Pure Products Go Crazy: The Aesthetic Value of Learning Disability

Abstract

In this chapter I address learning disability as an aesthetic value and analyse the dramaturgical properties of two works created in collaboration with disabled artists: Small Metal Objects (2005) by Australian company Back to Back and Hypothermia (2010) by UK-based Dark Horse theatre. These works provide contrasting dramaturgical responses to the following questions: how does theatre produce or reflect dynamic identities of learning disability beyond binaries, and how are these identities demonstrated in and even shaped by the form and content of the work? Disability has a knack of shattering the distinction between form and content: disability changes aesthetics. If the first principles of this book are that art and disability is no longer a territory solely occupied by disabled persons and that disability designates more than social oppression, then this chapter evidences a further important principle: that disability is to be valued as ‘a form of human variation’ (Siebers 2008: 25).

An important step or element in appreciating anomalous art is the insight that it is indeed art. Anita Silvers (2002: 240)

I love the feeling of being on the edge. Actress, Sonia Teuben (interview 2007)