March 11, 2025 • 27 mins
Patrick Gunasekera is a creator, performer and producer working across theatre, dance, music and writing. His art is driven by a heartfelt interest in change. The stories he creates often explore how systems of oppression are normalised by everyday people and what agency and power looks like from a marginalised perspective.
This interview profiles Patrick and his approach to his work as well as highlights the show he will premiere in November – a ballet adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s short story The Little Mermaid, from a queer, brown, disabled point of view.
Find the fundraiser for Patrick's imagining of The Little Mermaid on the Australian Cultural Fund's website once it launches.
Support Vision Australia Radio: https://www.visionaustralia.org/donate
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:09):
Hi I'm Abby.
S2 (00:10):
Hi, I'm Simon. Welcome to the show In Plain Sight,
a program where we highlight incredible stories from dedicated people
who are doing positive things within their community and for
the disability sector. And we're proud to share these interesting
stories with you on a weekly basis. Thanks for joining us.
It's great to be here once again and presenting this
(00:32):
wonderful show in plain sight on Vision Australia Radio. And
what have we got on this week, Abby?
S3 (00:37):
So this week we're going to be speaking to Patrick Gunasekera.
He is a creator, performer and producer working across theatre, dance,
music and writing. His art is driven by a heartfelt
interest in change. The stories he creates often explore how
systems of oppression are normalized by everyday people, and what
(00:58):
agency and power looks like from marginalized positions. So this
interview this week is very much a profile and looking
into the special work that he is doing. Sir Patrick
is currently choreographing and producing a ballet adaptation of Hans
Christian Andersen's short story The Little Mermaid. It is reinterpreted
(01:19):
as a modern coming of age story from a young, queer,
brown and disabled point of view, and The Little Mermaid
itself will premiere in Perth and over live stream from
the 4th to the 22nd of November this year.
S2 (01:32):
Looking forward to hearing all about the wonderful ballet that
Patrick has produced and has created and will be developing further,
and will be showing us here in Perth in November.
It's a great illustration, too, of empowerment and how to
use arts as a form of advocacy by showing people
(01:54):
with a disability and a difference out in public doing
wonderful performance. And we thank Patrick for his time today
and really looking forward to hearing all about it and
so much more. And we'll go to that interview for
you now. Hi. And this week we are joined by
Patrick Gunasekara. And now Patrick does many things and he's
(02:18):
a very talented and interesting person. One of the things
he does is he is a dancer and he's got
a ballet coming up that will talk about a lot
during the show. But I'll get Patrick, just to give
us a brief description of some of the broad ranging
and interesting things that he does and how he might
describe himself.
S4 (02:36):
Well, thank you, Simon. It's really lovely to be here
supporting this show and yeah, talking with community about what
we're doing. So I, we actually met a few years
ago at the inaugural people with disabilities WA State Conference. Um,
and so I have a background in, in systemic advocacy
as a disabled person, as a cold young person, as
(02:57):
a queer young person as well. But my work in
the arts, I sort of work across theatre, dance, music
and writing. As a creator and as a performer. Um,
but when I was starting out in the arts industry
several years ago, I was finding it very difficult as, um,
what we call an underrepresented artist, that's someone with an identity,
(03:19):
lived experience or background that is really marginalized within the
kind of stories that are typically told. And we were
like a lot of my my friends in this sort
of local industry struggled a lot with our getting pathways into, um,
getting our work on stage or getting our stories programmed and, um,
out in the world. So I also since then have
(03:41):
started working more as a producer to, um, produce my
own work and create spaces where other underrepresented artists can
work together to realize our creative visions.
S2 (03:54):
You say you're now a producer, you're a dancer, you're
a writer, and you're also, like you just said you.
We met at the conference. You also do public speaking
and give presentations and just being you, you're an activist
and an advocate. Given just what you said to, I'd
like to start with something a bit light and say
that when I was told about you to be a
(04:17):
good guest for this program and then you had this
performance coming up, and since then, I've realized that you
have at least 2 or 3 direct links to people
we've spoken to previously. And you wrote a piece for
a book called Growing Up Disabled in Australia.
S4 (04:31):
Yes.
S2 (04:31):
Our very first guest on our first season of this show,
Eliza Hull, who is a person with disability and a
singer and a performer and an activist and an advocate.
She also wrote a piece for that, that book.
S4 (04:45):
Yeah.
S2 (04:45):
And another link is that we spoke to Tiffany. Ha. Yeah.
Who spoke about a performance that she's part of the
performance that you're.
S4 (04:54):
Yeah. She's one of the composers.
S2 (04:56):
Yeah. And they're just. Now you said you're going to
be working alongside Grace King, who's someone that many of
our listeners would know and a very prominent person within
the blindness community and the arts community. Mhm. Um, so
there's lots of crossovers and as you mentioned, you were
part of the inaugural, um, people with disabilities conference in 2020.
(05:19):
And that's um, sort of going to be running again
very shortly. So again, there's another interesting link because we
spoke to Vanessa from PWA not that long ago, who
was telling us all about the upcoming conference for this year.
S4 (05:32):
Yeah, I think how a lot of disabled advocates and
artists work in, in our various communities and fields is,
we think, very collectively. Yes. Um, and there's a very
deep value in our spaces of nobody gets left behind.
