02 Mar 27th October, 2020: Ellie Griffiths of Oily Cart
This week- our final Still Curious Tuesday session for a while- we were joined by Ellie Griffiths, artistic director of Oily Cart. Oily Cart aims to reimagine theatre for young audiences to make it more inclusive. They create sensory theatre that can be enjoyed by young people aged 0-25 years and those who are labelled as having complex needs including those with profound and multiple disabilities, with an autistic spectrum condition, and those who are deafblind and multi-sensory impaired.
Ellie began by sharing some examples of Oily Cart’s work, and by speaking about how the Oily Cart manifesto has evolved over time. Their work strives to give an audience authorship to understand an experience, and there is not a prescribed way to enjoy the material. Rather than being reliant on just sight and sound, their work engages a much broader range of senses (there are 33!) For example, their co-production Ockham’s Razor engineered the audience seats on bungee ropes, to create sympathetic movement to the aerialists; their shows in hydrotherapy pools often use percussive instruments, designed to give vibrations under water. The processing time to connect with one stimulus is also elongated, so that the experience doesn’t create sensory overload, and allows the audience to experience it in their own time.
Oily Cart 2018 production Splish Splash
Photo Credit: www.oilycart.org.uk
Ellie also talked about her own personal experience as a performer with the company. As a neurotypical person, who is verbal, she was aware that her experience of an event may not be the same as an audience member who is neuro-divergent or has a different way of engaging to hers. Over time, she developed a slightly different approach to performance, namely sitting with her deep uncertainty with how or whether an audience is engaging. The trained performer, when an audience isn’t responding, is likely to panic or over compensate. Ellie learnt to fight these urges and accept that nothing needs to happen, and there doesn’t need to be response that she can necessarily understand or experience.
Oily Cart is now 40 years old, and the context that the company works in is now completely different. As a result, the company are making a commitment to inclusion throughout their organisation and creative practice in order for the work to be led by neurodivergent artists. “Nothing About Us, Without Us”.
Oily Cart 2020 The Doorstep Jamboree
Photo Credit: www.oilycart.org.uk
After answering some questions from students who seek to be more inclusive in their creative practice, Ellie also spoke about current covid-proof projects that the company are working on. The Doorstep Jamboree is a project where Oily Cart’s Jamboree Band take performance to the doorsteps of households who are shielding across London.
More about Oily Cart’s current, future and past work can be found here: www.oilycart.org.uk
Our Still Curious Tuesday sessions are enabled thanks to the generous support of Arts Council England.