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This month, Mind the Gap's Associate Producer Paul Wilshaw speaks to Touring Director Tamara Searle and Ensemble Member Scott Price from the award-winning Australian theatre company Back to Back Theatre, about the company and its recent UK tour of The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes.
The Disability And…Podcast gets right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues in arts, culture and beyond with a series of bold, provocative and insightful interviews with disabled artists, key industry figures and the odd legend. The Disability and…Podcast is currently monthly.
41 Disability and… Back to Back
INTRO
Welcome to the Disability And…Podcast, bringing together thoughtful discussion and debate. This month, Mind the Gap's Associate Producer Paul Wilshaw speaks to Touring Director Tamara Searle and Ensemble Member Scott Price from the award-winning Australian theatre company Back to Back Theatre. Paul spoke to them in November 2022 whilst the company was at Leeds Playhouse with their most recent touring show, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes.
Paul Wilshaw
Hello listeners and welcome to Mind the Gap and Disability Arts Online’s podcast with Back to Back. I’d like to welcome Tamara and Scott from Back to Back.
Scott Price
Hello
Tamara Searle
Hi
Paul Wilshaw
Please introduce yourselves
Scott Price
I’m Scott Price, I’m an actor and a deviser with a show called SHADOW
Tamara Searle
And I’m Tamara Searle and I’m Artistic Associate at Back to Back Theatre and, on this particular journey to Leeds and the UK, I’m the Touring Director for The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes, which is presented at the Leeds Playhouse over the next four or five nights.
Paul Wilshaw
So, can you tell us about Back to Back; what does the company do and how long has it been going?
Scott Price
So, just to give you a quick context around Back to Back Theatre, the company formed in 1987 around the time of deinstitutionalisation. So, we try and do stuff around arts practices and music, so we have a programme called the Big Bad Band which is a band in Geelong and the company also did a few shows in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and then it became its own independent disability company around 1992 or 1994 – one of those. So Back to Back Theatre does a lot of touring theatre. I think we made a couple of films and documentaries about the arts, and we made a film called SHADOW, which was made under the pressures of the pandemic, and I’ve performed in around five different shows.
Tamara Searle
How long have you been with the company Scott?
Scott Price
Good question! So, I’ve been with the company about 15 years, but I’ve been involved in different projects for about 17. So, there’s a second ensemble called Theatre of Speed, which gathers in Geelong every Wednesday and does experimental work. It’s kind of like a laboratory for arts.
Paul Wilshaw
So, do you just work on projects when they come or, what training do you do?
Scott Price
So, I did not have any training whatsoever because I came through the Wednesday group so any training I did have was learning on the job.
Tamara Searle
Yes, so Theatre of Speed is an ensemble which trains people to become actors but whilst it’s training them, we’re also using it as an experimental lab to try out ideas. And Scott was a member of that for many years before he became a member of our permanent ensemble of five to six actors who have intellectual disabilities who make our main stage work, and also work on community projects and are the people in leadership in our company.
Scott Price
I think I was with them for about two years before joining the other company. To answer your other question about projects, so we do a lot of other things such as wider conversations, Q&As, research and stuff like that. So, I think my last project was around an article in the New York Times where some workers had been abused in their workplace setting – a story about exploitation.
Paul Wilshaw
And Tamara, how did you start?
Tamara Searle
So, I came into contact with the company through watching their work and then I wanted to know more so I came to an open workshop that was been run by Theatre of Speed, and I think Scott was in it…
Scott Price
Yes, I was
Tamara Searle
And I think that was way back in 2010 and I was just so amazed by the level of complexity of the work that was unfolding in the room that I applied to do an internship with the company, which I did for six weeks. I then started doing freelance work with the company and then I applied for the job as Artistic Associate when the job came up in 2012, and I’ve been there since then.
Paul Wilshaw
So, ten years!
Scott Price
Yes, ten years.
Paul Wilshaw
Your ten-year anniversary and you come to the UK.
Tamara Searle
Yes!
Scott Price
I was going to mention that; I knew it was your ten-year anniversary.
Tamara Searle
It’s a great company to work for and I’ve always felt like I’m very much at home and like I’ve been welcomed into the company. The work takes a long time, and, because of that, the cycle of work is slow and so it doesn’t feel like a long time.
Scott Price
Yes, it does, it takes a long time to make our work
Paul Wilshaw
OK, that’s really interesting! And you’re over here at the moment with The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes. First of all, what’s it like to be in the UK?
Tamara Searle
Well, at the moment, I’m just loving the Yorkshire accents. But also, when I was in London I took a train out to Stonehenge and I know that’s very touristy but I just loved it and I loved getting out into the British countryside and seeing the ancient forms there.
Paul Wilshaw
Yes, our listeners will know that I’m from Dorset, which is near Stonehenge. You said that your shows take a long time to make so, can you tell us about the artistic direction that your shows take and who makes those decisions please?
Scott Price
So, it’s fair to say that we’re a collective so we’re all co-authors and we all contribute the writing of the projects so yeah, it’s a collective.
Tamara Searle
And frequently, there’s always big discussions going on at Back to Back and we’re always in discussion with each other about what’s obsessing us and what’s troubling us. So, we are in conversation all the time about that, and the actors generate the ideas that they want to work on and the concerns that they want to address through their work. Then we find material that can hold those concerns and all of the actors’ unique performance abilities as well and they’re shaped through discussion and improvisation. Sometimes, it’s shaped also by who you want to work with, and who’s available, and what size theatre will this show be in, and where do we need to take our work and, gradually through improvisation and discussion, we write a script that gets edited and rehearsed.
Scott Price
So yeah, Bruce is always interested in our big concerns and he’s always on keeping an ear out for juicy stuff.
Tamara Searle
Bruce Gladwin is the Artistic Director of Back to Back and he is the co-write and director of The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes.
Paul Wilshaw
OK, so can you tell us a little bit about the show, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes, can you tell us about the topics that you deal with?
Scott Price
So, there are quite a few topics around the show. The main ones are around artificial intelligence and the discourse around disability activism. Some of the minor themes are around gender politics… erm, Tamara, what are some other ones?
Tamara Searle
It’s about the way that AI is influencing the world and what it will be like when A.I. becomes smarter than human intelligence.
Paul Wilshaw
That’s kind of coming into a lot of things at the moment. And what do you think about that personally?
Scott Price
In terms of myself, you have to consider the good and the bad. If you take the good, it might be about usefulness and the bad might be killer robots. So, it’s really interesting at the moment when you consider algorithms for companies like META, which are constantly changing.
Paul Wilshaw
Actually, you said something really interesting about who you want to collaborate with, so I want to go there. Who are those companies or the artists that you want to collaborate with in the future? And that’s to both of you…
Scott Price
It’s a really good question. So, in the future maybe stunt people, magicians, artists within Australia because that seems to be where my shows are going at the moment, well my future shows.
Tamara Searle
Scott’s working on a project called Sound Aid and he’s working on that with an artists called Jackson Castiglioni who we’ve worked with before and he’s wone of the artists we like working with. Do you want to talk a bit about Sound Aid, Scott?
Scott Price
Yes, it’s about how rock music feels to be dying out and been replaced with teen pop which are like juggernauts. So, it’s a bout pop music and mainstream pop and teen pop, which is interesting because I’m much more about rock.
Tamara Searle
So, it’s going to be a TV show…
Scott Price
Well, I mean, hopefully it will be in episodes
Tamara Searle
It’s a crusade to save rock music from teen pop.
Paul Wilshaw
I like that! That definitely sounds like my kind of thing
Tamara Searle
And you’re interviewing lots of different rock musicians, aren’t you?
Scott Price
I am, yes and journalists and teen pop influencers
Paul Wilshaw
Who would be the one person, the one artist that you would really like to interview?
Scott Price
That’s a really good question. I’m going to say Brain Johnson from AC/DC or maybe the Aussie hard rock band The Angels or something like that.
Paul Wilshaw
That would be really cool. Tamara, who would you like to collaborate with?
Tamara Searle
Well, I think I’d like to collaborate with lots of artists who are already dead.
[LAUGHTER]
Tamara Searle
Like David Bowie and Susan Hiller, who’s a visual artist who actually has work in the Leeds gallery. I’d love to collaborate with Forced Entertainment who are local and I’m looking forward to collaborating with Mind the Gap on Friday.
Paul Wilshaw
I can’t wait for that; I’m going to be in the room for that and I’m really looking forward to it. Can you tell us a bit about what the disability arts scene is like in Australia.
Scott Price
It’s actually improving wouldn’t you say, Tamara? So, we’re actually the only theatre company which has a full-time ensemble.
Tamara Searle
That is true, yeah. So, in Australia, in fact around the world, there’s not many companies that have ensembles of actors but certainly there’s none in Australia that have an ensemble of actors except Back to Back Theatre, who pay their actors full time. There are circus ensembles and there are dance ensembles, but there are no theatre ensembles except Back to Back.
Scott Price
Yes, I think this is really interesting, so the NDIS the National Disability Insurance Scheme; sorry, this probably isn’t going to make any sense.
Tamara Searle
But what is it, what is the NDIS? Rather than talking about it in Australian terms, what does it do?
Scott Price
It’s an insurance scheme where you can get funding to do activities so, for example, NDIS fund me to do Back to Back Theatre.
Paul Wilshaw
OK, so it’s a bit like the Arts Council over here?
Tamara Searle
No, it’s not like Arts Council, it’s to support any person with a disability to contribute to society and to receive support too and live in the way that they want to. People within our company can use it to get support to become actors. It’s providing a lot of choice to people. Prior to that you had to sign up for programmes in particular places but now you get to choose what to do with your government funding.
I think it’s still seen in Australia as something quite fringe, and something quite radical as well. People are quite surprised at it as well. Recently Back to Back Theatre were awarded the Ibson Award, which is a really famous theatre prize and there was a lot of media around the company and yet, still, so many people said “oh, wow, isn’t this amazing”, you know, they’d never heard of the company and they were just amazed that anyone with a disability could still make work at all.
And there are still lots of ableist attitudes in Australia around arts and people with disabilities and they don’t even realise that they’re ableist either. But also, there’s lots of interest in it as well so, both things are happening at the same time, there’s lots of ignorance and there’s lots of people who are questioning what it means to be more vulnerable and how we can work better to support them.
Scott Price
So yeah, I think that proves something, we’ve wone the Ibson Award so, does that day something, I think it does!
Tamara Searle
Well, what does it say?
Scott Price
Well it says that we can achieve anything if we put our minds to it, and that’s apparent.
Paul Wilshaw
Definitely. So you said about the media It is a major thing around the way that people in the media talk about disability in general and the fact that I personally feel, it’s not a Mind the Gap thing, this is my own thing, is that they have a problem with writing something negative about a performance sometimes, because they don’t want to offend us as disabled people. Is that something that Back to Back has faced as well or is that just my own perception of the media?
Scott Price
No, it’s actually true, Paul. So, in Australia people with autism tend to get dehumanised and they tend to focus on the bad stuff, which isn’t true at all. I know many people with autism who are all really good people, but they just get put in a box. When I was younger I was seen as being different or ‘playing up’ so, I became a disability advocate not by choice but by force and now I try and speak up for other people.
Tamara Searle
But what do you think about people with disabilities who are artists, how does the media respond to their work in Australia?
Scott Price
Good question, Tamara. I’m not sure I have an answer to that, I think you might need to answer it, Tamara.
Tamara Searle
Yeah, I think it can go both ways. I think that some people are too afraid to comment on the art and end up condescending because they’re too afraid to say what they think about it because it’s someone with a disability and they might offend them. And that’s a big problem in society at the moment and it’s related to cancel culture because people can’t say what they want because they’re afraid that people will take it as someone being offensive to someone’s identity.
Scott Price
Sorry, Tamara. I was just talking from my own personal experience.
Paul Wilshaw
No, I think personal experience is really important and that’s what our listeners want to hear is personal experience. There was something that you said that was really interesting and I’ve been lucky enough to watch the video of the show so, it’s really interesting that you say about you being forced into being an advocate for disabled people. How have you found that, you say you’ve been forced but have you enjoyed that?
Scott Price
I’ve enjoyed it. If I hear someone saying something offensive, I like to say to people ‘look, don’t use that word’. I’ve called people out on it many times. Disability isn’t embarrassing or shameful, it’s just who you are so I speak up for some of my friends. So yeah, I’ve actually enjoyed it.
Paul Wilshaw
On your website you state that, and I might get this pronunciation wrong so you might have to help me out on this, that the Wadawurrung people…
Tamara Searle
That was great!
Paul Wilshaw
Are the traditional custodians and owners of Geelong, where you are based and that you pay your respects to their ancestors, past, present and future and commit yourself to reconciliation and justice for indigenous people. I was wondering how you go about working with that community and your local communities in Australia.
Tamara Searle
That’s a great question, it’s a really important and great question and I’m going to offer it to you first.
Scott Price
I think for me, we’re still trying to reconcile and live on indigenous land and the way we work around indigenous people. It’s still in the early stages for me, it’s still a work in progress.
Tamara Searle
Australia is coming through a reckoning of its colonial past and many people would state that it’s still being colonised, and I guess I would agree with that. The other day we were in Brighton and we ran a workshop with a group of artists with disabilities there and we asked the question, what would happen if all white Australians had to come back to the UK? Would you accept us back here and would you let us share your houses and land? We made a pretend game where the first nation’s people were being given back all of the land and then we played it out as role plays.
Scott Price
Yeah, we had to evacuate Australia and give the first nation’s people back their land.
Tamara Searle
So, yeah, it’s politically fraught and culturally sensitive, and in all of our public facing communications across Australia we acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and the Waddawurrung as you said perfectly from Geelong, and each district of Australia has different cultural group, they’ve got their own cultural traditions, which they’re immersed in and they’ve got their own art and they don’t have to collaborate with us to create their own beautiful art and important art. So, we’re learning, as we work, to be respectful of what’s happened in the past. And that’s through doing cultural awareness training and making invitations and offers at every step to traditional owners and traditional custodians to be part of what we’re doing, all the time.
Paul Wilshaw
I’m actually going to go back. You mentioned SHADOW, which was the show during the pandemic. Can you tell us a bit about that because I think it was different from this show.
Scott Price
We made a piece under the pressure of the pandemic… I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say.
Tamara Searle
It’s OK! So, it’s a feature length film and it’s based on the stage production.
Scott Price
Yes, I think it’s more mid length.
Tamara Searle
Oh, OK. Yeah we made it coming out of lockdown, in fact I think we had to get special permissions to be able to do anything; to be able to film it. It was two years ago that we filmed it and it’s had its premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival.
Scott Price
Yes, yes it did.
Tamara Searle
Has it premiered in Europe?
Scott Price
Yes, yes it has.
Tamara Searle
And it premiered in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Paul Wilshaw
Oh, OK.
Scott Price
That’s why I wasn’t sure whether I could say much about it because I was having difficulty working out where it had been released.
Tamara Searle
I think the reason you’re feeling uncomfortable talking about it is because it hasn’t had its UK premiere yet. But it will!
Scott Price
Yeah ok. Anyway, I’ll let Tamara talk about it!
Paul Wilshaw
No, that’s absolutely fine. UK Theatres, UK film places, Brighton – I know that you’ve got a film festival… Come and get the film!
Tamara Searle
And didn’t it get the audience award at South by Southwest?
Scott Price
Yes, yes it did.
Tamara Searle
So, it won the Audiences Choice award.
Scott Price
As I said before, it’s similar to the show with the bad and the good, you know.
Paul Wilshaw
No, it’s absolutely fine and I think, with the pandemic for everyone and what happened in England was very different to what happened in Australia. I think we probably should have taken a lot of Australia’s stuff over.
Tamara Searle
I don’t know, we were in lockdown for a very long time.
Scott Price
I think Melbourne had the second longest lockdown – this might need fact checking – but it’s a small city. I think the longest was Argentina but yes, I believe it was the second longest lockdown.
Paul Wilshaw
Yes, it was hard for everyone and I’m glad that you’ve done a film about it. So, we’ve got Sound Aid coming in December and January, what’s the next major show as well as Sound Aid?
Tamara Searle
Do you want to talk about it?
Scott Price
So, to give you a quick description, it’s called Multiple Bad Things and it’s about identity – is that right?
Tamara Searle
Yes, so it’s called Multiple Bad Things and it’s about Multiple Bad Things and it’s about a group of people trying to survive, perhaps through an apocalypse or perhaps just trying to survive in the everyday world that they’re living in.