And a lot of the way that I've come to
work as a producer and a creator is really, um,
(05:55):
bringing those values and those cultures into arts processes. So
what I mean by arts processes as well is, um,
to go from having an idea for a show, for instance,
to then, um, bringing a team together, developing and rehearsing
that show and putting it on stage. There's a lot
of different kind of steps in between, um, that a
(06:16):
lot of people who work in, say, theater and dance
industries are quite used to the industry norms of how you, um,
go from from the start to the end of a project,
sort of, um, lifespan. But when you are disabled, often
something that I dealt with quite a lot early on was, um,
there was a lot of access barriers. Um, I needed
(06:38):
to work in ways that were a lot slower and
that just had more, more breaks, sort of. Wasn't this, uh,
working over time, burning out sort of type of work
that a lot of artists are quite used to? Um,
in fact, to compare, usually when a professional ballet company
is developing a new work. They might sort of, um,
rehearse and develop that whole work and then stage it
(07:01):
within three months of working full time, um, create a
whole show from scratch. Um, but this work, we started
rehearsals in October of last year, um, and even before then,
I was having a lot of conversations with, with each
of the team members about what we were making, how
it was going to, um, feel for them, and the
(07:22):
types of stories that we were telling, which, um, were
all things that we related to. So I wanted to
ensure that everyone was bringing their whole self and had
what they needed to do their best work in this process. Um,
we're taking a break from rehearsals now, and our show
will be in November of this year. That kind of
like 13 month span of creative development and moving quite
(07:45):
slowly through each phase of the work gives us a
lot of time to rest, to properly think through what
we're making and why. And it's sort of a way
of working that is much more accessible to all of
us on the process. But several years ago, when I
started embarking on a theater career, I was told quite
clearly by some arts institutions and people in positions of
(08:09):
power that I shouldn't be pursuing a career in theater
if I couldn't, um, work within the very inaccessible rehearsal
development schedules. That was the norm in the industry. And
I think this, this broader question of how we're working
is really important. Um, it's actually a conversation that many
people in the arts industry are having, because the way
(08:31):
that our industry is structured, it's very unsupported, like most
people are working for free and also are kind of
in a position of being forced to do so much
extra labor to get their work out. Um, because of
not having that external support, even just as independent sort
of freelancing workers. But I think what's really important to
focus on is that this is something we have always done,
(08:52):
that Disabled artists have always existed. We haven't always been
given credit for the kind of work that we do culturally,
but we have had quite a long lineage of influencing
the arts. For instance, if you think about aesthetics, like, um,
someone like Vincent van Gogh, for example, was a painter
whose work was really unpopular while he was alive. He
(09:15):
dealt with a lot of ableism. Um, but after he
passed away, there was actually quite a strong influence that
his work had, because it was a kind of aesthetic
that people hadn't seen before, and they were quite moved
in different ways. Similarly, artists like the dancer choreographer Vaslav
Nijinsky or, um, the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who used
(09:38):
a lot of deeper kind of notes in his work
as someone who was deaf later in life. That was
something that changed the way that music sounded, and people
left the in the classical music sort of history stopped
kind of using light and fluffy music all of the time,
and started exploring these sort of deeper notes that you
could create with music. And that was because of a
(10:00):
deaf aesthetic that Beethoven had brought to music.
S2 (10:03):
I'd be interested to know, Patrick, thanks for that great
history lesson, by the way. It's a great insight into
to where things have been and where we hope things
will go. I'm curious, with someone like yourself within the
arts arena that you work, do you find that you're
always having to be an advocate and always having to
(10:23):
be a representative of the communities that you represent, and
be a public face? How do you can you tell
us a little bit about that?
S4 (10:35):
This is a really good question. Um, because there is
a lot of expectation and pressure that comes from outside
of us to, to fix the system. A lot of
the time, or to be the representation and to prove that, say,
an arts organization is an inclusive space because they've got
a mobility. So they they look more inclusive if you're there.
(10:58):
But that isn't necessarily a representation of like how you're
actually feeling and how you're being treated somewhere. And I
think a lot of the time, because a lot of
disabled advocates end up sort of being welcomed by arts
organizations because they want to be more inclusive. Um, but
then when it comes to when we have complaints or
(11:19):
when there are concerns and things that need to be changed,
we often aren't listened to. We get into this really
difficult position of feeling, okay, things are only going to
change if I stay in this environment, and if I
go through like all the disrespect that I'm going through
and try and try and try to be listened to,
and I've been through that kind of cycle so many
(11:39):
times that that has often really ended up with going, okay,
I actually can't work in this place anymore because I've
just been so disrespected and and not being treated fairly.
And whenever I've made that decision, it's always been the
right decision for two reasons. One is that I learn
where my boundaries are, and I get to go and
work with people who are going to treat me better,
(12:00):
and I can recognize the things that I, I can
do differently. Um, in terms of going about advocacy in
a way that centers my boundaries. But the second reason
why it's always helpful to show other people where your
boundaries are is that often when I've left spaces, people
will sort of go, oh, actually, we don't look as
diverse anymore, like what's happened. And they'll have space to
(12:23):
really think about it and often improve things for the
next generation of underrepresented artists who come into that particular space.
So I will say, like, I've had a lot of
really difficult experiences with feeling that pressure externally, but also
putting that pressure on myself. And I think where the
focus of my career is today, having learned from that
kind of cycle of anxiety and burnout and stress that
(12:45):
comes from it, is that I thrive in spaces. Often
if I am telling disabled stories, I thrive in spaces
that it's only disabled people in the room where we
can be really unfiltered and we can, um, talk and
kind of learn things about ourselves that no one else
can really understand as well as we can. And to
(13:07):
produce those kinds of environments at first was something that
just made sense to me. It was something that was
difficult at first to kind of get a lot of
support for both from the industry and also from the community.
It was sort of something that was a bit different
and scary to kind of be doing things, um, completely independently.
