From Representation to Authorship: Disabled Led Creation on Stage

How disability is represented on stage matters — particularly for children and young audiences, whose understanding of difference is still being shaped. Too often, performing arts narratives rely on stereotypes, sentimentalise disabled lives, or frame artists as sources of “inspiration” rather than as creators. This seminar challenges those approaches by centring disabled artists as authors, creators and decision‑makers.

Drawing on the work of Europe Beyond Access (EBA), the session explores what changes when disabled artists do not simply appear on stage, but shape narratives, aesthetics and artistic values. Through concrete examples, it highlights how lived experience generates new artistic languages and dramaturgies — work that could not exist within traditional frameworks of representation.

The seminar also offers a practical framework for cultural professionals, focusing on the responsibilities of programmers, commissioners and institutions. How can festivals and venues support disabled artists as creators rather than contributors? What needs to change in commissioning practices, programming strategies and long‑term partnerships to enable equitable collaboration?

Addressed to programmers, artists, educators and cultural managers, this session combines critical reflection with practical insight and invites participants to contribute to a performing arts ecosystem in which disabled artists define their own stories.