A Change Of Plan
2020 has been a truly remarkable year with Covid-19 emerging from the blue and testing us all. As with many arts organisations, Hydrocracker was forced to cancel its work and re-think. Artistic Director Jem Wall reflects on how we began to pull through.
How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans.
Just before lockdown hit in March, after two years of exciting research and development into AI, Genomics and Big Data we were poised to tour our new production - YOU CAN SAVE ME -about the future of health care.
By April the whole touring theatre circuit had collapsed, and one of our 5 partners was in administration. Not only that, but the entire basis for YOU CAN SAVE ME itself had been overtaken by events. Our opening scene set in 2038 began with - “The audience have their temperatures checked and some are told they are infectious with a new strain of Zika virus so they will need to wear a mask “ What seemed an exciting way to begin an interactive show about the future of healthcare in March was now all too real. Prescient – yes but hardly box office! Everything had changed. Changed utterly.
So what to do?
The temptation to respond immediately to the situation and make work online about Covid-19 was high. But we decided this was a time to be quiet. To reflect, listen and learn.
We reminded ourselves that Hydrocracker was set up to make theatre more accessible. Ten years ago we thought by taking our work out of theatre buildings and staging Pinter in town halls, Shakespeare in pizza restaurants and Orton on Brighton Pier we would attract new audiences who are often “put off” by the perceived elitism of traditional theatre buildings. It worked. We cut through to new audiences and reinvigorated old ones as we found our place within the site-specific/ immersive theatre movement. But was it really accessible? Could wheelchair users experience our exciting found spaces at every performance? Was our work available to a D/deaf disabled audience other than on a few special signed performances?
With support of Arts Council Emergency Funding and spurred on by our young associate director Nathan Crossan - Smith we started listening to leading practitioners in creative access aesthetic. Eve Leigh, Rachel Bagshaw, Akila Krishnan, Paula Garfield, Deafinetly Theatre, Talking Birds, Daisy Hale and Ben Wilson have all made work that puts access at the heart of the creative process rather than tacking it on at the end. They have all given us valuable and generous consultancy. The conversations have sparked a renewed excitement within Hydrocracker and helped us see how we might adapt our practice to make our work both more accessible and more creative.
And now, we are learning how to put that into practice. Hydrocracker AD Jem Wall and associate director Nathan Crossan-Smith have co-created a new wide-ranging project – BEFORE THE FLAME GOES OUT – which has culminated in a short participatory film made in an access aesthetic that integrates creative captions, a BSL (visual vernacular) performance of a new poem by Raymond Antrobus, and live projection supported by original sound design and composition.
We are aware these are our first few steps on a very long journey to make our work more fully accessible, but it is a journey we are committed to. In 2021, or whenever we are all finally allowed to be together again, Hydrocracker will bring these learnings and new ideas into our next work.
This will be our way of coming back stronger and better.
Jem Wall October 2020