MEMORIES OF THE MARSHLAND
Creative Access Lab
Over 6 days in March 2024 Zoo Co and a team of Visually Impaired (VI) and sighted artists came together for a creative access lab exploring Audio Description and blind / VI movement practice.
Zoo Co has made a lot of work with deaf artists and learning disabled artists, and has used Audio Description (AD) in their shows, but hasn’t run a process with integrated access with and for blind and VI people. So when Jack Norris, writer of new physical theatre play Memories of the Marshland, approached Zoo with a script with two VI lead characters, the text was a call to action to start learning how to do that.
Jack secured Arts Council of England funding to develop the creative access lab and R&D his script, and what followed was a 6 day experiment, ending with a sharing and panel discussion at Jackson's Lane. Supported by VI co-director Sam Brewer, VI sound consultant Ben Wilson, and VI AD consultants Catherine Turner and Yusuf Osman, we tried things out, and experimented with different interpretations of AD.
Photo credit: Malachy Luckie - (Gecko Theatre)
​We're keen to share what we learned in the process, both in the lab and from our collaborators. Blind / VI creative access is a rich area to explore; as with other forms of access, it's also often an afterthought. We hosted a brilliant panel conversation with Memories of the Marshland creative team members and Amelia Cavalho (Quiplash) on this, and hope it serves as a further call to action to our creative peers.
Physical theatre is a very visual medium; finding ways to adapt it to an auditory landscape was an interesting challenge. We also had fun adapting traditional movement exercises with a mixed VI and sighted cast- like changing a mirroring exercise to an exercise using constant touch and exploring how to get all cast members to unlock physical tension safely. You can see segments of what we played with in the short film from the sharing below, combining movement, AD and soundscape - some moments are totally stripped back of AD, some have limited integrated access, some are fully realised.
Creative Team
Ben Wilson
Sam Brewer
Jack Norris
Flo O'Mahony
Nick Gilbert
Consultants
Yusuf Osman
Catherine Turner
Amelia Lander-Cavallo
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Actors
Charlotte Eyres
Ellie Wallwork
Yuxuan Liu
Robin Paley Yorke
Jeff D'Sangalang
Mae Munuo
Fleur Rooth
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Access Team
Laurie Ogden
Louise Wilcox
A big thank you to to everyone who was involved and Jacksons Lane who hosted the R&D, more information regarding their spaces and work can be found here.
