Via the following link you can listen to this contribution.

Via the following link you can watch the video.

Einfach gesagt:

Zugang verweigert

Nadine McKenzie ist eine Tänzerin und Künstlerin aus Kapstadt, Südafrika. Sie hat die Tanzkompanie Unmute Dance Company mitgegründet und leitet sie. Für behinderte Künstler*innen auf dem Kontinent Afrika ist die Unmute Dance Company ein wichtiger Ort. Die Tanzkompanie will behinderte Künstler*innen ausbilden, die danach auf der ganzen Welt arbeiten. Die Unmute Dance Company zeigt: Was wir über Behinderung denken, ist oft falsch. Die Tanzkompanie macht Mut. So können wir Barrieren überwinden. Die Tanzkompanie zeigt, dass wir alle viele Dinge können. Eine Behinderung macht einen Menschen nicht weniger menschlich oder weniger fähig. Deshalb will die Tanzkompanie über Scham und Vorurteile in der Gesellschaft sprechen. Das ist nötig, damit alle überall mitmachen können.

Der Beitrag von Nadine ist ein Video mit dem Titel Access Denied. Auf Deutsch bedeutet dieser Titel: Zugang verweigert. Das Video ist in der Pandemie entstanden. Menschen ohne Behinderung haben in der Pandemie erlebt, wie es ist, wenn man sich nicht frei bewegen kann. Für behinderte Menschen ist das oft Alltag und nichts Neues. Manche Dinge sorgen dafür, dass behinderte Menschen ein unabhängiges Leben haben. Diese Dinge sind nicht für alle gleich. Und nicht jede Person hat diese Dinge.

Das Video besteht aus 3 Teilen. In jedem Teil geht es um eine andere Person. Jede Person hat im Alltag andere Barrieren. Das Video zeigt diese Barrieren. Nadine ist 1 von 3 Personen im Video. Im Teil von Nadine geht es um Gebäude. Menschen mit einem Rollstuhl können nicht in alle Gebäude rein. Viele Gebäude sind nämlich immer noch nicht für Menschen mit Rollstuhl gebaut.

Nadine schlägt 2 Übungen vor:

1. Denk nach: Was bedeutet es für dich, wenn du in ein Gebäude rein kannst? Was bedeutet es für dich, wenn du in ein Gebäude nicht rein kannst? Antworte auf diese Fragen mit einer Bewegung, mit einem Text oder mit einem Ton.

2. Lies das englische Gedicht von Nadine. Mach danach etwas als Antwort.

To be Africa’s main hub for artists with disabilities that breeds world-class, professional, integrated (with and without disabilities) dancers.

Mission

To inspire inclusion of people with disabilities within mainstream society through performances, artistic workshops, and exchange programs that encourage activism and awareness of integration and accessibility.

About Us

Unmute Dance Theatre is a company of artists with mixed abilities/disabilities using Physical Theatre, Contemporary and Integrated Dance to create awareness on accessibility, integration, and inclusion of people with disabilities within mainstream society. We aim to address and challenge the society’s state of mental misconception on disability(s), we encourage people to break barriers and to be aware that we are all abled and have our own abilities. We believe that having a disability doesn’t make any person less a human or less capable, therefore removing shame and stigma from society is our company’s mission towards building an integrated community.

The company came into existence in 2013 after a performance creation entitled Unmute. Unmute was the first ensemble choreographic piece by Andile Vellem. It is based on his experience as a dancer who is deaf. This work was a way of Andile finding his voice as a choreographer, using sign language as the source of the movement vocabulary. He brought together artists from different backgrounds to investigate and explore what they would like to un-mute; feelings, perceptions, social norms, and expectations; while endeavouring to deconstruct what society perceives as dance. The inception of the company then developed in 2014 after a successful run of the Unmute Production and it was co-founded by Nadine McKenzie, Mpotseng Shuping, Andile Vellem, and Themba Mbuli. Within the eight years of the company’s existence, we have developed five inclusive projects that have helped create access and integrate people with and without disabilities in one environment and created seven productions, of which some have toured nationally and abroad in Switzerland, Germany, Russia, the UK, Reunion Island, and Belgium.

Access Denied

Access Denied was created during lockdown, and the work was inspired by a post I saw on social media of an able-bodied person venting about how their right to move around/right to freedom was taken away as a result of not being able to go out and the right to everyday activities. Someone living with a disability then commented and expressed how this is and has been a norm for many South African disabled people and how the lockdown was not very different from their everyday life. This inspired me to do this work as a disabled person who has had the privilege and access and lived somewhat of a »normal life« could and could not at the same time identify with what she was experiencing. There are not many opportunities for disabled people, let alone the freedom and access to lead independent lives. The few that are have had certain privileges that afforded them access to certain things and spaces and the ability to live independent lives.

The idea to create this film was to highlight individual challenges where access and the lack thereof are concerned. The work takes a look into the lives of three individuals and the challenges they face daily with the lack of access. My solo in particular focuses on how, as a wheelchair user, we still have many buildings/spaces that do not cater to or consider us.

Text

Where are they

Where have they gone

Where are they hiding

Who have kept them hidden

How many are they

How will they get out

Get out,

come out

Kept away

Kept aside

Go that side

There is a ramp

Here, it is not accessible

Access,

What is access

The right, the opportunity, to use or benefit from something

Well, that side, not here

Here, it is not accessible

You need to be able

Able, Ability, disability.

My ability is overlooked, denied

Denied, refused again and again

Here we go again

Look, no don’t look

It’s rude to stare, they say

Limitation, fear, restriction

These are all things people see when they look at me,

Look at my chair, it is what associates me with my chair

Me to my chair

Me with my disability

I become my disability

I have been made to be my disability

Again, here we go again

This is what society has been to me

My chair

We have been limited, we have been restricted.

We have been restricted by this world that has been made for you yet not for me.

Shush they say, say thank you.

Do I say thank you for finally managing to put in that lift in that building?

Do I say thank you for that steep ramp, that I struggle to get up to?

Do I say thank you for putting it on the other side, where I have to struggle to get to?

Where I am not seen

It took a while for you to figure out that there is more of me …

More of us …

Shush, they say

Say thank you

But you see, if I have to be thankful about any of these:

Thankful for my right to access, to dignity, to humanity, then tell me …

When will I ever be equal in this society?

Exercises

1. What does access or being denied access mean to you? Respond to the question in movement, text, or sound. You are welcome to use a space or an object to move in relation to as well.

2. Use my poem and create something in response to it.