‘Finding the space between’: Sensory Theatre and Community

Written by Participatory Artist Siobhán Wedgeworth

Over the past year, I have had the chance to immerse myself in the world of Oily Cart and sensory theatre. It’s reinforced to me that my creative world and practice is much better when it is theatre which we can taste, touch, smell, feel, see, hear and experience together – not in isolation.  Doing maternity cover as Access and Engagement Officer, my tasks ranged from carrying several bunches of red roses across Edinburgh’s Royal Mile to leading Oily Cart’s first community workshops in our Sensory Play Programme.

A baby held leaning on a parent's knee looks at a drum with torch light being shone through it.
Baby Drum Sensory Play Session. Photo: Rosie Simsek

Community is an interesting word when it comes to theatre. It’s often talked about as a ‘communal space’, but as this illustration by Play Radical’s Max Alexander shows, it’s a different thing entirely being together in commune in a way that feels authentic to each person, especially if much of the audience is disabled.

Two illustrations side by side. On the left ‘BEING TOGETHER’ a uniform graphic with blue circles on a page. On the right ‘BEING OURSELVES, TOGETHER’ a graphic with varied shapes and colours - squiggles, circles, ovals, curvy lines, spiky lines, small lines splattered across the graphic.
Illustration by Max Alexander

Community participatory arts is often seen as lesser than ‘main stage’ theatre shows. While this statement is not a new revelation and there has been growing development of wonderful engagement and community projects nationally, there is still more to be done for projects which involve and invite children and families who experience the most barriers to access (often labelled as PMLD – Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities). I’m interested in the space between the two: where high quality theatre can pop up in unexpected, everyday, familiar places, and people feel ownership and have more power in their everyday communities and spaces.

Organisations can learn from community arts projects how to build a community around the work they are touring by building long term relationships with the local community through regular free sessions, visiting schools and development opportunities to name a few. By doing this, arts organisations would get to understand the bread and butter of each community, how news travels from Whatsapp group to Whatsapp group or at the local caff.

“Working in non-arts contexts offers opportunities for new conversations: creative and verbal, collective and individual”

Nicola Naismith, 2019

Despite the importance of working in non-arts contexts, I wonder: how can we dissolve the idea that we must go to “them”? Instead, let’s see theatre makers and arts organisations shift their practice to a sustained and focused effort on making our creative spaces welcoming; becoming part of the community, rather than a closed space.

Siobhan, a blond white woman in her 20s wearing a black and white striped top, sits inside a drum-shaped ball pool. Next to her is a baby holding onto the edge of the ball pool. Siobhan is throwing a ball out, towards a figure in the foreground also wearing black and white.
Siobhán leading a Baby Drum Sensory Play Session. Photo: Rosie Simsek

I am currently working with Spark Arts for Children as one of their Vital Spark Artists, a movement addressing the lack of diversity in the Performance for Young Audiences (PYA) sector. Spark have found an exciting balance of these two worlds, with shows taking place in families’ homes, school halls, libraries and local arts venues across Leicester. With families and children at the heart of the festival, I feel excited by how this model could be adopted nationwide with touring throughout the year. I feel inspired by my time with Oily Cart to continue exploring sensory theatre and how I can make ambitious, high quality work that sits neatly bang in the middle between these two worlds and really own it!

“Sensory Theatre might even be seen as not a different or special way of making theatre, but maybe just the way that makes the most sense, so everyone can come?” 

Young artist Coery Nicholson at Oily Cart’s 40th Celebration

If you would like to find out more about my work and have a chat you can find me at
siobhanwedgeworth@gmail.com
https://siobhanwedgeworth.carrd.co/
Twitter @siobhanwedge

References:

Max Alexander, Play Radical. Communal Space as an autistic person or: What’s the big deal about other people? 2020 [online]. https://playradical.com/2020/02/27/communal-space-as-an-autistic-person-or-whats-the-big-deal-about-other-people/comment-page-1/?unapproved=638&moderation-hash=13df8389821f542fd3ec249cf853b4d3#comment-638

NAISMITH, N. 2019. Artists practising well. Aberdeen: Robert Gordon University [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-235847

The Spark Arts for Children About the festival [online].  https://thesparkarts.co.uk/festival/about-the-festival