But I think that because of that, I found that
there is a way to continue doing advocacy where it's
(13:28):
going directly toward disabled people having a safe space in
the arts. And when I can create those sort of
spaces and see the impact that it has on those
individual artists, then those artists are in a better position
to know their worth, to know their rights, and to
keep going within the industry in a way that is
on their terms. Um, it's starting to shift a bit
(13:49):
the way that we sort of think about advocacy. But
there is definitely still this, this extra pressure. And I
definitely dealt with this a lot in the dance industry because, um,
I was still figuring out a lot of my identity
as a disabled person coming into that space. Um, because
it is such a broad sort of culture, and also
because no disabled person is entirely defined by their disabled identity,
(14:12):
there are a lot of other identities and cultural expressions
that I was wanting to explore through forms like ballet,
for instance, that I didn't really see myself as a
disabled dancer and choreographer, but I was always seen as
a disabled dancer and choreographer, and that really affected how
I was treated.
S2 (14:28):
There is that thin line between our disability or our
whatever it might be, as part of our major identity
and our recognition, and yet we don't want to be
our full definition.
S3 (14:42):
You're currently listening to In Plain Sight on Virgin Australia
Radio with Simon and Abby, and this week we are
speaking to Patrick Gunasekera. He is a creator, performer and
producer working across theatre, dance, music and writing.
S2 (15:00):
So we'll move on now to the actual ballet that
you will be performing later this year in November. Now
to the title is a well known title to most people.
I would think it's a version of Little Mermaid. Is
that correct?
S4 (15:15):
Yes.
S2 (15:16):
And you told me a little bit about it. It's
transforming the concept of Little Mermaid from losing her fish
tail to, in your case, it's something a little bit
of varied. Can you tell us about that, please?
S4 (15:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So the the concept for this, I'd always
wanted to create something out of the Hans Christian Andersen
short story of The Little Mermaid, because there are a
lot of themes of disability in it, actually. It's sort
of this mermaid. When she goes on land, she becomes
non-verbal when she's walking. It feels like there's knives that
(15:51):
she's walking on. It's sort of made me think about
masking the experience of chronic pain in public. But when
I started to explore ballet as a form that I
really wanted to start using for storytelling, um, this idea
of actually creating a ballet adaptation came to mind. And
when I read through the the short story, um, again,
(16:12):
I started to pick up so many more themes about
the co-dependency of the mermaid and how she has this
feeling of the Prince is like this really important person
who is just going to save her life, and she
would die for him, but he's completely unavailable and she
doesn't realise this. And I think from there I started
to really think about a lot of the quite difficult experiences,
(16:34):
first experiences of love that is quite common to disabled
people because we don't grow up often being treated with
unconditional love. There's a sort of acceptance and tolerance and
not always being seen and included and sort of.
S2 (16:48):
Different power levels.
S4 (16:49):
Yes. So all of those things, I became really interested
in this character and this story of, um, running away
from home and, and the, the point at which The
Little Mermaid, who is a character that I'll be playing
and it will be like a queer character will be
this point where he meets the sea witch, who is
(17:10):
someone that he wants to become friends with, who's a
fellow outsider. But the sea witch advises that if he
is going to find love in the human world, he
needs to give away his walker and pass as non-disabled. Um,
so it is this kind of work that's exploring the
question of masking and of upward mobility, which is sort
(17:31):
of trying to make your way up in society. Um,
and this, this young person trying to figure out what
is the right way. What's the right path? Who are
the right voices to kind of listen to? And finding
his own voice amidst all of that and how to
use it? But yeah, it is sort of reinterpreted as
a story that is set in Mandra, where I grew
(17:52):
up kind of moving to the city, and then the
upper sort of land world is based sort of in
the western suburbs, in this more posh area of the city. Yeah. Um,
where the Prince lives.
S2 (18:03):
I find that fascinating that you using the Little Mermaid
tail pun on words there as a metaphor for that masking.
And what gets talked about a lot in disability circles
is that if I could and when I can, I
try to hide my disability because it just makes life
a lot easier. It's a really clever thing you've done there. Patrick,
(18:23):
and I really admire that, and it sounds really fascinating.
So as part of your dance team and troupe, you
included a lot of people with other kinds of disabilities
and illnesses and so forth. Can you tell us a
little bit about that, please?
S4 (18:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So in this story there, the whole family
that the Little Mermaid actually lives in, there's a sea
queen who is his mother, and the middle mermaid who
is his older sibling. They're both mobility aid users as well. Um,
and most of the other team members are neurodivergent and
come from a range of different backgrounds. We also have, um,
(18:58):
a lot of queer characters and Asian, Australian and First
Nations characters who are part of the cast. Typically a
lot of like classical ballet technique. It's all very controlled
and it's very much about sort of showing off. And
and I always feel very suspicious as someone who's always
been very sidelined and erased from society. And so I
(19:21):
when I'm taking the the ballet form and this has
been something that everyone has been really enthusiastic as we've
been working together, I'm imbuing it with more, um, more theatre.
So more like realistic storytelling. There's no talking in the work,
but it will kind of a lot of the movements
will be derived from everyday movement. And when it comes
to the actual techniques and ballet shapes that will sort
(19:42):
of be using, they will be things which really are
quite new sort of steps, things that speak more to
the complexity of the characters rather than just trying to
make anything look perfect. We want it to look real
and to have the each of the performers have their
own personality, and to not just be cookie cutter, robot
sort of dancers on stage. There's a lot of the
(20:04):
performers themselves that will kind of be there. So yes,
there's there's most of the the cast are disabled. Most
of the crew director and the production manager and such
are disabled artists as well. And it was interesting before
you mentioned denial as well. And that actually is quite
a big theme in this work. There's a lot of
people who are struggling in different ways to to be
(20:28):
their true self, and the work is really not dividing
people into good or bad people, but rather looking at
the ups and downs of each individual, the choices that
they make, the impacts of that, but also the broader
systems that that kind of put people in a position
where they act in a certain way that is to
the detriment of themselves or others, but also the ways
(20:50):
that they can transform what is within their control to
to change. The team have been amazing to work with. Um,
they've just been so generous and excited for this whole process.
