This week on The I Can't Stand Podcast, Peta chats with the inspiring team behind Sprung Dance Theatre. Discover how this unique organisation supports disabled and deaf artists in Northern NSW, providing them with the tools and opportunities to thrive as professionals.
With insights from Artistic Director Daniele Constance, Ensemble Artist Manager Katie Cooper-Wares, and performer Tara Coughlan, this episode shines a light on the power of creativity and community in the disability arts sector.
Connect with Sprung:
Website: https://www.sprung.org.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sprungdance/
Email: info@sprung.org.au
Connect with Peta:
Instagram: @petahooke
Website: www.icantstandpodcast.com
Email: icantstandpodcast@gmail.com
Episode Transcript: https://www.icantstandpodcast.com/post/
Episode Transcript:
Peta [00:00:02] Hello and welcome to The I Can't Stand Podcast, the podcast answering your questions on what life is like when you have a disability. My name is Peta. I have cerebral palsy. I'm your host. Have you ever wondered if there's a pathway for disabled people to become professional artists? Well, there's one amazing ensemble company up in northern New South Wales here in Australia doing just that. Sprung ensemble is an amazing example of what disability led arts can be. I have three amazing individuals coming to speak to me today. I have Tara, who is part of the ensemble. I have Danielle, who is the artistic director, and I have Katie, who is the ensemble artist manager. Each person speaks beautifully on why this sort of group is so important and the impact it has in the arts industry here in Australia. So without any further ado, let's get into it.
Tara [00:01:27] So my name is Tara Louise Coughlan. I am the artist ensemble from Sprung.
Daniele [00:01:35] Hi, I'm Daniele Constance, and I'm the artistic director at Sprung Dance Theatre.
Katie [00:01:41] And I'm Katie Cooper-Wares, I'm this sprung ensemble artist manager.
Peta [00:01:46] Thank you so much for being here. Daniele, I might start with you. What is Sprung Ensemble or sprung dance theatre?
Daniele [00:01:56] Sprung Dance Theatre is a disability and arts organisation based on Bundjalung country in the northern rivers of New South Wales. Sprung caters and provides a whole range of different programs and opportunities for deaf and or disabled artists from across the region. In the Northern Rivers to to come together and and experience arts and culture and, and have opportunities to develop skills, experiences and and make work, make creative works. as part of sprung, we also have an ensemble of which Tara is one of the members of. And sprung ensemble is, yeah, a collective of artists of ten deaf and or disabled artists who have worked together for almost a decade. And yeah, we train, we train weekly and make, new contemporary performance and dance works.
Peta [00:02:54] As a disabled person myself, I'm always so thrilled to see disabled culture explored and illustrated in this way. And that's why, in particular, I'm so excited to speak to you, Tara, to talk about how spring has impacted your life, because I know you've been a part of it since the very start.
Tara [00:03:18] Sprung it's like my family and because it's been like ten years of spring. So my mother, Robyn was the person who started Sprung. We created sprung in 2012.
Katie [00:03:38] Yeah. And I think, your mum started sprung because she realised there wasn't many opportunities for you, to be out there as a dancer in an artist making work.
Tara [00:03:53] Yeah.
Peta [00:03:55] Have you always like to dance and perform, Tara?
Tara [00:04:00] Yeah, I have been dancing since I was four, so like I say, 14 years.
Peta [00:04:05] And how do you feel when you perform?
Tara [00:04:08] I feel a bit emotional because, I really love performing. I think I'm one of the the best pop stars at Sprung.
Daniele [00:04:18] One of the stars.
Tara [00:04:22] Yeah.
Peta [00:04:23] I can see that star quality in you, Tara. So that doesn't surprise me at all. What are your favourite dance styles?
Tara [00:04:32] Well, mine is, modern. I also do Zumba. I also do ballet. Tap. Broadway musical. And also Irish dancing.
Peta [00:04:51] Awesome. Katie, I want to speak to you about the disability led approach that you have at sprung. What does that look like in practice?
Katie [00:05:05] Hmhm. It looks a lot like knowing when to make offers and knowing when to lead. Listening so deeply and then really knowing when to get out of the way. It's a line that we walk. Where we want to support our artists to grow and to be the best artists that that they can be with our own, networks and our own skills and knowledge, but also recognising that they are artists in themselves and that they are teaching us all the time. It's a very honest, open process in which it works both ways. And sometimes, you know, we don't get things right all the time. And I think that's part of it. It's part of us going, okay, no, let's try it this different way.
Daniele [00:06:13] A real conversation, like a dance. It's an exchange. It's reflexive. It's like you're saying it's deep listening. And while like particularly within the ensemble, we all identify, as disabled and in quite diverse ways. And even though Katie and I are in leadership positions within the ensemble, I guess it's for us. It's not enough. Like disability led. It could be because we identify it's disability led, however, that's not it's not enough for us. I guess it's we're quite collaborative in our own practices, arts practices and how we work. The ensemble artists expressed very clearly that they were wanting to make decisions, wanting to be a part of decision making. So we have a thing called Very Serious Business Club.
Tara [00:07:04] So very Serious Business Club is like, someone's going to talk to us about any opportunities and other things that we going on tours and going to other places. So you can get money and.
Daniele [00:07:21] Yeah. And you get to. You get to then give us feedback on that. Yeah. We share the updates and things that come through Sprung.
Tara [00:07:28] Yeah, yeah.
Daniele [00:07:28] All the artists get to say, yeah, that sounds interesting. Or that I'm not sure about that. Can you go back and ask these questions?
Katie [00:07:36] And yeah. And that builds a real sense of ownership as well, so that we're all making decisions together.
Tara [00:07:43] We have voices. We all have voices to, share. So everybody gets an opportunity to have a say and have a voice. Really.
Daniele [00:07:53] Yeah. Yeah. And that's as much in the creative, the creative parts of our work. As well as, I guess, the kind of producing of the work as well. You know, too. So, like, where does the work go and who else do we want to work with then? Yeah. Do we want to go on tour.
Peta [00:08:10] It's really great to hear that within your strategy, there are steps towards to ensure that artists do have a professional future in this sort of career if they choose to. Because just from my own anecdotal experience in the past, when I was younger, these sort of groups were often seen as a method to fill in time. And yes, you know, foster creativity. But certainly as far as fostering the idea of a career and fostering talent, I don't think that was really thought of in the past, let alone of actually paying artists for their talents and expertise.
Daniele [00:08:59] Yeah, I think there's been some, really incredible and necessary progress in that space. I guess. Yeah, we're really benefiting from all of that incredibly, rich and I imagine challenging advocacy that's happened, before us as well. Yeah. And we really want to keep pushing that and keep driving that.
Katie [00:09:23] And I think. Yeah. And it's it's also a, you know, we're existing in a changing arts culture. And, you know, society where, people want to hear these stories that they haven't heard before.
Daniele [00:09:38] Yeah. There's a desire.
Katie [00:09:39] There's a desire to hear it now. Which is a really a real opportunity for artists. