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Rawcus is a theatre company
of performers with and without disabilities.
It's a really diverse group of people
from people with intellectual disabilities,
some with physical disabilities, some with acquired brain injury
and psych disabilities.
We've been going for ten years now,
and the work that we make is highly visual and movement-based.
Every rehearsal feels different.
In every rehearsal, there's a different energy in the room.
How we make our work together is very task-oriented,
and I'll get the performers to respond in different ways.
Really, a rehearsal is, like,
for me, like, looking for little pockets of energy
to bubble up from questions that I ask,
and then it's to follow that energy and see what comes of that.
It's clear when someone's really engaged
because they'll get up and do a piece of work and you'll just...
The room will feel different and everyone knows
that something really special has happened in that moment.
Someone once described our work as a series of moving images,
and I really loved that description of our work.
We capture these moments in time
and we place them together and they're kind of carefully curated
so that, really, only at the end do you get a sense of a story or...
It's about the accumulation of those images
that's the form of the show.
♪ Slow music
(Mouthing)
She's a really fantastic director and she's really lovely.
Rawcus is my family.
I'm so excited on Saturdays,
coming to Rawcus and performing.
(Applause)
I think because we've been working together for such a long time,
we know each other really well
and there's just a shorthand that we all have
and a humour that we all share as well.
But also, you know, support each other.
But the support comes from all the performers to each other,
so it's not a matter of the people without disabilities
supporting the people with disabilities - it's not like that at all.
It's across the company -
different people support each other in different ways,
and we all really value that creative relationship that we have together.
The thing I love about working with Rawcus is the unexpected,
either unexpected responses
or an unexpected way of interpreting what you've asked
or an unexpected rehearsal
where some sort of energy comes out of nowhere
that you haven't been anticipating, and I love that about the work
and I think there's always space for a little bit of anarchy.
I guess as an artist, that's what you want.
You want to be surrounded by people that take you off guard
and that make you think about things in a different way.
'Cause I get to work with artists who do that for me
and with me all the time
and I'm often having to double-take and think about things
or come at things from another way,
which is really lucky as an artist. �