And I think, yeah, to be in a rehearsal room
where it feels like a disabled space as well, it's
just wonderful because most rehearsal rooms are quite strict and
(21:11):
and inflexible, and it's been beautiful to have a space
that is entirely our own, like a queer, brown, disabled
environment that is empowering. Everyone's very. Yeah, equal.
S2 (21:21):
Well, that's really interesting and really fabulous. Now we're quickly
running out of time here, Patrick. So we'll have to
start winding up soon. One thing will it look like
a ballet or will it look like theatre that uses
dance as its mode of performance.
S4 (21:36):
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say it will
look like theater as that uses dance as a mode
of performance, but I've continued to call it a ballet
and kind of provide that lens, because I think that
for ballet to be relevant to today and to be
an art form that's going to continue into the future,
it needs to change and evolve, and it needs to
become less about a gender binary and just the sort
(21:59):
of white stories that are, that are really not representative
of the world that we live in. And I think
to see characters who who look like me, who look
like all the performers in this work, telling our stories authentically.
I really wanted to create a ballet where that happens. Um,
the metaphor I often use with the dancers is that
ballet technique is sort of like a spider web. There's
(22:21):
sort of a if you have the center of a
spider web, um, which might be the way that you
hold your center line in your body, in your back. Um,
that is kind of the starting point that the spider
sort of builds its, its web around. But if you
think that there's lots of different kinds of spider webs,
there's messy ones that are in a crack. There's big ones,
small ones, ones with holes, and they're all spider webs.
(22:42):
That's kind of what ballet is, that you can take
any elements of ballet and it will still be ballet.
It will just kind of be interpreted differently. And when
you do that, it speaks to the depth and diversity
of the world that we actually live in and how
everybody has a different lineage, a different practice with dance
and what movement means to us. So for me, as
as a marginalized person who's often been told what to
(23:03):
do with my body and, and not been given my
own choices and bodily autonomy, I create dance where the
dancers have that bodily autonomy and where it's like a
way for marginalized artists to reclaim our bodies. Um, that's
very different to how typical ballet is sort of about
shaping you and changing you into being a very rigid
idea of what dance is meant to be. So it
(23:24):
is different because I believe it needs to be.
S2 (23:26):
Where else can people find out about you and your work,
and how can people learn about what you're doing?
S4 (23:33):
Usually people can just Google my name and sort of
find where I'm sort of active through through that. But, um,
one place that people can find out a little bit
more about The Little Mermaid and also support the work
if you're in a position to do so, is that
we have a fundraising campaign through the Australian Cultural Fund,
(23:53):
which will be going live really soon. And because, as
I mentioned, the kind of financial issues within the industry,
we are relying on the support of the community to
fund some really important parts of this work, including the
aesthetic access that we'll be doing with our blind. Cultural consultant,
Grace King will be developing that with our stage designers
(24:13):
and with myself, to create a world of this show
that is inclusive for blind and vision impaired audiences.
S2 (24:19):
So the performance will be somewhat audio described.
S4 (24:23):
Yeah, it'll be it'll be live streamed and it will
also have audio description, but the audio description will be
as well as haptic too, as if you're attending the
work in person. The audio description, it's going to be
developed in a way that's like not just describing action,
but actually really drilling into the important messages in the
work and ensuring that the nuances and the world of
(24:46):
the story is really accurately and considerately portrayed within that form.
S2 (24:52):
I find that really interesting, the way that audio description,
and in a similar circumstance way that Auslan is used
as well to become part of the performance. So an
accurate audio describer also needs to have some in this
case has to have great knowledge of the performance and
what you're what you're trying to portray, and also therefore
have some kind of idea of how to interpret the
(25:15):
performance and then describe it in a creative manner. Yes.
S4 (25:18):
Yeah, absolutely. So that's why Grace will be working with us,
particularly to ensure that that process is in line with
blind culture. And it's it's not just a bunch of
sighted people coming in and doing it how we think
it should be done. She'll be kind of working with
us through that whole process. But in order to ensure
that her expertise is really well remunerated, we would love
(25:39):
if people could donate to our Australian Cultural Fund fundraiser,
which you can just Google, um, Australian Cultural Fund. Patrick
Gunasekara would probably be the easiest way to fund it,
and all those donations will go directly toward the artists
on this project, um, and will ensure that we can
develop this work to its fullest capacity.
S2 (26:00):
Well thank you. Patrick Gunasekara for joining us here on
In Plain Sight on Vision Australia Radio. And it's been
a pleasure to see you in the studio and speak
with you. And that is so delightful to find out
about these great pieces of art and in this case,
dance and theater, and to to hear about all these
inclusive methodologies that are making the world easier and more
(26:22):
inclusive for everybody, not just people with a disability. So
thanks for joining us.
S4 (26:26):
No, thank you so much. It was so great to
talk with a fellow community member about these things. I
really appreciated this conversation.
S2 (26:33):
Great. Thank you very much. Well, that's the show for
this week, folks. Thanks for joining us here on In
Plain Sight on Virgin Australia Radio.
S3 (26:43):
That was Patrick Gunasekera. And what a really captivating interview
that was. I was I was absolutely taken away from
the beginning, and I'm really excited to have him back
into the studio. I think he has a lot to
say about a lot of different things in the community,
and I'm really interested to see when this ballet comes out.
I think it's going to be great. So thank you
(27:03):
so much for tuning in.
