Tim Wheeler reflects on Revolution: Bradford, on 7th November, commemorating the revolutionary spirit in us all.

I reckon there hasn’t been a revolution in England because of the weather. If it’s raining we stay in. If it’s sunny, we moan about the heat. Lizzie the BSL interpreter for Revolution: Bradford reminded me of the Yorkshire saying: ‘It’s either bin rainin’, is rainin’, or abah t’rain.’ Revolution: Bradford was a Happening in 3 acts, inspired by the work of Albert Hunt, supported by the wonderful team from Freedom Studios, and of course, it rained! Though not enough to dampen the spirits of our intrepid revolutionaries.

We created a series of games to be played outside and in. Act 1: The Struggle was based on Capture the Flag played in the Mirror Pool, Act 2: The Storming based on Grandma’s Footsteps was played in Centenary Square and the Civic Entrance to City Hall. And Act 3: The Revolutionary Youth Council was a Forum Theatre event where spectators become spect-actors and attempt to solve problems that were presented theatrically. We even had a Cossack on a horse. The Cossack was called Catherine (she was Great!), riding Malik the stunt horse.

Like all good revolutionaries, we’d risk assessed the insurgence. We were warned by the police that there was a group of lads and lasses causing trouble in Centenary Square. Sure, enough they were there. Riding bikes, through the mirror pool, cutting across the square. They were ‘effing and jeffing’, then one lasses spotted there were younger kids around and said ‘effing shut up, there’s proper kids here’. Immediately they stopped messing and joined in. Shame that Council cuts have meant the end of detached youth work. The costs of policing rises, as the support for youth services decline.

The Revolutionary Youth Council involved students from Carlton Bolling College and Grange Technology College, expertly led by Natalie and Anna from Freedom Studios. The young people brought their concerns: we acted and debated gender stereotyping in sport, racism and cyber bullying and university fees - some of burning issue for this generation. One 15-year-old lad said ‘imagine going into a betting shop and putting £50k on any horse at 10-1, that’s the odds of coming out of university and getting a better job.’ A bright lad, university material, seriously questioning if it would do him any good.

So, why commemorate the Russian Revolution? To be clear, this wasn’t a celebration of the barbarity of the events in Russia post 1917. It was an opportunity to focus on the art of personal and social transformation. The seed had been planted in the early 1990’s. I met Albert Hunt in Rio de Janeiro when I was presenting at a Festival of Theatre of the Oppressed convened by Augusto Boal. We talked about the possibility of a re-enactment.

In 1967, Hunt was the self-styled 'Happenings Officer' at Bradford College. He was struggling to engage his students, and hit upon the idea to use theatre to bring a history lesson to life. He planned a series of talks and a theatrical game to be played out on the streets on the 7th November. The events climaxed with the Storming of Cartwright Hall in Manningham. Over 300 students took part. He wrote about the experience in Hopes for Great Happenings which has recently been re-published by Routledge.

Albert had hoped to be involved in the activities this time round. I caught up with him in 2015. He lit up as he talked about his pioneering work and the possibility of an event in 2017. Sadly, he died a short while after we met.

I’ve lived in Bradford for 30 years. I’ve seen massive change – mill closures, the riots of the late 1990s, the re-development of the city centre into a place that people actually want to go. The weather matters, no doubt. So too does the built environment, the buildings, the Mirror Pool – but people matter most. Bradford’s people are generous, pragmatic and kind. Witness the Bradford Council of Mosques re-roofing the Jewish Synagogue. An act revolutionary kindness. Only in Bradford! I’m hopeful. The young people we worked with certainly had ideas about how things should be.

When Bradford put its bid together to be Capital of Culture in 2008, I joked that the strap line should have been Bradford: It’s a Riot. In the end, we settled on Bradford: One Landscape Many Views. A line taken from a painting by David Hockney. Maybe that’s Bradford’s gift to the world. One place that can hold conflicting and contradictory views, respectfully, and a place where to feel at home is a revolutionary act.  

So, here’s to Bradford 2117, the bi-centenary. I hope that the technological revolution we are living though now solves the problems of climate change and that we learn to value people more than buildings. We love to tell ourselves dystopian tales. Few are interested in Utopia, first imagined by Sir Thomas Moore in 1516, it literally means ‘no place’, As Dorothy said ‘there’s no place like home’. Viva Bradford!

A net can be defined either as an effective device to catch fish, or a collection of gaps tied together with string. It’s all a matter of perspective. Opening Doors - a company of learning disabled and non-disabled artists based in Valletta, Malta – are caught in a net: it’s clear what they are, and what they aren’t – it’s not about therapy – but just like in the UK, there are many perspectives on this kind of work. The Company has recently decided to establish a smaller ensemble within the bigger group, for those who have aptitude and interest to take their performance further. At the same time, they want to ensure that they offer opportunities for people with more profound and complex needs. I was invited to speak at the Opening Doors conference, designed to give them a number of new perspectives as they start their journey. Whilst of course, the circumstances are very different in Malta, I focused my presentation on the gaps that exist in the work in the UK – both the helpful and unhelpful ones. Unhelpful Gaps Credibility Gap: It’s worthy, but is it any good?  There are many who still don’t believe that learning disabled people are capable of high quality professional work. So often, the mere fact that work includes learning disabled people turns people off. It’s worthy. There is a feeling that we have to be twice as good to be thought of as half as good. One of the most interesting companies to emerge in recent years is Back to Back, an Australian Company who’s work tours to mainstream venues such as the Barbican to international acclaim. Small Metal Objects and Ganesh & The Third Reich pull no punches; their work is exceptional by anyone’s standards. They really have raised the bar. Education Gap: What’s the point? They can’t learn anyway. It’s true, you can’t teach people who don’t want to learn, but I know everyone can learn. I’m now teaching in a number of Universities in the UK. From this perspective, I’d say it’s the barriers to learning that are placed in the way of learning disabled people that prevent them from developing their skills, talents and abilities. Hijinx in Wales have created an academy to train aspiring actors with learning disabilities who want to go further. But I want to go even further than that. I want to see learning disabled performers graduate from degree level courses, or complete training in the top drama schools. We’ve done the pilot work. We know it works. We just need the institutions to take this work seriously. Employment Gap: They’re amateurs, only professionals get paid. I believe in equal pay for equal work. Some people with learning disabilities aspire to be employed. And not just in specialist companies. In the UK, Liam Bairstow plays Alex Warner on Coronation Street. Ex-Mind the Gap Donna Lavin and Edmund Davies, appeared in The Pursuits of Darleen Fyles on a Radio 4 for 6 seasons. Jez Colborne and I have literally travelled the world working together. We toured On the Verge, a show based on a Arts Council funded trip we made across the United States on a Harley Davidson. We also created Irresistible and Immovable which, represented the UK in the London 2012, Cultural Olympiad. In all these instances learning disabled performers are paid to deliver their work on par with non-disabled performers. Helpful Gaps Perception Gap: The wonder of seeing the world though different eyes. We all have different perceptions of the world. There is something unique about the way people with learning disabilities experience the world that brings fresh insight and new perspectives. Oily Cart produce work for people with profound and complex needs. The shows are immersive and the distinction between audience and performer is blurred. Each performance is unique and full of wonder. Permission Gap: This work isn’t a threat to the original. I’ve worked with the estates of some of the world’s best writers, to adapt classic texts in a way that just wouldn’t be possible for a non-disabled theatre company. We’ve been able to re-focus stories, telling them from the point of view of a different character. In so doing we have been able to shed new light on familiar tales. In 2001 I made an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the show was performed over 150 times over 10 years and was seen by over 25,000 people. Whilst it wasn’t a threat to the original, it really told it like it is, and at the same time secured the reputation of Mind the Gap, with Stage critic Kevin Berry, saying it re-defined what is possible in a theatre. Authenticity Gap: We don’t accept ‘blacking-up’, why should we accept ‘cripping-up’? No matter how much training a non-disabled person goes through they will only ever be able to approximate the character of a learning-disabled person. People with learning disabilities are experts in their own lives. Their performance is embodied rather than representational. Why not celebrate authenticity? After many years of successful touring the UK’s National Theatre finally cast Micky Rowe, the first autistic actor to play Christopher, in the lead role in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Let’s hope the first, of many! Opening Doors has a fantastic ethos, they are doing what their name implies. I was invited to participate by my friend and teacher Jo Butterworth. After leaving Bretton Hall, Jo set up The School of Performing Arts at the University of Malta and has also been instrumental in supporting the development of Opening Doors, of which she is now chair. They are on a unique journey. They will discover new things. Their open ethos is inspiring. Open to opportunity, open to possibility, open to change.

A ‘not so’ funny thing happened to me on the way to the ietm plenary meeting... In the 50 mins that it took to fly from Birmingham to Brussels, the EU announced that the UK would no longer be eligible to host the European Capital of Culture in 2023. This came as a shock to the 5 Cities who were bidding for the title. Dundee, Leeds, Milton Keynes and Nottingham and a joint bid by Belfast/Derry and Strabane, had already committed substantial amounts of time and money to the bidding process. All had built up matched funding commitments, all had inspired a host of excellent proposals for cultural activity. I was at ietm thanks to the British Council and had been given a converted 3 minute slot to talk in the Newsround session at ietm. I had been successful in getting work in to the plans for Leeds 2023 with a project called Muted which seeks to connect international artists with objects found in Leeds museum and gallery collections. Essentially, it’s about how we use objects to mute aspects of our identities. Along with my partner Jo Verrent, we are looking for 21 other artists with established practice who would be interested in responding to the brief: 23 artists, 23 objects, 23 art works. In that 50 mins, all bets were off. Determined not to let Brexit get in the way of a good idea, I hastily re-wrote my presentation. Emotions ran high in the UK delegation. Everyone had an opinion - some were crestfallen, some in fighting mood, and some saying ‘how dare we even think that we could host the Capital of Culture… we’re leaving Europe… we should sit down, shut up and take the medicine’. It was clear when the Cities committed to the process that this might be the outcome. But, the way the news had been delivered seemed more like a punishment than a grown-up announcement; after the 5 Cities had spent so much money, submitted their bids, and the week before they were due to meet the judging panel - perhaps the timing was designed to inflict the maximum amount of political damage? As Geoffrey Brown from Euclid said, the only certainty is that the next 6 to 12 months are going to be filled with uncertainty. That is the nature of negotiations, and arguably there are far more serious issues at stake in the wake of Brexit than Capitals of Cultural - freedom of movement, security and the reciprocity that has exists between partners on health, social security, transport and trade. I was humbled by the response. ietm rose to the challenge. A hastily convened meeting and a visit by MEP Juile Ward, helped to focus our minds. Our European friends and colleagues, far from being incredulous and antagonistic, actively sought to help us work out our next steps. There was no gloating, no ‘I told you so.’ Just colleagues, active members of our transnational tribe, trying to help. So what next? Well my presentation went well and I’m determined that Muted will take place. I’m a great believer that once I think a thing, it will happen. What happens about the European Capital of Culture in 2023, is being discussed in corridors that nobody I know have access to. I guess we have to trust our politicians to do the right thing, and plan for the fact that they probably won’t. As for the European Project, Brexit and the divorce settlement - I realised at ietm, I should now consider myself a ‘freelance European’, rather than an employee of UK Plc. Thanks to the British Council - and their continued support of disability arts internationally - I was able to spend time with some exceptional disabled artists. We may be living through dark times, but as Leonard Cohen says There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

So, you work in the Arts with different groups of people. Imagine you’re at the barbers or the hairdressers, and they ask THAT question… 'What do you do?' What do you say? ‘I’m a Community Artist’ or ‘I’m a Socially Engaged Artist?’ I ran a 7-day poll on Facebook to find out what people thought…Facebook is an interesting place to do research, though it has its limitations. You’re talking to your bubble, your tribe, your community. Sometimes they engage, sometimes they don’t. Ok so it’s not really set up for nuanced debate. It only allows a two-choice poll. That said, the opportunity to ask so many people from all around the world, just didn’t exist a few years ago. I started by asking my friends. I’m surprised at how many people I know - 1337! Popular wisdom is that you can only really know 150 people, I’m not sure that I agree. Polling lasted 7 days. On the 4^th day, I made the poll ‘public’ and shared it on 3 performance related Facebook groups. It was shared by others to a further 5 pages. There was good representation from the visual arts, performing arts, music, dance theatre, as well as photography and movie-making. There were academics, teachers, social workers and people who worked in health settings. 68 people voted. It was close. 33 (49%) voted for community artist and 35 (51%) voted for socially engaged artist. Of the people who voted community artist, 15 were new acquaintances, and of those who voted socially engaged artist, 10 were new. A further 33 people took part on the various Facebook pages. They chose not to vote, but entered into the discussion, debating the two terms and offering alternatives. 101 people in total. So, why am I doing this? Well, I’m reviewing a book entitled Culture, Democracy and the Right to Make Art: The British Community Arts Movement  edited by Alison. Jeffers & Gerri Moriarty, published by Bloomsbury, 2017. Also, I’ve been thinking for a while about how I want to define what it is that I do. I want to challenge my opinion of community arts, a term that I’ve dodged all my working life, and find out why I felt more comfortable with being referred to as a theatre maker (performance maker more recently) adding a qualifier - involved in socially engaged practice - if pressed. The words that came to mind when people thought about community arts included - fun, much maligned, killed by the Tories, essential, undervalued, rubbish, hard core, welcoming, shiny buildings, keeping the community at bay, where art matters most, Panto, home spun, glue, resistant political practices, sticky surfaces, best kind, inclusive, life story and fish! I remember that Ernest Hall, one-time Chairman of Yorkshire Arts once said community arts was ‘crap arts’. This prompted one respondent to say 'Ernest Hall was very wrong... I didn't always like being called a community artist because of its sometimes ethos that discouraged strong artist involvement in the collaborative process, challenging with aesthetics, ideas and craft.' There’s a good deal of support for the term community arts. One person said 'I've never had a problem with the term 'community arts'. When I started working in the sector in 1998, I guess I had missed a lot of the negativity and suspicion about left-wing influenced agitators and came in when 'participatory arts' was in vogue. But for me, community arts is the most accessible terminology that describes simply what we wanted to achieve. I still like it. Community arts is about facilitation and enabling people to make their own art and creative expression. Socially engaged and participatory (for me) are often more about the artists ambitions being realised and people can the materials that make the art (Jeremy Deller, or Spencer Tunick) or the subject matter (Grayson Perry or Ai Weiwei).' A number of people didn’t feel the need to qualify the term artist or theatre maker, or theatre practitioner. 'I remember being a theatre practitioner - never a community artist. More a theatre practitioner creating work based upon the stories and lives and issues of the communities (of interest or location) I was working with. Sometimes the participants would be members of these communities. Sometimes they would become part of the devising process and the work would be performed by a mixture of community actors and professional actors. All on an equal footing. Always about theatre for change.' So, what about the socially engaged artist? Well, one person said, ‘socially engaged - feels full of judgement to me. Another said, there is a danger - intended or not - that 'socially-engaged' means 'engaged in particular, approved ways' (with the implication that those who engage in other ways are 'less' engaged or somehow indifferent/hostile to relationship with their wider community). Another countered, socially engaged edges forward for me - perhaps it is the sense that there is a political drive with socially engaged for me'  I see a lot of community arts practice that is celebratory in nature - lantern parades, murals - often reflecting a community in defiance of the norm. Perhaps with the socially engaged artist there is an acknowledgement that an artist can an active agent of change. A hammer rather than a mirror, as Bertolt Brecht would have said. Identifying that you work with the/a community has the potential to ‘other' people, and for some may be seen to de-value you as an artist. When I studied at Dartington College of Arts, I spent a year working in Plymouth at PACT - Plymouth Action Community Theatre. I remember doing a circus-skills show at the Octagon Social Club - Fire blowing, nail up the nose, walking on glass - the community drank and talked throughout the show. They clapped politely at the end. Then the Bingo... lid put on the pool table, the bar stopped serving - silence; the numbers, relayed into the toilets so people could carry on playing if they were caught short. The dramatic tension was palpable. The elation real. One person saw the need to change titles depending on who she was talking with. 'To professionals, I say I’m an arts practitioner/researcher, because that suggests an element of skill and thought... To Joe Public, I find it’s easier to say I teach dance and performing arts....and then go into further detail if asked. I also quite like ‘facilitator’ as it suggests a more collaborative and democratic way of working. I would never use the term socially engaged because I don’t believe anyone in the general public - including myself! - really knows what it means.' And then there was the voice of the ‘applied’ practitioner… 'I would always call myself an applied theatre facilitator on my CV, because I think I do a lot of different roles and feel some projects don't really suit the title of me being seen as "the artist" because I think that sometimes makes the participant the "other" and that makes me feel uncomfortable because I like to create work where everyone is the artist. I think to be "socially engaged" as a practitioner is important but I voted for community artist because I think the terminology is a bit more accessible and non-specific to the semantic field of the creative arts but I think I would equally say I was a socially engaged individual. I think I would always call myself a facilitator and stick-in a word relevant to whatever I was doing. Sometimes I think I'm a socially disengaged rebel anarchist facilitator or a facilitator of play or a facilitator of education and sometimes I think I'm an artist- but only when I need the applause.' Some really don’t like the term ‘applied’. 'My problem with the ‘applied’ label is it feels too medicalised and instrumentalist for me these days. I’m most interested in dialogue and sparking creativity and conversation with as wide a variety of humanity as I can. Classic community arts practice can often segregate rather than congregate; when work is ‘targeted’ ‘at’ people it feels essentially undemocratic. ‘socially engaged’ feels bureaucratic and one suspects the precursor to a metric of some sort (‘how many people have you engaged with?’ ‘How many of them are now in training and employment as a result?’ etc.). Lately, taxi drivers have seen me schlepping kit around and asked me what I do? ‘It’s a bit like stand-up, only sometimes it’s sad’ seems to work best.' I remember talking to a friend in the early 90s who thought that ‘applied’ sounded like a sticking plaster. Like applied theatre was some kind of salve or treatment. Mid-way, I chucked in a few more spanners - How do people feel about ‘a community of practice’ or a 'community of inquiry’ or ‘a community of interest?” Also, the House of Commons is so-called, not because it’s full of commoners but because it’s a shortening of ‘The House of Communities’ - Each MP represents a community. One academic wrote 'I say I'm a theatre maker, and if asked further I say I like making work collaboratively. Although I'm part of the machine (teaching an MA in applied theatre) I don't like the term applied practitioner at all. It was invented by academia and should stay there. I don't have bad associations with community but socially engaged theatre makes it sounds as if other stuff isn't.' Then there were some responses that show we’ve not all lost our sense of fun, 'I usually say I make funny noises, sometimes with lots of people and sometimes not.' And, 'THAT conversation often makes me wish I was a dentist, or a schoolteacher, or a hairdresser, or some other occupation that doesn’t prompt a lengthy description from me followed by confused looks from them... on the upside, it often leads to laughter and connection, so I guess it’s not so bad being ‘a person who runs my own performing arts company that does projects with community groups and women’s groups and cabaret and street theatre, and yes also I’m a drag queen and yes that was me dressed as Glinda the Good Witch of the North.’ One person referred to a hierarchy of qualifying terms. 'The only other thing that could render you of less value than the word community artist in the eyes of the cultural gods and citadels etc. would be the prefix of disability/disabled - double jeopardy. Another said, working in ‘theatre’ comes with so much baggage for Joe Public anyway, just adding more jargon to the term just confirms what cynics want to think about us. Good to keep ‘Theatre’ at the front and help to clarify for who we do it. …if I ever described myself as a Socially Engaged Artist in public I think I would be disowned.' It’s reassuring that the community arts scene is still present and that terms are being regularly contested. What next? I’d like to keep the conversation going – so others can add their thoughts doubts, problems, concerns. We need make sure we don’t take ourselves too seriously - we do important work yet some still see it as icing rather than part of the cake. What if social media became ‘socially engaged media’?  If the bubble I’m in became a ‘community of practice’? I guess that’s up to us to make THAT happen.