👽✨🧠🐇 artist - choreographer - researcher - performer / PhD in neuroqueer choreography / dyslexic, dyspraxic, autistic & ADHD / she/they NOT USING TWITTER
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ALT Aby is wearing a white tee and red lipstick in a dimly lit room surrounded by coloured lights and foil. Next to this, a quote from her asks the question 'To access rider or not to access rider?'
ALT Aby Watson performing in a room with lights, a laptop on the floor and papers scattered on the floor surface.
ALT Slide 1 of 4. Dear Shakespeare’s Globe, Since our first open letter to you on 30 January 2024, we have grown into an alliance of 258 individuals and 34 organisations. Our statement, supported and signed by hundreds, is yet to be acknowledged, although evident it has been read. Our initial concerns still pertain, but additional ones have arisen. These are: the erasure and rewriting of Richard's core disabled identity; the weaponisation of your currently contracted disabled artists; and the active disregard of the allied disabled defence. You note that dialogues have and will remain open, but for a conversation to exist, it requires at least two active parties.
ALT Slide 2 of 4. Disability is not a potentially blank canvas on which to impress any socially pertinent commentary. Nor do our identities exist in single-issue vacuums. Ableism isn’t a fictionality to be ‘unpacked’, a concept to be referenced and not lived. Disability is not a character trait; it is a lawfully protected characteristic and should be respected and treated as such. Throughout history and especially in present times, we disabled people are constantly deemed unreliable narrators of our own experiences. This has real-world consequences: in health, law, rights, and life. As an organisation with worldwide influence, you have a duty to consider the societal circumstances in which your casting decision and statements have been made, their tangible ramifications upon an oppressed community, and their snowball effect on an industry’s best practice.
ALT Slide 3 of 4. As an organisation that prides itself on its social justice values, it is time to examine how your justice relates to disabled, Deaf and neurodivergent voices. You have acknowledged that structural ableism is pivotal to the play's themes. That same ableism cannot be ‘addressed’ without the disabled person, to whom it is directed, present. You have acknowledged that structural ableism is pivotal to the play’s themes. With its erasure, the depth of meaning behind Richard’s actions and resentments is diminished. Furthermore, it is not our defence that is overlooking, erasing or ostracising your currently engaged disabled artists. It lies with you - the offence. We urge you to not tokenise the aforementioned as pawns within your argument. The change made in one area cannot negate the wrongdoing of another. Disabled inclusion should not be labelled as progress, but rather as overdue rightful recompense. There is still time to rectify this miscalculation.
ALT Slide 4 of 4. We believe that there has been no effort for a solution or compromise in accordance with feedback. There has been acknowledgement of concern, but no commitment to action to make amends. We, the undersigned and our allies, are speaking up in our hundreds, putting careers and livelihoods on the line, and yet our plight is quashed by telling us, “It will come around again.” We will no longer wait silently for what is equitable and right. Our time has come. And that time is now. As before, we ask for no hate, violence or harassment to be sent to any member of staff or freelancer engaged at Shakespeare’s Globe past or present, nor to anyone publicly signed below. We look forward to the start of your open dialogue and urge you to take action. Disabled Artists Alliance #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs
ALT A digital image combining drawings and text on a dusky blue background. At the top of the image is the logo for Touretteshero’s Young Artist Development Programme the initials YADP are at the centre of the logo with stars bursting from the centre. Under this bold white text with a black shadow reads Department for Wonder and Play - this is the theme for this years YADP a programme for disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill young people aged 14-26.
ALT A white woman stands in a dance studio, taking a selfie in the mirror. She has brown hair and is wearing a shiny blue long dress, black shiny PVC gloves, and a white fluffy feathery boa is wrapped around her face. Behind her is some tech equipment, a laptop running software, a DJ controller, microphone cable and stand.
ALT A black and white image. A white woman in motion, on all fours, knees and hands in contact with the floor. Her edges are blurry as the camera captures motion. She is wearing black shorts, with white stripes at the hip, and a sports bra. The rest is her skin showing. Her face is semi obscured as the image fades to white. Her hair flies around, in an upward motion. She has tattoos. A folded mat in the background.
ALT Three people in front of a white wall, black dance floor beneath them. A petite white woman in sports bra and shorts to the left, head to the side, hair whipped around her face, as she is in motion. A figure centre to the image, a white non-binary person with brown hair faces away from the camera, in a sports top. A figure to the right of a non-binary white person, in grey baggy sweatpants, a black bikini top, and a cap, they wear silver jewlery. They face the side, as if they're in motion.
ALT a gathering of sensorial objects, an image taken from above. we see, pink pom poms, silver shiny foil blanket, white maribou feather, plastic tube, black pvc gloves. the image glitters and shines
ALT three postcards with feedback written on. one says great event! better than everything during the fringe. another says they enjoyed the focus on interaction and play. the other says that permission to repear what feels best was a revelation for own performance mindset