Enabling Theatre Artistic Director, Susan Quick presents film of Africans with a range of impairments using Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, at Kaddu Yaarax 2017 Festival, Dakar, Senegal, to show ways that society disables. Arts Council England funded filming of Enabling Theatre Travels to Senegal, will be shown to groups of disabled people across UK and broadcast on YouTube inviting on-line debate: media development of Forum Theatre where the spectator herself comes on stage and carries out the action in a manner which is personal, unique and non-transferable, as only she can do it. Boal, Rainbow of Desire, p7
Audience discussion following watching 3 minute film segments:
- Army Colonel refuses disabled recruit. Boal’s Rainbow of Desire, shows the Colonel mirroring social exclusion of his disabled brother. Theatre audience discussion includes ex-soldier saying many roles for disabled in army. https://youtu.be/jwXiY8l9sA4
- Wife refuses to share house with co-wife’s disabled son because attracts misfortune. https://youtu.be/ndOmrbTgqSo
- First day at primary school, teacher doesn’t welcome Albino girl; pupils unwilling to sit next to her. Medicine man offers payment to share her aura with dying man.
- Politician expresses commitment to full disabled inclusion.
- Inauguration of free bus pass for disabled passengers by local Mayor and dignitaries who watch Forum Theatre performance showing no seats for waiting passengers: spect-actor with foot impairment sits on ground. Bus arrives; crowd rushes to board. No hand rail or reserved seating for disabled.
- Mayor: free bus pass only first step so disabled people can travel.
Potential discussion points:
- Do African and European attitudes to disability cohere/conflict?
- Annually 1 in 4 British experience mental health problems. Is mental illness common in Africa?
- Accessible toilets are mandatory in British schools; not in Africa.
Susan Quick: Biography
Born white English, Susan met first African friends at kindergarten: Yvette and Lorraine Fernandez from Liberia. In mid-twenties theatre career took her to USA; her Black American husband, Bernell Wesley took her to Africa in search of his roots: he didn’t find them in post-colonial Sudan where Susan taught English. After 3 years financially supported by his white wife, Bernell returned to US. Rupia Kanon took Susan to Zaire (DR Congo); working for US Government she taught academic English to professionals going to study in USA.
Returning to England in 1989, to study for an MA, Susan became an agent of neo-colonialism in the name of aid: working for ACORD she supervised development programmes in Mali, Somalia, Ethiopia and Chad. She was also an international consultant for the British Council establishing education programmes for nomadic peoples in Nigeria.
Two years into PhD research in Ethiopia and Mali; in 1995 a near-fatal car accident in snow left her brain damaged, unable to continue her research or to travel unaccompanied.
Susan didn’t return to Africa until 2016, attending Theatre of the Oppressed workshop by Uri Noy Meir in Dakar, Senegal. Kaddu Yaraax Director, Mouhammadou Diol, inviting Susan to lead Enabling Theatre workshops with disabled members led to film production, sections of which to potentially show at ASAUK conference 2018.
Postgraduate study
- 1993 PhD research sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, University of London, examining political exclusion of African pastoralists from routes they had travelled for centuries by agri-business controlling river access; resulting in conflicts for which pastoralists are blamed.
- MA APPLIED LINGUISTICS: SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING, Birkbeck College, University of London, 1992. The Role of European Languages in Education in Africa. The Language of Famine: A linguistic analysis of newspaper reportage of the 1984-85 African famine.
- MA AREA STUDIES (AFRICA), Geography, Politics, Economics. University College, London, 1990. Distinction. Dissertation: Responses to Needs of Refugee and Displaced Women: The Case of Sudan. An analysis of gender awareness in assistance programmes.
Post-accident:
Artistic Director, Enabling Theatre 1999-present
- Weekly workshops:
- St Augustine’s Centre for refugees & asylum seekers, Halifax 2014- present.
- Mind-in-Bradford 2011-14
- Hebden Bridge 1999-2005
- Workshop leader at international theatre festivals:
- Kaddu Yaraax, Dakar 2017
- Vienna 2012
- Kathmandu 2010
- European Social Forum, London 2004
- Lead speaker: Neurotrauma Symposium, Leeds 2004: The Patient’s Perspective.
- Conference Presentation: You’re Everywhere and Nowhere Babe, You Don’t Exist? Representation of disability in the TV soap opera, at Transformative Difference: Disability, Culture and the Academy, Disability Studies, Liverpool Hope University, 7-8th September 2011
Awards:
- Nationwide Award for Voluntary Endeavour, Yorkshire and Humberside Houses of Parliament 2001.
- Jane Tomlinson award nominee Yorkshire Women of Achievement 2005, for courage, ability to overcome personal obstacles.