Paul Wilshaw
You’re over at Leeds and Transform who have got you over here to Leeds, but you’re also coming to Mind the Gap, which like I said, I’m really excited about. Can you tell us about what you’re going to be doing in this workshop with us. So, I’ve got a bit of a sneak peek beforehand [LAUGHS]
Tamara Searle
We are coming to Mind the Gap in Bradford on Friday and the Artists from the ensemble, and I will be running a workshop in theatre making techniques with the Mind the Gap ensemble and, hopefully, we will be getting a tour of your space.
Paul Wilshaw
You certainly will be having a tour of our space
Tamara Searle
And I believe the very next day after that workshop that I run, my other colleague Ingrid Voorendt will be co-running a workshop with Mind the Gap for a broader audience at Leeds Playhouse.
Paul Wilshaw
So, yeah, it’s exciting times! People will be able to see the show on the Wednesday to the Saturday. What other things will you be doing?
Tamara Searle
There’s a Q&A on Thursday night.
Paul Wilshaw
Yes, I’m doing the Q&A. I’m actually doing it with Joyce Lee so you’re going to have me as the Q&A person.
Tamara Searle
Oh, fantastic! So, we’re doing that. That’s kind of another wraparound activity and so my other colleague is out at the moment in Cambridge, filming a democratic set which is a collaborative filmmaking project that Back to Back do where anybody from the community can come along and perform a small moment in a frame that we have. And then all of these frames are put together and its’ a portrait of a community.
Paul Wilshaw
Before we came in here, you were telling me about the touring work that you’ve been doing so, can you tell me about what other shows you’ve been doing.
Scott Price
Like I said before, we’ve been to lots of different cities. We’ve been to Canberra in Australia, we’ve been to Brussels, Vienna, Oslo to pick up our award which was a really good ceremony. We’ve been to three cities in Switzerland which were Basel, Zurich and Geneva and I think we also went to Prague and the Netherlands and Hamburg in Germany. So, it was really cool to see what the other cultures were like there.
Paul Wilshaw
There might not be people that know about the award that you’ve got because it is prestigious in the theatre industry and, from my knowledge because I’ve done a bit of research, it’s the first disabled company that has got this award and it was over in Switzer...
Scott Price
No, it was over in Oslo in Norway.
Paul Wilshaw
How many of you went over to Oslo?
Scott Price
Oh, there were a lot of people, I’ve lost count of how many people went over.
Tamara Searle
There were a lot of people that went over to Oslo, like people who were friends of the company went to watch the award unfold because it was a significant moment for theatre in Australia as well because, not only is this a company representing people with disabilities all over the world, it represents Australia. And Australia is not particularly known for its theatre, so it was a big moment for Australian theatre, and lots of our collaborators make us great and they come from all over Australia.
Paul Wilshaw
Yes, and then you’re going back to Australia. Are you finished for the year, or have you got things you’re going to be doing in December?
Tamara Searle
Yes, we have more creative development all the way through until the week before Christmas. One of our other ensemble members, Sarah Mainwaring has a small solo show up in Sydney, so each of the artists in the main ensemble, in the last two years, made a solo work or is still making a solo work and we call them their ensemble led projects. So, they got to choose what they were doing and why they were doing it. And Scott’s ensemble let project is Sound Aid and Sarah, who’s in the ensemble, her project is called elephant and it’s having a showing in Sydney in December. And the other ensemble member who’s with The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes is Simon Laherty, and his ensemble led project is called Britney - he’s a massive fan of Britney Spears - and he’s making a stage show about him and Britney.
Paul Wilshaw
OK, that’s got to come over here! Sound Aid and that show have got to come over here. I can see a collaboration on those two pieces straight away.
Scott Price
No, not really!
Tamara Searle
Scott really doesn’t like Britney Spears because she fits in the teen pop category.
Scott Price
Yeah, she does!
Paul Wilshaw
That’s why I can see it – a double bill showing.
[LAUGHS]
Paul Wilshaw
That’s the producer head on me, straight away.
Tamara Searle
It really is.
Paul Wilshaw
I would really like to say thank you to both you Tamara and you Scott. This has been a brilliant podcast. I’m looking forward to seeing the show and doing the Q&A with you both; with the shole team.
Scott Price
I look forward to hearing the podcast, thank you.
OUTRO