Colin Hambrook established Disability Arts Online in 2004. Since then he has been editing and maintaining the journal and its social media outlets. In his blog he comments on aspects of stuff going in within Disability Arts and the specific arts programmes Dao is engaged with.. as well being known to vent the occasional rant.

Art of Difference Festival: Melbourne 2009

12 March 2009

Blog

Art of Difference is a disability and deaf arts festival produced by Gasworks in South Melbourne between 10 - 21 March 2009. I have the privilege of attending the first week of the festival and reporting on it for dao. Coming to grips with the size of Melbourne has been somewhat daunting after traveling through the relative smallness of Auckland and Wellington. I arrived from New Zealand late last Monday, tired and jet-lagged. I made it to the hotel bar to be greeted with a g-day by a guy named...

Comments: 0

Touch Compass on the radar

14 March 2009

Blog

I was very excited at the prospect of seeing Touch Compass, having met several of the artists from the programme whilst I was in Auckland where the company is based. Tim Turner, Rodney Bell and Suzanne Cowan all talked about their work with such passion and commitment. When disabled artists (or artists with disabilities as is the preferred term in Australia) take their work into a professional arena they are driven to give several hundred per cent. There is an extra determination needed....

Comments: 0

Touch Compass: The Sleep of Reason begets Monsters

17 March 2009

Blog

Harmonious Oddity – the triple bill by Touch Compass presented over the first three nights of the Art of Difference Festival began with a piece of Dance for Camera called The Picnic made in 2003. Imagine a bizarre Victorian garden party envisaged through the lens of Alice in Wonderlands' looking glass, peopled by an eclectic mix of strange folk. Playing with images of circus freak show, the piece was a highly polished, original and entertaining whirl around the theme of a pleasant summer...

Comments: 4

Art of Difference

22 March 2009

Blog

I attended a lot of cabaret performances at Art of Difference. The first reaction to being in Gasworks Arts Park was that it was like being at the Dada-Fest, which takes place in Liverpool every year – the big difference being that we were in the sun. However there are differences between Disability Arts and Deaf Arts culture in Melbourne and generally in the UK. Firstly, everything here is a lot more non-disabled led. On an organisational level, things possibly tend to run more smoothly...

Comments: 0