S2 (27:05):
Look us up on the internet to find out where
you can hear our program live on the radio, 990
Am in Perth and other stations throughout Australia, and also
on demand on all the major podcast services. Thanks, Abby.
S3 (27:19):
Thank you. And we'll see you guys next time.
S2 (27:22):
See you next time. Speak to you then. Bye for now.
Hi I'm Abby.
S2 (00:10):
Hi, I'm Simon. Welcome to the show In Plain Sight,
a program where we highlight incredible stories from dedicated people
who are doing positive things within their community and for
the disability sector. And we're proud to share these interesting
stories with you on a weekly basis. Thanks for joining us.
It's great to be here once again and presenting this
(00:32):
wonderful show in plain sight on Vision Australia Radio. And
what have we got on this week, Abby?
S3 (00:37):
So this week we're going to be speaking to Patrick Gunasekera.
He is a creator, performer and producer working across theatre, dance,
music and writing. His art is driven by a heartfelt
interest in change. The stories he creates often explore how
systems of oppression are normalized by everyday people, and what
(00:58):
agency and power looks like from marginalized positions. So this
interview this week is very much a profile and looking
into the special work that he is doing. Sir Patrick
is currently choreographing and producing a ballet adaptation of Hans
Christian Andersen's short story The Little Mermaid. It is reinterpreted
(01:19):
as a modern coming of age story from a young, queer,
brown and disabled point of view, and The Little Mermaid
itself will premiere in Perth and over live stream from
the 4th to the 22nd of November this year.
S2 (01:32):
Looking forward to hearing all about the wonderful ballet that
Patrick has produced and has created and will be developing further,
and will be showing us here in Perth in November.
It's a great illustration, too, of empowerment and how to
use arts as a form of advocacy by showing people
(01:54):
with a disability and a difference out in public doing
wonderful performance. And we thank Patrick for his time today
and really looking forward to hearing all about it and
so much more. And we'll go to that interview for
you now. Hi. And this week we are joined by
Patrick Gunasekara. And now Patrick does many things and he's
(02:18):
a very talented and interesting person. One of the things
he does is he is a dancer and he's got
a ballet coming up that will talk about a lot
during the show. But I'll get Patrick, just to give
us a brief description of some of the broad ranging
and interesting things that he does and how he might
describe himself.
S4 (02:36):
Well, thank you, Simon. It's really lovely to be here
supporting this show and yeah, talking with community about what
we're doing. So I, we actually met a few years
ago at the inaugural people with disabilities WA State Conference. Um,
and so I have a background in, in systemic advocacy
as a disabled person, as a cold young person, as
(02:57):
a queer young person as well. But my work in
the arts, I sort of work across theatre, dance, music
and writing. As a creator and as a performer. Um,
but when I was starting out in the arts industry
several years ago, I was finding it very difficult as, um,
what we call an underrepresented artist, that's someone with an identity,
(03:19):
lived experience or background that is really marginalized within the
kind of stories that are typically told. And we were
like a lot of my my friends in this sort
of local industry struggled a lot with our getting pathways into, um,
getting our work on stage or getting our stories programmed and, um,
out in the world. So I also since then have
(03:41):
started working more as a producer to, um, produce my
own work and create spaces where other underrepresented artists can
work together to realize our creative visions.
S2 (03:54):
You say you're now a producer, you're a dancer, you're
a writer, and you're also, like you just said you.
We met at the conference. You also do public speaking
and give presentations and just being you, you're an activist
and an advocate. Given just what you said to, I'd
like to start with something a bit light and say
that when I was told about you to be a
(04:17):
good guest for this program and then you had this
performance coming up, and since then, I've realized that you
have at least 2 or 3 direct links to people
we've spoken to previously. And you wrote a piece for
a book called Growing Up Disabled in Australia.
S4 (04:31):
Yes.
S2 (04:31):
Our very first guest on our first season of this show,
Eliza Hull, who is a person with disability and a
singer and a performer and an activist and an advocate.
She also wrote a piece for that, that book.
S4 (04:45):
Yeah.
S2 (04:45):
And another link is that we spoke to Tiffany. Ha. Yeah.
Who spoke about a performance that she's part of the
performance that you're.
S4 (04:54):
Yeah. She's one of the composers.
S2 (04:56):
Yeah. And they're just. Now you said you're going to
be working alongside Grace King, who's someone that many of
our listeners would know and a very prominent person within
the blindness community and the arts community. Mhm. Um, so
there's lots of crossovers and as you mentioned, you were
part of the inaugural, um, people with disabilities conference in 2020.
(05:19):
And that's um, sort of going to be running again
very shortly. So again, there's another interesting link because we
spoke to Vanessa from PWA not that long ago, who
was telling us all about the upcoming conference for this year.
S4 (05:32):
Yeah, I think how a lot of disabled advocates and
artists work in, in our various communities and fields is,
we think, very collectively. Yes. Um, and there's a very
deep value in our spaces of nobody gets left behind.
