New Work From Artists with Disabilities Take Center Stage At INSIDE OUT DORSET

Biennial outdoor arts festival Inside Out Dorset celebrates the county's natural landscape and sense of place, transforming it with art and performance in distinctive rural and coastal locations. Festival producers Activate are committed to breaking down barriers and welcoming the widest possible audience to the festival events.

This year's Festival runs over two weekends from 17 to 26 September and has themes of sustainability, land use and lifecycles, human and environmental, at the heart of the programme.

A key commission is the world premiere of Partnering with Earth, a performance poetry installation created by Disabled artist Dave, The Shouting Mute at Symondsbury Estate on 24 to 26 September.

Dave interviewed scientists, conservationists, activists and land workers about their relationship to the land and their thoughts on climate change, asking them 'If the Earth could speak, what would it say?'. He has taken these thoughts and reflections and used the conversations as a starting point to write a series of poems.

These poems, with extracts of the verbatim recordings, will form a soundscape within the installation. A live cast who read the poems includes several Disabled performers and artists.

Dave recognises that different audience members will focus on different aspects of the performance, often using different senses. He says: "I like access to be integrated within the performance. Audio description can double up as a storytelling tool, sign language can help with understanding body language. Captions can be on the set as part of the visual design. Everyone can get something from the show in the moment."

Dave, The Shouting Mute has also written the narrative and lyrics for Planted Symphony, a new audio trail by Drake Music, the UK's leading organisation working in music, disability and technology, at Radipole Park and Gardens in Weymouth from 24 to 26 September. This new version of the work is a tribute to its original composer, Lucy Hale, who died earlier this year.

A sound walk guided by an app triggered by the audience's GPS, this is a new version of a performance first seen in 2017. Created by a team of Disabled and non-disabled musicians, poets, storytellers and artists, it tells the tale of a herbalist who uses the natural world to heal, grow and transform. Audiences use headphones and their senses to follow her story told through spoken word and song lyrics with voice, strings and percussion exploring the sound world of nature. For D/deaf and hard of hearing audiences, there will be Subpacs available which translate sound into vibration and over-ear headphones, compatible with hearing aids.

Forest, a new company of adults with different abilities, take part in a new work from Fingerprint Dance, a community dance company based in West Dorset who create performance opportunities for people under represented in mainstream arts. Directed by Anna Golding with choreographer Emily Alden, Two and a Half is performed by Forest alongside mature dancers company Grace + Growl. Two and a Half takes as its theme the 2.5°c rise in Arctic sea temperatures due to climate change, with lost ice, shrinking habitats and climbing sea levels. The work can be seen in Christchurch on 19 September and at Symondsbury Estate on 26 September.

Activate is committed to making the Festival's sometimes remote locations as accessible as possible. Initiatives this year include using the Active Disability logo (from the Active Inclusion Project) across festival communications and sites; maps, and 'walk-through' films for each location available on the Festival website in advance; audio-visual descriptions for each artwork; Relaxed Performances for some artworks for those who prefer reduced environmental stimulus; clearly visible Access Volunteers providing 'active stewarding' and access assistance; accessible public toilets including a Changing Places toilet.

Learn more out www.insideoutdorset.co.uk.

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