58 Towards the Unknown – Confronting the Present Creating Multi-Sensory Experiences
HEIDI SCHOENENBERGER IS A HARDIMAN SCHOLAR AT THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, GALWAY PURSUING HER PHD IN THEATRE, FOCUSING ON THEATRE FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES. performance we would create for them. Afterward, we spoke about the behaviors we noticed, the signals the children naturally gave us and what we hoped to learn upon the next visit. Galway Autism Partnership, Hear our Voice Project. Photo by Aisling Colreavy. The nature of Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) is communicated in its title alone. When we hear of a TYA performance, we can be sure that young people are invited to experience it. How then, can we gain a sense of certainty that the performance is intended for all audiences, and not only normative young audiences? I ask myself this question after learning how to create a performance for a group of six individual children classified as neurodiverse. I was invited to a four-day training in Galway, Ireland delivered by Tim Webb, founding artistic director and writer of Oily Cart who pioneered the creation of theatre performance for children with complex disabilities. The training supports the Hear our Voice project, part of the Small Towns Big Ideas initiative of Galway 2020. This is a collaboration between Galway Autism Partnership (GAP), sensory creative artist Phillida Eves, and Media Producer Garry Kelly which combines multisensory performance and documentary film-making to engage with the neurodiverse community in Galway. GAP is a community-based charity that supports autistic individuals and their families living in Galway city and county. Galway artists partnered with those from Rijeka City Puppet Theatre (Croatia) to develop immersive performance and story-telling for young audiences with complex needs including autism, developmental and intellectual disability, and sensory issues. During training we learned about the variety of multi-sensory work that Oily Cart makes for audiences of all ages and abilities, which they refer to as enhanced performance. We then met our audience: six children aged 5 to 7 on the autism spectrum. I observed as the performers played, explored limits and boundaries with music and got to know the children. Within thirty minutes we learned that this group of children had an abundance of joy, energy, anxiety, calm, curiosity, playfulness, and skepticism. All of these elements were essential factors necessary to feed the We then worked to prepare something for everyone... a nearly impossible task. Through Tim’s devising exercises, we quickly learned to slow down to reach this particular audience. To explore performer-audience communication in an inclusive setting, it is vital to create the work one-to-one. To do this, the traditional principles of theatre-making are both challenged and emphasized. Use silence, do not underestimate preparation and maintain a balanced structure in the design of a performance. This invites the audience into a participatory, childled experience. Suddenly, I was struck thinking an essential element of TYA was being sacrificed: magic. Many children with autism like to know what is coming next. How can we invite the neurodiverse into a magical experience without offering any surprises? One answer was through simplicity. We decided to prepare a performance in three clear stages: introduce a puppet, introduce a problem, solve the problem together with the help of the audience. The performance was then enhanced by involving as many of the senses as possible. Ignite the visuals, use music and silence to fill gaps, engage the sense of smell and most importantly, allow touch to become a part of the magic. On the day of the newly devised performance we asked ourselves two simple questions: Were each of the children engaged? Were each of the children stimulated? The answer to both questions was yes. We learned that when focusing on what does and does not work for each child in the audience, the performer invites engagement and stimulation to happen in different moments, whenever it is right for the child. It was in the close-up, slow theatre that the magic was present. This was an early stage of a longer-term project that sits among incredible work in this field happening in the UK, USA, Australia, and Ireland. To invite all young audiences to be a part of TYA is to create theatre that is slow, simple, and clear and in turn to create a safer place to hear the voices of a group of neurodiverse individuals. Now more than ever, the practice of slowing down in a fast-paced world for all children, regardless of ability, remains significant for educators, theatre-makers, artists, and academics internationally. Assitej Artistic Gathering <strong>2019</strong> 2–7 September Kristiansand 59