Sexuality/Bodies // Lucy Orr

It’s easy to suppose that, with the rise of the alt-right in North America and an increasingly divided Europe the prognosis for an intelligent, informed and forward thinking discourse surrounding sexuality and bodies is poor.  Watching recent bounds forward in legal and societal liberalism come under real and seemingly unopposed threat is no comfort for the artistic soul.  Luckily there are those performers like Amada Palmer who, in a recent article, echoed what many of the marginalised in the world’s artistic communities are thinking and hoping: that there will, after the shock and awe, be a creative backlash bound to produce a new wave of subversive aesthetics and responses as we saw in response to the Reagan, Bush and Thatcher administrations.

The mainstream media portends the Trump administration with the release of the newest TV adaptation of Margret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Though unsurprisingly helmed by a white male, there’s hope that it may jump start a painful discourse and critique of a white, heterosexual society dominated by men: those hounding and objectifying women and non-binary people through social media. The dystopian future depicted in Atwood’s novel, and in the recent HBO series Westworld (where sentient female robots are raped and murdered for pleasure), feels at this moment closer than ever with the disenfranchisement of women’s sexuality and the potential erosion of Roe vs. Wade in America. There’s about to be a war on every woman’s body, a war that will be fought on the fringes of society. Universal female foreboding has been unified and channeled into the March for Women which took place throughout the US, UK and around the world on January 21st, dwarfing the turn out for Trump’s inauguration the previous day. There was a tangible sense that those in attendance were bridging the continental divide, a show of international feminine solidarity totaling 670 marches worldwide with over 2 million in attendance. In the US these were the largest numbers seen at protests since the Vietnam War.

In Edinburgh The Sick of the Fringe highlighted the vast range of performers addressing sexuality and a discourse of the body through performance. Romana Soutus’ performance of Hyena highlighted the caged and rabid female form, one which will now have to fight even harder for freedom and expression, the dissonant feminine howl a call to arms for a frightened female populous ultimately ready to resist this right-wing populist onslaught. In her recent book Tranny and interview in The Guardian Laura Jane Grace, lead singer of punk band Against Me! details her struggle with gender dysphoria and transphobia, but also suggests that now is not a time to panic. In the radical act of not losing hope, she is a hugely positive presence oozing self-esteem and unrepentant sexuality just like Christeene and her Edinburgh show Trigger, a “sex-positive pro-dirty celebration”. This artistic embracing of non-binary genders and the rejection of cisnormativity is something that the trolls on the alt-right seem terrified of. The hysterical closure of gender-neutral bathrooms under the suspicious auspices of female safety produces an atmosphere light years away from the Queer utopia imagined at Edinburgh in Callisto: A Queer Epic.

John Berger’s death acts as a timely reminder of his fundamental writings on the male gaze. The language of images are more relevant than ever as we now have the prospect of a societal norm where is that male gaze magnified and transmitted across a variety of social media platforms. Be sure these are no longer safe spaces, with many women such as Lindy West and Leslie Jones opting to leave twitter under barrages of racist and misogynist fat shaming abuse. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Twitter has now become the communication tool of choice by Trump, as it favors the short angry sexist snarl. In Edinburgh, I saw the male gaze unwittingly undermined for a female one. John Berger suggested “Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” Bea Roberts performance of Infinity Pool, where she used multimedia and found objects to unravel one woman’s desires and dysphoria with the mundane, in retrospect offers a telling insight into how those swathes of female Trump voters felt as they walked into the polling booths, fooling themselves that somehow different was better.

The infamous footage of an unrepentant Trump’s physical mocking of a disabled journalist Serge Kovaleski and the rising death rate as ATOS unethically dismisses the claims of the sick, disabled and mentally venerable in the UK, might indicate an escalation of uncaring.  We have every right to feel sad about this increasing emotional austerity. During the London festival performances the rise in hopelessness and depression will be addressed by the poignant but uplifting Black, by Le Gateau Chocolat & Psappha Ensemble, combatting feelings of despair at the future told in news of half-truths and dismal sound bites with love songs and harmonies. London will also play host to Brigitte Aphrodite’s My Beautiful Black Dog, dealing with mental health with a hopeful swagger. As was evident in Dancer at Edinburgh, a collaborative performance exploring the movement of able and disabled performers, it’s important not just to hear disabled voices talk about everyday limitations but life and art. Let’s hope these voices aren’t subdued in a daily struggle for subsistence.

The arts are undeniably quick to respond to any form of political turmoil. The discourse surrounding the rise of populism and backlash against the establishment has been met by shock and cynicism by many on the liberal left, but this will quickly change and the prognosis for The Sick of the Fringe and its continuing encouragement of discourse and collaboration is bound to highlight how these troubling times can provoke performance and creativity, continuing an increasingly angry and passionate discourse around sexuality and the body. It is up to these emerging discourses to interrogate the new right-wing norms and never let them rest. We will undoubtedly be forced to fight for the fundamental human rights our current governments would take from us. It’s up to us to make this fight ours and grab it by the pussy!

