  We also wish to acknowledge a reviewer of this article for their comment: ‘For me, RP must always be situated as a movement originally created by neurotypicals FOR neurodivergent people.’ This comment is a pertinent reminder of the need to uncover critical knowledge about early RP and access-related performance praxis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Council Canada; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Chelsea Temple Jones

Chelsea Temple Jones is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University specialising in critical disability studies. Dr Jones conducts research in the areas of disabled children’s childhood studies, critical animal studies, and disability and Deaf community-based arts inquiry.

Kimberlee Collins

Kimberlee Collins is a doctoral student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and a research assistant at Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice. Collins’ research areas include ecological grief, mourning, health and bodymind difference.

Carla Rice

Carla Rice is Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Guelph. She founded Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice as an arts-informed research centre with a mandate to foster social well-being, equity, and justice. Dr Rice conducts research in the fields decolonising education and accessibility.