Tag: Artists

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‘Lived Fiction’ Goes on Stage: Reflecting on a Major Milestone for the DANCING Project and the Collaboration with Stopgap 

Research Stream: Stories / Lived Experiences 

Author: Eva Krolla Research Assistant DANCING, in dialogue with Professor Delia Ferri and Lucy Glover, Executive Producer at Stopgap Dance Company 

Image on the left shows Eva Krolla smiling and wearing white, image in the centre shows Professor Delia Ferri smiling and wearing black, image on the right shows Lucy Glover smiling and wearing navy.

On 11th April, the contemporary dance piece ‘Lived Fiction’ premiered at Dublin’s Lir Academy Theatre in collaboration with Project Arts Centre (PAC). The piece was commissioned by DANCING, a European Research Council (ERC) funded academic research project based at the School of Law and Criminology of Maynooth University. It was created by Stopgap Dance Company’s Deaf, Disabled, neurodivergent and non-disabled creatives under the lead of co-artistic director Lucy Bennett. Stopgap are a global leader of disability access in dance and are based in the UK. ‘Lived Fiction’ artistically embeds accessibility for dancers and audiences through an integrated creative access approach. 

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The Impact of the Welfare State on the Working Lives of Disabled Artists: A New Research Project in ALL

Social Structures

Author: Philip Finn, Assisting Living and Learning (ALL) Institute and Post-Doctoral Researcher; recipient of the Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Fellowship.

Philip Finn Profile Picture
Philip Finn

Life as an artist is precarious, even more so for disabled artists. First, disabled people face higher risks of poverty, social exclusion, and discrimination in their working lives and in public services. Secondly, for many in the arts sector income is sporadic, producing an insecurity necessitating on interim reliance on welfare payments to get by. This is felt acutely by disabled artists, often accessing crucial welfare payments and supports, who receive lower incomes from artistic employment, funding and grants. My research focuses on the role of welfare state payments and wider supports in facilitating or impeding disabled artists’ working lives.

The right to participate in the cultural life of the community is enshrined in a number of international documents, for example the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 27) and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (Article 15(1)(a)). In relation to the specific needs of people with disabilities Article 30 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities  requires States to ‘enable persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential’. The Convention is central to elaborating a human rights model of disability underlining the recognition and participation of persons with disabilities in communal life. It necessitates accessibility as both consumers of culture as well as creators.

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