DIAGNOSES RELATING TO THESE THEMES FROM EDINBURGH 2016:

Disability and Empowerment Through Performance // Lucy Orr

Those dealing with disability or chronic illness on a day to day basis might never get used to the personal prognoses delivered by doctors and healthcare professionals. I have psoriasis, and even the struggle of explaining how a non-life threatening chronic skin disorder can have such a negative impact on my quality of life to GPs and specialists can often feel insurmountable as I itch and scratch my way around waiting rooms and hospitals. It’s common to also come across faceless bureaucracies, the red-tape threatening to grind down those already in vulnerable positions. The systems meant to help people often lack common sense and compassion as they are overstretched by the financial restrictions imposed by an impossibly cruel austerity budget.  A recent United Nations’ report on disability concluded that the UK government’s austerity policies “systematically violated” the rights of disabled people across the board. 

I, Daniel Blake (the Palme d'Or winning film by acclaimed director Ken Loach) detailed with documentary clarity and precision how those of us who aren’t fit and healthy enough to earn a living wage bear these indignities and frustrations. Hours spent waiting on the phone. Being subjected to medical assessments carried out by people who have no clue what they are talking about. People who are told by their GPs that returning to work would be bad for their health, or possibly even fatal, are being forced under threat of benefit sanctions to look for a job because they are a point short on an ATOS score sheet. In Edinburgh, Laurence Clark’s show, Laurence Clark: Independence, looked at the meaning of what it is to live an independent life with cerebral palsy. His performance highlights that almost no one is truly independent, and points out the dark irony in the mandatory, often humiliating tests he is subjected to in order to justify the amount of support he requires to live as independently as he can.

I, Daniel Blake is a tragic portrait of modern day England’s systemic healthcare crisis. At its core, it is a film about the people vs. the state. By exposing this national raw nerve Ken Loach has highlighted an urgent discourse around how those with disabilities can fall through the gaps of an uncaring and target focused benefits system which is continually and consistently subject to ruthless cuts by an austerity driven conservative government. In direct response to this hardline ministerial misanthropy the London festival has commissioned Austerity Cu ts, which will dissect the Work Capability Assessment, questioning how society might work if disability was seen as positive rather than a burden. The autonomy or empowerment of people in Clark’s position may be at risk, as within the last month it has been revealed that 37 NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England are introducing rules that would see people with disabilities being forced inappropriately into care homes if they lack the financial means to pay for homecare. Disabled People Against Cuts believe this is legitimizing institutionalization, and a clear case of “warehousing”, the mass storing of people with care needs in one place as a way to decrease the costs of providing them with the support they need.  

The performances highlighted by TSOTF in Edinburgh and now London, draw attention to various issues surrounding the understandably emotive discourse of exploring disability through performance, dissecting the numerous social barriers faced by those living with disabilities. For those living in poverty without funds for the internet in their home or a mobile phone, finding suitable job postings and contacting employers can be almost impossibly mentally and physically exhausting. Imagine how scary and distressing this can be if you are also disabled. This fear is acutely magnified in the youngest members of society, with recent research by the disability charity Scope into the experiences of disabled young people, finding that millennials are increasingly likely to experience barriers to living independently. All too often the disabled person is told what’s best for them, what they need, what’s going to happen to them. They are disenfranchised by the system that is supposed to be there to help them.

The diagnosis of performances dealing with disability at Edinburgh was a prominent platform for engaging audiences and performers in debates around social and bio-ethical issues. As The Doug Anthony All Stars (DAAS) Live On Stage! sought to remind us, it’s unacceptable for those who have a different body to be allowed to become invisible in society. It reflects the increasing urgency for a progressive discourse surrounding the idea that people matter above their physical condition. Being more that your physical presence was also visited in Chains On Sink Plugs by David Nicol, who has cerebral palsy and explores how even with his disability was brought up by his parents to think of himself as no different. The performance explores how it might be possible to get society to act in the same way.

Workshops like the upcoming London festival’s Tickets to my Trauma are essential in embracing the rigorous discourse surrounding how artists making work addressing their health, illness and disability can be marketed and supported and provide a community safe space for sharing ideas, strategies and conversations around these past and upcoming performances. As Romina Puma suggest in her show Cook It How You Like, It’s Still a Potato. It is long past time to reclaim the establishments’ outdated language that has historically devalued disabled people and use it instead to celebrate, enrich and empower their lives.

Last month Google celebrated the work of life long disability activist Ed Roberts by giving him his own Google Doodle. It was a reminder that it is essential that we try to force the government to examine ways to invest appropriate money and time in tackling disabled people’s real barriers to work, rather than punishing them for not “getting better”. The penny-pinching agenda of successive governments has proven this doesn’t work. It only aggravates and intensifies illness and disability through the weight of stress put upon those already vulnerable, and can result in sometimes fatal conclusions.

DIAGNOSES RELATING TO THESE THEMES FROM EDINBURGH 2016: