Reviewed by:

• Enrich Festival
• Winter Phong

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, theatre companies sought ways to engage persons with learning and cognitive disabilities. Companies have mainly focused on audience initiatives relying upon relaxed performances to create space in theatre for more diversity. While efforts to include patrons with disabilities remains paramount, there are markedly fewer performance and training opportunities for artists with the same disabilities. Enrich Festival takes on the challenge of creating opportunities for both artists and audiences.

Challenging itself to reimagine community arts performance, the festival seeks to overcome socially constructed ideas around disability and overtake the dominant narrative of disability, supplanting it with one defined and performed by artists with disabilities. The Enrich Festival was created and first produced as a live event in 2019 amid increasing social expectations to improve representation through diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Through funding by Arts Council England and Hertfordshire County Council, the festival was designed to provide a venue to showcase visual and performing arts companies working with professional and amateur artists. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 festival forged ahead, taking on the challenge of fostering opportunities for artists and audiences while practicing safe social distancing. Featuring online programming, the festival utilized interactive workshops combined with previously recorded and newly imagined performances.

From the onset of the festival, Teatr Bomba Bomba and DanceSyndrome set an early tone for inclusiveness through their company-hosted workshops. Day 1 opened with an interactive physical workshop hosted by Polish theatre company Teatr Bomba Bomba. Led by Janusz Janiszewski through modeled action with more than a half-dozen company members and an English translator, Janiszewski utilized a combination of physical directives and vocal commands reminiscent of Jerzy Grotowski. Participants were encouraged to turn on their camera and curate a personal narrative as part of a digital collective, forming a theatre using gallery view at home on Zoom. Physical storytelling in this environment helped to overcome speech and movement limitations that some participants were likely to experience while defining a character suited to their ability.

Xandri Selwyn in My Hands and Feet Are Wiggling. (Photo: Access All Areas.)

The follow-up workshop was hosted by Dance-Syndrome, a contemporary dance company started and helmed by Jen Blackwell, a dancer diagnosed with Down syndrome. In their workshop led by three company members, participants experienced what inclusiveness and diversity might look like within performing arts. Physically identified by pregnancy, Down syndrome, and wheelchair reliance, the workshop leaders showcased inclusion of bodies frequently excluded in performing arts. DanceSyndrome subverts the common expectation of body type and ability through the simple act of including and showcasing dancers outside expected conventions. DanceSyndrome’s creation of space for broader body types allows aspiring performers to see themselves reflected within the art form. This is not to say that only those marked [End Page 242] with disability can find benefit in such workshops; instead, space created with artists with disabilities allows performing arts professionals and companies to move beyond conventional notions of ability and identify new modes of performance. While these workshops were a form of performance, they were not strictly defined as such. Through curated, forty-five-minute workshops, participants, scholars, and engaged community members were exposed to inclusive training hosted by diverse artist bodies.

Cast in Zara. (Photo: Andrew Youngson.)

The Enrich Festival goes beyond mere inclusion for artists and audiences. Productions in 2020 by Access All Areas, Mind the Gap, and DIY Theatre provided what disability theatre activist and workshop host Jenny Sealy described as protest theatre. Sealy suggested that all actions taken in art by those defined as fringe members of society are protest. In this protest, we find the challenge of equity. While the workshops and training offered by these companies attempts to overcome this inequity, the simple act of performing stories showcasing their life experiences addresses major concerns for these artists and their identified social groups.

In the talkback/workshop, Here’s Me, Access All Areas artist Xandri Selwyn and artistic director Nick Llewellyn discussed the process used...

审核人：

• 丰富节日
• 冬季风

甚至在 COVID-19 大流行之前，剧院公司就在寻找方法来吸引有学习和认知障碍的人。公司主要关注观众的主动性，依靠轻松的表演在剧院中创造更多多样性的空间。尽管将残疾顾客包括在内的努力仍然至关重要，但为具有相同残疾的艺术家提供的表演和培训机会明显减少。Enrich Festival 接受挑战，为艺术家和观众创造机会。

该艺术节挑战自我，重新构想社区艺术表演，力求克服围绕残疾的社会建构观念，超越残疾的主流叙事，用残疾艺术家定义和表演的叙事取代它。随着社会对通过多元化、公平和包容性举措提高代表性的期望不断提高，Enrich Festival 于 2019 年创建并首次作为现场活动制作。通过英格兰艺术委员会和赫特福德郡议会的资助，该节日旨在提供一个展示与专业和业余艺术家合作的视觉和表演艺术公司的场所。在 COVID-19 大流行中，2020 年音乐节向前迈进，迎接挑战，为艺术家和观众创造机会，同时保持安全的社交距离。

从节日开始，Teatr Bomba Bomba 和 DanceSyndrome 通过他们公司主办的研讨会为包容性奠定了早期的基调。第一天以由波兰戏剧公司 Teatr Bomba Bomba 主办的互动实体研讨会拉开帷幕。在 Janusz Janiszewski 的带领下，Janiszewski 通过与六名以上的公司成员和一名英语翻译的模拟行动，结合了身体指令和声音命令，让人联想到 Jerzy Grotowski。参与者被鼓励打开他们的相机并策划个人叙事，作为数字集体的一部分，在 Zoom 上在家中使用画廊视图形成一个剧院。在这种环境中讲故事有助于克服一些参与者在定义适合他们能力的角色时可能会遇到的语言和动作限制。

Xandri Selwyn 在我的手脚上晃动。（照片：访问所有区域。）

后续工作坊由 Dance-Syndrome 主持，这是一家由被诊断患有唐氏综合症的舞者 Jen Blackwell 创办并掌舵的现代舞蹈公司。在由三位公司成员领导的研讨会上，参与者体验了表演艺术中的包容性和多样性。因怀孕、唐氏综合症和轮椅依赖而确定的身体状况，研讨会的领导者展示了表演艺术中经常被排除在外的身体。DanceSyndrome 通过在预期惯例之外包括和展示舞者的简单行为，颠覆了人们对体型和能力的普遍期望。DanceSyndrome 为更广泛的体型创造了空间，让有抱负的表演者能够看到自己在艺术形式中的反映。这并不是说只有那些标记[End Page 242]残障人士可以在此类研讨会中受益；相反，与残疾艺术家一起创造的空间允许表演艺术专业人士和公司超越传统的能力概念并确定新的表演模式。虽然这些工作坊是一种表演形式，但并没有严格的定义。通过精心策划的 45 分钟研讨会，参与者、学者和参与的社区成员接受了由不同艺术家团体主办的包容性培训。

在Zara 中铸造。（照片：安德鲁·扬森。）

Enrich Festival 不仅仅是艺术家和观众的参与。Access All Areas、Mind the Gap 和 DIY Theatre 在 2020 年的作品提供了残疾剧院活动家和研讨会主持人 Jenny Sealy 所说的抗议剧院。西利认为，那些被定义为社会边缘成员的人在艺术中采取的所有行动都是抗议。在这次抗议中，我们发现了公平的挑战。虽然这些公司提供的讲习班和培训试图克服这种不平等，但表演故事展示他们的生活经历的简单行为解决了这些艺术家及其确定的社会群体的主要问题。

在对讲/研讨会中，“我来了”、“访问所有区域”艺术家 Xandri Selwyn 和艺术总监 Nick Llewellyn 讨论了使用的过程......