When Birds of Paradise
announced their new artistic team in October of this year, it came
after a heady year for disability and mixed ability initiatives. The
London Paralympics had caught the nation's imagination over the
summer more than ever before, while Birds of Paradise's appointment
of a three-way team of two joint artistic directors and a creative
producer suggested that team-work was even more important in what
looks like a major leap forward for the company. The fact that Shona
Rattray, Robert Softley Gale and Garry Robson already had a
significant track record on projects with Bird of Paradise, as well
as the disability arts sector, also meant that they'd effectively
come through the company boot room, and were already au fait with
what it's about.
“One of the nice
things is that we already do know each other,” say Rattray, “so
we can talk about ideas we've got straight away.”
“We worked out last
night that it was ten years ago this week that the three of us first
worked together,” Softley Gale points out on the triumvirate's
second official day in post. “So now we don't have to dance round
each other and found out what one another are about. It's more of a
continuum.”
Lest anyone think the
trio's appointment was a calculated coup d'etat, each new member of
staff actually applied for the artistic director's job separately,
and it was the company's board who proposed that they work together.
While such a move is in keeping with previous successful partnerships
at Dundee Rep and other places, for a relatively small-scale
operation like Birds of Paradise, it is a singularly radical move.
“It was pitched to us
as a new beginning, and we were very much given a clean slate,”
says Robson. “We met a few times before we started, just to see if
it could work, but it was too good an opportunity to miss, so it was
a really a no-brainer.”
Softley Gale concurs.
“We've all got
strengths that are quite different,” he says, “so rather than
having to pick oner of us, why not try to bring all those together. I
think we've all got different ideas, but we all share the same
vision.”
“That made it an
exciting prospect for moving the company forward,” Rattray agrees.
“It became quite a
buzz,” says Robson. “I think the prospect of collaborations like
this are definitely the way forward.”
Robson and Gale are
both high-profile figures as performers, directors and writers, both
in the disabled theatre scene and with mainstream companies. For
Birds of Paradise, Robson wrote and directed The Irish Giant in 2003,
and penned the most recent BoP show, The Man Who Lived Twice. He
appeared in Theatre Workshop's production of Endgame, and up until
recently ran Fittings Multi-Media company in Liverpool. At Oran Mor,
Robson wrote Raspberry, a musical play inspired by singer and fellow
polio sufferer, Ian Dury, and appeared in another, Reasons To Be
Cheerful, with the Graeae company.
Softley Gale's first
appearance with Birds of Paradise was acting in The Irish Giant. This
came after a period when he too appeared in several Theatre Workshop
productions, while Softley Gale has also appeared with Fittings. In
2005, Softley Gale became Birds of Paradise's Agent For Change, a
project designed to investigate the under-representation of disabled
performers in Scottish theatre. Softley Gale later became Equalities
Officer for Arts and Disabilities with the old Scottish Arts Council,
and more recently performed in his own show, Girl X, for the National
Theatre of Scotland. Robson was a panel member for Unlimited, the
disability arts commission fund set up by London 2012 and each of the
four nations funding agencies for the Cultural Olympiad. These
included works enabled by Softley Gale's assorted roles.
Rattray has worked with
a stream of Scottish theatre companies including 7:84 Scotland and
Suspect Culture, and has been BoP company manager since 2005. The
upgrading of her role to Creative Producer is a logical progression
following her work in contracting mainstream artists to work for the
company as well as ensuring a two-way traffic by taking disability
arts into the mainstream.
Birds of Paradise were
formed by a group of disabled and non-disabled activists who worked
on a community theatre project run by cultural social enterprise
body, Fablevision, in 1990. BoP's first production came a year later,
and, by 1993, had become Scotland's first inclusive touring theatre
company. Since then, there have been numerous productions, including
a collaboration with 7:84 Scotland on a production of Sam Shepard and
Joseph Chaikin's dramatic tone poem, Tongues, while Alasdair Gray
wrote a new piece, Working Legs, for the company, and Robson directed
his own play, The Irish Giant.
More recently, BoP
produced Davey Anderson's play, Clutter Keeps Company, and toured
Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children, featuring Alison Peebles in
the title role. Peebles went on to direct The Man Who Lived Twice.
The first fruits from
the revitalised Birds of Paradise will be In An Alien Landscape, a
new play by Danny Start, who began as writer in residence with BoP in
2010. Start's play is based on a true story about a man who emerged
from a coma who was possessed with an urge to paint non-stop. Beyond
this, BoP have plans for everything from a politically incorrect
comedy to a country and western musical. There are also ambitions not
just to be on equal footing with other Scottish companies, but to
work internationally.
“Things have changed
so much in the last few years in disability arts,” Softley Gale
points out, “but II think the litmus for us will be when people
start talking about us in the same way as other touring theatre
companies. If they still see us as being ghettoised then we won't
have been doing our jobs properly.”
In An Alien Landscape
opens at The Beacon, Greenock on February 1st, and tours
Scotland until February 26th.
ends
Birds of Paradise –
Three of the Best
1997 – Tongues –
Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's dramatic poem was written when
Chaikin suffered a stroke which left him with aphasia. This set new
challenges for Birds of Paradise's collaboration with 7:84 Scotland.
1998 – Working Legs –
An all too rare foray into drama from Alasdair Gray, a tragi-comedy
designed to be performed by people without the limbs of the title.
2003 – The Irish
Giant _ Garry Robson wrote and directed this play about Charles
Byrne, the 7 foot 7 inch eighteenth century sideshow attraction, who
died aged just twenty-two.
ends
The Herald, December 11th 2012
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