Permission to Stare

If you are a performing arts professional working in Europe and you don’t know about the work of disabled artists, you are missing one of the creative opportunities of our time, and you are doing your artists and your audiences a disservice.
It is a bold statement, but one which reflects the simple fact that something remarkable is happening in Europe.
For many years some insightful governments and funders, and a small number of pioneering arts organisations, have passionately advocated for the rights of disabled people to attend and to participate in the arts. However, today we see an increasing number of leading arts organisations hosting and supporting the work of disabled artists not because these organisations think they should (a moral imperative), nor because they think they must (a legal imperative), but because they realise that the current generation of disabled artists is making some of the most exciting, provocative and boundary-breaking work in Europe. The artistic imperative!
This new Fresh Perspectives publication collects different, sometimes contradictory, always very personal and touching views on arts and disability. The two editors, artists Kate Marsh and Jonathan Burrows, have chosen to focus on contemporary dance, and have limited their curatorial work in order to leave as much space as possible to the voice of artists themselves; so the first part of the publication contains a chain of letters written by fellow artists, while the second part builds on contributions collected via an online open call.
Overall, 'Permission to Stare' provides an overview of the variety of questions and possible approaches, and refuses to provide clear answers, rather hoping to trigger the interest of readers new to the topic and to enrich the views of those already informed or involved.