And a lot of the way that I've come to
work as a producer and a creator is really, um,
(05:55):
bringing those values and those cultures into arts processes. So
what I mean by arts processes as well is, um,
to go from having an idea for a show, for instance,
to then, um, bringing a team together, developing and rehearsing
that show and putting it on stage. There's a lot
of different kind of steps in between, um, that a
(06:16):
lot of people who work in, say, theater and dance
industries are quite used to the industry norms of how you, um,
go from from the start to the end of a project,
sort of, um, lifespan. But when you are disabled, often
something that I dealt with quite a lot early on was, um,
there was a lot of access barriers. Um, I needed
(06:38):
to work in ways that were a lot slower and
that just had more, more breaks, sort of. Wasn't this, uh,
working over time, burning out sort of type of work
that a lot of artists are quite used to? Um,
in fact, to compare, usually when a professional ballet company
is developing a new work. They might sort of, um,
rehearse and develop that whole work and then stage it
(07:01):
within three months of working full time, um, create a
whole show from scratch. Um, but this work, we started
rehearsals in October of last year, um, and even before then,
I was having a lot of conversations with, with each
of the team members about what we were making, how
it was going to, um, feel for them, and the
(07:22):
types of stories that we were telling, which, um, were
all things that we related to. So I wanted to
ensure that everyone was bringing their whole self and had
what they needed to do their best work in this process. Um,
we're taking a break from rehearsals now, and our show
will be in November of this year. That kind of
like 13 month span of creative development and moving quite
(07:45):
slowly through each phase of the work gives us a
lot of time to rest, to properly think through what
we're making and why. And it's sort of a way
of working that is much more accessible to all of
us on the process. But several years ago, when I
started embarking on a theater career, I was told quite
clearly by some arts institutions and people in positions of
(08:09):
power that I shouldn't be pursuing a career in theater
if I couldn't, um, work within the very inaccessible rehearsal
development schedules. That was the norm in the industry. And
I think this, this broader question of how we're working
is really important. Um, it's actually a conversation that many
people in the arts industry are having, because the way
(08:31):
that our industry is structured, it's very unsupported, like most
people are working for free and also are kind of
in a position of being forced to do so much
extra labor to get their work out. Um, because of
not having that external support, even just as independent sort
of freelancing workers. But I think what's really important to
focus on is that this is something we have always done,
(08:52):
that Disabled artists have always existed. We haven't always been
given credit for the kind of work that we do culturally,
but we have had quite a long lineage of influencing
the arts. For instance, if you think about aesthetics, like, um,
someone like Vincent van Gogh, for example, was a painter
whose work was really unpopular while he was alive. He
(09:15):
dealt with a lot of ableism. Um, but after he
passed away, there was actually quite a strong influence that
his work had, because it was a kind of aesthetic
that people hadn't seen before, and they were quite moved
in different ways. Similarly, artists like the dancer choreographer Vaslav
Nijinsky or, um, the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who used
(09:38):
a lot of deeper kind of notes in his work
as someone who was deaf later in life. That was
something that changed the way that music sounded, and people
left the in the classical music sort of history stopped
kind of using light and fluffy music all of the time,
and started exploring these sort of deeper notes that you
could create with music. And that was because of a
(10:00):
deaf aesthetic that Beethoven had brought to music.
S2 (10:03):
I'd be interested to know, Patrick, thanks for that great
history lesson, by the way. It's a great insight into
to where things have been and where we hope things
will go. I'm curious, with someone like yourself within the
arts arena that you work, do you find that you're
always having to be an advocate and always having to
(10:23):
be a representative of the communities that you represent, and
be a public face? How do you can you tell
us a little bit about that?
S4 (10:35):
This is a really good question. Um, because there is
a lot of expectation and pressure that comes from outside
of us to, to fix the system. A lot of
the time, or to be the representation and to prove that, say,
an arts organization is an inclusive space because they've got
a mobility. So they they look more inclusive if you're there.
(10:58):
But that isn't necessarily a representation of like how you're
actually feeling and how you're being treated somewhere. And I
think a lot of the time, because a lot of
disabled advocates end up sort of being welcomed by arts
organizations because they want to be more inclusive. Um, but
then when it comes to when we have complaints or
(11:19):
when there are concerns and things that need to be changed,
we often aren't listened to. We get into this really
difficult position of feeling, okay, things are only going to
change if I stay in this environment, and if I
go through like all the disrespect that I'm going through
and try and try and try to be listened to,
and I've been through that kind of cycle so many
(11:39):
times that that has often really ended up with going, okay,
I actually can't work in this place anymore because I've
just been so disrespected and and not being treated fairly.
And whenever I've made that decision, it's always been the
right decision for two reasons. One is that I learn
where my boundaries are, and I get to go and
work with people who are going to treat me better,
(12:00):
and I can recognize the things that I, I can
do differently. Um, in terms of going about advocacy in
a way that centers my boundaries. But the second reason
why it's always helpful to show other people where your
boundaries are is that often when I've left spaces, people
will sort of go, oh, actually, we don't look as
diverse anymore, like what's happened. And they'll have space to
(12:23):
really think about it and often improve things for the
next generation of underrepresented artists who come into that particular space.
So I will say, like, I've had a lot of
really difficult experiences with feeling that pressure externally, but also
putting that pressure on myself. And I think where the
focus of my career is today, having learned from that
kind of cycle of anxiety and burnout and stress that
(12:45):
comes from it, is that I thrive in spaces. Often
if I am telling disabled stories, I thrive in spaces
that it's only disabled people in the room where we
can be really unfiltered and we can, um, talk and
kind of learn things about ourselves that no one else
can really understand as well as we can. And to
(13:07):
produce those kinds of environments at first was something that
just made sense to me. It was something that was
difficult at first to kind of get a lot of
support for both from the industry and also from the community.
It was sort of something that was a bit different
and scary to kind of be doing things, um, completely independently.
But I think that because of that, I found that
there is a way to continue doing advocacy where it's
(13:28):
going directly toward disabled people having a safe space in
the arts. And when I can create those sort of
spaces and see the impact that it has on those
individual artists, then those artists are in a better position
to know their worth, to know their rights, and to
keep going within the industry in a way that is
on their terms. Um, it's starting to shift a bit
(13:49):
the way that we sort of think about advocacy. But
there is definitely still this, this extra pressure. And I
definitely dealt with this a lot in the dance industry because, um,
I was still figuring out a lot of my identity
as a disabled person coming into that space. Um, because
it is such a broad sort of culture, and also
because no disabled person is entirely defined by their disabled identity,
(14:12):
there are a lot of other identities and cultural expressions
that I was wanting to explore through forms like ballet,
for instance, that I didn't really see myself as a
disabled dancer and choreographer, but I was always seen as
a disabled dancer and choreographer, and that really affected how
I was treated.
