Double Bill: Extant, Upswing and Yellow Earth | Aaron Williamson

7.30pm. Free, RSVP essential to rosie@artsadmin.co.uk. This will be BSL interpreted. Please get in touch if you have any specific access requirements.

A double bill with Extant, Upswing and Yellow Earth, followed by Aaron Williamson. 

Extant, Upswing and Yellow Earth: Flight Paths
Extant is the UK’s only professional performing arts company of visually impaired artists and has pioneered theatre practice with the express inclusion of visually impaired performers and audiences. Upswing explore the potential of circus to tell stories relevant to our society and make work that has a broader cultural resonance. Yellow Earth develop new theatre work by British East Asian artists and engage audiences from all backgrounds in this work.

Flight Paths explores aerial movement, song, narrative and live description, and creates innovative ways to deliver accessible live performance that break down the barriers between sighted and visually impaired audiences. Inspired by the traditions of Biwa Hoshi players – blind itinerant performers from medieval Japan – four visually impaired artists will explore their personal stories of migration to the UK. 

The artists will be sharing the results of their research and development period for the Unlimited R&D award.

Aaron Williamson: Demonstrating the World
Aaron Williamson’s work is inspired by his experience of becoming deaf and by a politicised, yet humorous sensibility towards disability. Mostly, he devises unique artworks that are created on-site immediately prior to their public presentation.

Demonstrating the World explores the notion of the ‘alien’ – the displaced person who is considered ‘other’ by normative society. The project addresses the phenomenon of ‘demo videos’ in which YouTube filmmakers demonstrate banal activities – such as loading a drill or peeling a potato. These ‘demonstrations’ have reached such volume that one wonders whom they are for – for an impending alien invasion? 

Demonsrating the World is an ongoing work-in-progress for the Unlimited R&D award.