In a year when disabled people were in the spotlight like never before, Total Permission follows conductor Charles Hazlewood, founder of the British Paraorchestra, as he encounters the artistry within 12 of the Unlimited Commissions, a strand of the London 2012 Festival that encourages deaf and disabled artists to take risks to create work that is not just unlimited but exceptional.
Join Charles, the artists and the audiences at Unlimited, one of the most significant festivals the Southbank Centre has ever staged and prepare to have your perceptions altered. Here are artists with the imagination to change the way we all think – an underwater wheelchair, a bipolar circus, a symphony of sirens, a ten metre tall inflatable… the work is extraordinary yet the creators are not ‘Superhumans’, simply artists like any other, who are rarely given the attitude and attention of their non-disabled peers.
The artists are questioning perceptions and giving permission to explore difference. How do you change people’s perspective of an NHS wheelchair? What makes a disabled person inspirational? How do we give people total permission to watch a person performing their very own piece of movement?
Featuring Sue Austin, Bobby Baker, Caroline Bowditch, Laurence Clark, Jez Colborne, Claire Cunningham, Rachel Gadsden, Graeae, Simon Mckeown, Ramesh Meyyappan, Janice Parker and Stumble danceCircus, filmed in London, September 2012.
The artists were commissioned by the Unlimited programme as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. See them on the journey to the Unlimited Festival in two series of 90 second short films; the Push Me Collection and the Push Me Collection: The Journey.