S2 (14:28):
There is that thin line between our disability or our
whatever it might be, as part of our major identity
and our recognition, and yet we don't want to be
our full definition.
S3 (14:42):
You're currently listening to In Plain Sight on Virgin Australia
Radio with Simon and Abby, and this week we are
speaking to Patrick Gunasekera. He is a creator, performer and
producer working across theatre, dance, music and writing.
S2 (15:00):
So we'll move on now to the actual ballet that
you will be performing later this year in November. Now
to the title is a well known title to most people.
I would think it's a version of Little Mermaid. Is
that correct?
S4 (15:15):
Yes.
S2 (15:16):
And you told me a little bit about it. It's
transforming the concept of Little Mermaid from losing her fish
tail to, in your case, it's something a little bit
of varied. Can you tell us about that, please?
S4 (15:31):
Yeah, absolutely. So the the concept for this, I'd always
wanted to create something out of the Hans Christian Andersen
short story of The Little Mermaid, because there are a
lot of themes of disability in it, actually. It's sort
of this mermaid. When she goes on land, she becomes
non-verbal when she's walking. It feels like there's knives that
(15:51):
she's walking on. It's sort of made me think about
masking the experience of chronic pain in public. But when
I started to explore ballet as a form that I
really wanted to start using for storytelling, um, this idea
of actually creating a ballet adaptation came to mind. And
when I read through the the short story, um, again,
(16:12):
I started to pick up so many more themes about
the co-dependency of the mermaid and how she has this
feeling of the Prince is like this really important person
who is just going to save her life, and she
would die for him, but he's completely unavailable and she
doesn't realise this. And I think from there I started
to really think about a lot of the quite difficult experiences,
(16:34):
first experiences of love that is quite common to disabled
people because we don't grow up often being treated with
unconditional love. There's a sort of acceptance and tolerance and
not always being seen and included and sort of.
S2 (16:48):
Different power levels.
S4 (16:49):
Yes. So all of those things, I became really interested
in this character and this story of, um, running away
from home and, and the, the point at which The
Little Mermaid, who is a character that I'll be playing
and it will be like a queer character will be
this point where he meets the sea witch, who is
(17:10):
someone that he wants to become friends with, who's a
fellow outsider. But the sea witch advises that if he
is going to find love in the human world, he
needs to give away his walker and pass as non-disabled. Um,
so it is this kind of work that's exploring the
question of masking and of upward mobility, which is sort
(17:31):
of trying to make your way up in society. Um,
and this, this young person trying to figure out what
is the right way. What's the right path? Who are
the right voices to kind of listen to? And finding
his own voice amidst all of that and how to
use it? But yeah, it is sort of reinterpreted as
a story that is set in Mandra, where I grew
(17:52):
up kind of moving to the city, and then the
upper sort of land world is based sort of in
the western suburbs, in this more posh area of the city. Yeah. Um,
where the Prince lives.
S2 (18:03):
I find that fascinating that you using the Little Mermaid
tail pun on words there as a metaphor for that masking.
And what gets talked about a lot in disability circles
is that if I could and when I can, I
try to hide my disability because it just makes life
a lot easier. It's a really clever thing you've done there. Patrick,
(18:23):
and I really admire that, and it sounds really fascinating.
So as part of your dance team and troupe, you
included a lot of people with other kinds of disabilities
and illnesses and so forth. Can you tell us a
little bit about that, please?
S4 (18:36):
Yeah, absolutely. So in this story there, the whole family
that the Little Mermaid actually lives in, there's a sea
queen who is his mother, and the middle mermaid who
is his older sibling. They're both mobility aid users as well. Um,
and most of the other team members are neurodivergent and
come from a range of different backgrounds. We also have, um,
(18:58):
a lot of queer characters and Asian, Australian and First
Nations characters who are part of the cast. Typically a
lot of like classical ballet technique. It's all very controlled
and it's very much about sort of showing off. And
and I always feel very suspicious as someone who's always
been very sidelined and erased from society. And so I
(19:21):
when I'm taking the the ballet form and this has
been something that everyone has been really enthusiastic as we've
been working together, I'm imbuing it with more, um, more theatre.
So more like realistic storytelling. There's no talking in the work,
but it will kind of a lot of the movements
will be derived from everyday movement. And when it comes
to the actual techniques and ballet shapes that will sort
(19:42):
of be using, they will be things which really are
quite new sort of steps, things that speak more to
the complexity of the characters rather than just trying to
make anything look perfect. We want it to look real
and to have the each of the performers have their
own personality, and to not just be cookie cutter, robot
sort of dancers on stage. There's a lot of the
(20:04):
performers themselves that will kind of be there. So yes,
there's there's most of the the cast are disabled. Most
of the crew director and the production manager and such
are disabled artists as well. And it was interesting before
you mentioned denial as well. And that actually is quite
a big theme in this work. There's a lot of
people who are struggling in different ways to to be
(20:28):
their true self, and the work is really not dividing
people into good or bad people, but rather looking at
the ups and downs of each individual, the choices that
they make, the impacts of that, but also the broader
systems that that kind of put people in a position
where they act in a certain way that is to
the detriment of themselves or others, but also the ways
(20:50):
that they can transform what is within their control to
to change. The team have been amazing to work with. Um,
they've just been so generous and excited for this whole process.
