This session has taken place- an unedited video is available at https://youtu.be/T98e0OyzUm4

In the first of five workshops to support you in the run up to the June 6th Prize deadline- in this workshop you will explore the creative integration of various forms of access into your work from its inception: starting with the script and pre-production ideas all the way through to showcasing.

Nickie and Chloe will focus on who you want to make your work for, why access is so important, why you need to consider it from the outset of your project and how you can start to view and use access tools as creative opportunities rather than thinking of them as barriers or compromises. Through a series of provocations and exercises we will analyse existing work to show you how we can improve it by using creative access and discuss your own work and how using creative access can add more tools to your toolbox.

You can write along at home, or watch the workshops archived (from around a week later).

In this session we’ll look at two short extracts (written by Chloe and Nickie)

Soup by Chloe Clarke 

Short Cuppa by Nickie Miles Wildin 

Remember- you can find all of our archived workshops from previous years HERE

Nickie Miles-Wildin is DaDaFest’s joint Artistic Director & CEO.

Chloë Clarke is an Actor and Audio Description Consultant based in Cardiff, where she founded Elbow Room Theatre Company with fellow performer and British Sign Language Interpreter Sami Dunn in 2017.

Clarke began her career as an AD Consultant following the development of an Unlimited-commissioned project she conceived in 2014, The Importance of Being Described…Earnestly?, which focused on creating a new form of audio description that offers a choice of interpretation for the listener and does not require the use of headsets. This is because, as a visually impaired theatre-goer (and theatre-maker) Clarke has always found traditional applications of audio description frustrating. She has been approached by a huge number of companies, individual artists and venues from the UK and abroad who are keen to learn more about her unique, creative AD style and it’s integration into their work. Some examples of these are detailed below.

 Having gained some notoriety in this field, Arts Council Wales commissioned Clarke, in collaboration with Disability Arts Cymru, to compose a toolkit for venues and companies to better engage visually impaired audiences, which was published in 2020 and can be read here. She subsequently established Audio Description South Wales as an agency for describers and consultants. She continues to perform and consult in both mainstream and disability arts industries in the UK and internationally.

Consultancy and performance credits include:

Leeds Playhouse, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Chapter Arts, Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse, Manchester Royal Exchange, Graeae Theatre Company, Deaf and Hearing Ensemble, The Point, Wales Millennium Centre, Sherman Theatre, Warner Bros. Entertainment.