“Enhanced authenticity is unlocked when we trust disabled voices to tell disabled stories… It’s powerful stuff!” Undercover Artist Festival 2023

Looking for new, fresh, and original performing arts? Seek no further, Undercover Artist Festival has you covered. Australia’s premier disability-led arts festival takes place in Brisbane, and we are all the richer for it.

Breathe In. “How can universal accessibility be embedded in production?” Image provided.

The festival offers artists at all stages of their careers access to development and performance opportunities. The Creative Track programming is the professional track, with established artists and mainstage productions. The Community Track is designed to engage across community, for those both on the stage and in the audience. The Career track offers workshops, collaborative panels and conversations, and opportunities for the wider arts community to engage with disability-led arts on a deeper level, incorporating philosophies and techniques into their own productions.

Here at Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane we are big fans of diversity on the stage, in the wings, behind the scenes and in the audience. Disability-led performing arts is revolutionary. Over the past decades as an artist and writer I have seen many a show, and there are many repetitions and reused tropes. The innovations of artists with disability, their challenges and joys, offer fresh new perspectives, new pathos, the main character’s resolve is rarely predictable, the art is variable in unseen new ways. If you want to see truly new work, from artists on brilliant edge of creativity, look for voices who have just gained access to the stage, listen for the untold story. It will change your world in ways we can’t imagine.

There are innumerable barriers to artists with disability fully participating in the arts, that the able and neurotypical can’t fathom. Through their diligence to gain access and tell their stories in their own ways, we are exposed to innovations and new angles. I cannot recommend highly enough, go and see how your own art and perspective might change, through building in access for all your productions, to hiring dedicated new staff who might transform your practice on and off stage.

We asked Festival Director Madeline Little to tell us, what is it about disability-led art that makes it striking and interesting?

People with disability are 20% of the population in this country, but disabled stories and characters definitely don’t make up 20% of mainstage programming. When disability is on stage, it’s oftentimes done without the right awareness of disability culture and identity. Disability-led work not only promotes the agency of the disabled artist as the key decision-maker driving the work, but also the enhanced authenticity that is unlocked when we trust disabled voices to tell disabled stories. It’s powerful stuff!

David Truong from Wundersounds. Image provided.

You have been working with Brisbane Festival this year to develop their Disability Inclusion Action Plan, what has that been like to see that roll out in their programming?

We’re so proud to be part of the Undercover Artist Festival program, and CPL’s work supporting the development of the new Brisbane Festival Disability Inclusion Action Plan is a natural extension of the fantastic relationship we have. The Brisbane Festival team are committed to a more inclusive and accessible BrisFest for all, and we see that in some of the programming choices this year – Tae Tae in the Land of YAAAS! by shake&stir and Jodee Mundy’s Personal are just two examples of the disability-inclusive programming that includes Undercover Artist Festival’s entire program and some other incredible works, too. I’m excited to see how the Plan’s implementation welcomes more artists and more audiences to join the Brisbane Festival fun in future!

What is the value of having diverse critics, including writers with disabilities? 

The role of an art critic is to interpret meaning and find audience value in a work. Sometimes, we can look at a play and wonder, ‘who is this show for? What purpose does it serve?’ A diverse audience can find – or create – meaning depending on their individual backgrounds, values, perceptions, and so forth – and the same is true for critics. I believe disabled critics are thus likely to find greater nuance in their criticisms, pick up on alternate meanings and messages that perhaps go over the heads of our non-disabled peers.

Importantly, if we’ve often felt oppressed and misunderstood by non-disabled folk when sharing our work, it can be difficult to open ourselves up to criticism from them again; critics with disability can also offer a level of cultural safety for disabled artists to make the presence of an arts critic feel safe again. Similarly, disabled critics have a greater awareness around the higher stakes for disabled artists, and can offer a more intuitive level of understanding. All critics should review truthfully, of course, but it’s not about comparing apples and oranges – rather, asking someone with experience growing oranges if the tartness of the orange is influenced by the difficult climate in which it was grown.

Undercover Artist Festival takes place from the 20th to the 23rd of September at Queensland Theatre, Southbank.

Brisbane Festival Artistic Director Louise Bezzina encourages you to jump in and see as much as you can!

I am absolutely delighted to have the Undercover Artist Festival in the Brisbane Festival program once again. Undercover Artist Festival is a brilliant program and so incredibly important. Maddie Little has put together a wonderful program and I am very much looking forward to attending as much of the festival as possible.

Sheltered. Image credit: Photos by Jamois

Check out the full program here and go fill your arts cup to the brim.