And I think, yeah, to be in a rehearsal room
where it feels like a disabled space as well, it's
just wonderful because most rehearsal rooms are quite strict and
(21:11):
and inflexible, and it's been beautiful to have a space
that is entirely our own, like a queer, brown, disabled
environment that is empowering. Everyone's very. Yeah, equal.
S2 (21:21):
Well, that's really interesting and really fabulous. Now we're quickly
running out of time here, Patrick. So we'll have to
start winding up soon. One thing will it look like
a ballet or will it look like theatre that uses
dance as its mode of performance.
S4 (21:36):
Yeah, that's a great question. I would say it will
look like theater as that uses dance as a mode
of performance, but I've continued to call it a ballet
and kind of provide that lens, because I think that
for ballet to be relevant to today and to be
an art form that's going to continue into the future,
it needs to change and evolve, and it needs to
become less about a gender binary and just the sort
(21:59):
of white stories that are, that are really not representative
of the world that we live in. And I think
to see characters who who look like me, who look
like all the performers in this work, telling our stories authentically.
I really wanted to create a ballet where that happens. Um,
the metaphor I often use with the dancers is that
ballet technique is sort of like a spider web. There's
(22:21):
sort of a if you have the center of a
spider web, um, which might be the way that you
hold your center line in your body, in your back. Um,
that is kind of the starting point that the spider
sort of builds its, its web around. But if you
think that there's lots of different kinds of spider webs,
there's messy ones that are in a crack. There's big ones,
small ones, ones with holes, and they're all spider webs.
(22:42):
That's kind of what ballet is, that you can take
any elements of ballet and it will still be ballet.
It will just kind of be interpreted differently. And when
you do that, it speaks to the depth and diversity
of the world that we actually live in and how
everybody has a different lineage, a different practice with dance
and what movement means to us. So for me, as
as a marginalized person who's often been told what to
(23:03):
do with my body and, and not been given my
own choices and bodily autonomy, I create dance where the
dancers have that bodily autonomy and where it's like a
way for marginalized artists to reclaim our bodies. Um, that's
very different to how typical ballet is sort of about
shaping you and changing you into being a very rigid
idea of what dance is meant to be. So it
(23:24):
is different because I believe it needs to be.
S2 (23:26):
Where else can people find out about you and your work,
and how can people learn about what you're doing?
S4 (23:33):
Usually people can just Google my name and sort of
find where I'm sort of active through through that. But, um,
one place that people can find out a little bit
more about The Little Mermaid and also support the work
if you're in a position to do so, is that
we have a fundraising campaign through the Australian Cultural Fund,
(23:53):
which will be going live really soon. And because, as
I mentioned, the kind of financial issues within the industry,
we are relying on the support of the community to
fund some really important parts of this work, including the
aesthetic access that we'll be doing with our blind. Cultural consultant,
Grace King will be developing that with our stage designers
(24:13):
and with myself, to create a world of this show
that is inclusive for blind and vision impaired audiences.
S2 (24:19):
So the performance will be somewhat audio described.
S4 (24:23):
Yeah, it'll be it'll be live streamed and it will
also have audio description, but the audio description will be
as well as haptic too, as if you're attending the
work in person. The audio description, it's going to be
developed in a way that's like not just describing action,
but actually really drilling into the important messages in the
work and ensuring that the nuances and the world of
(24:46):
the story is really accurately and considerately portrayed within that form.
S2 (24:52):
I find that really interesting, the way that audio description,
and in a similar circumstance way that Auslan is used
as well to become part of the performance. So an
accurate audio describer also needs to have some in this
case has to have great knowledge of the performance and
what you're what you're trying to portray, and also therefore
have some kind of idea of how to interpret the
(25:15):
performance and then describe it in a creative manner. Yes.
S4 (25:18):
Yeah, absolutely. So that's why Grace will be working with us,
particularly to ensure that that process is in line with
blind culture. And it's it's not just a bunch of
sighted people coming in and doing it how we think
it should be done. She'll be kind of working with
us through that whole process. But in order to ensure
that her expertise is really well remunerated, we would love
(25:39):
if people could donate to our Australian Cultural Fund fundraiser,
which you can just Google, um, Australian Cultural Fund. Patrick
Gunasekara would probably be the easiest way to fund it,
and all those donations will go directly toward the artists
on this project, um, and will ensure that we can
develop this work to its fullest capacity.
S2 (26:00):
Well thank you. Patrick Gunasekara for joining us here on
In Plain Sight on Vision Australia Radio. And it's been
a pleasure to see you in the studio and speak
with you. And that is so delightful to find out
about these great pieces of art and in this case,
dance and theater, and to to hear about all these
inclusive methodologies that are making the world easier and more
(26:22):
inclusive for everybody, not just people with a disability. So
thanks for joining us.
S4 (26:26):
No, thank you so much. It was so great to
talk with a fellow community member about these things. I
really appreciated this conversation.
S2 (26:33):
Great. Thank you very much. Well, that's the show for
this week, folks. Thanks for joining us here on In
Plain Sight on Virgin Australia Radio.
S3 (26:43):
That was Patrick Gunasekera. And what a really captivating interview
that was. I was I was absolutely taken away from
the beginning, and I'm really excited to have him back
into the studio. I think he has a lot to
say about a lot of different things in the community,
and I'm really interested to see when this ballet comes out.
I think it's going to be great. So thank you
(27:03):
so much for tuning in.
S2 (27:05):
Look us up on the internet to find out where
you can hear our program live on the radio, 990
Am in Perth and other stations throughout Australia, and also
on demand on all the major podcast services. Thanks, Abby.
S3 (27:19):
Thank you. And we'll see you guys next time.
S2 (27:22):
See you next time. Speak to you then. Bye for now.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.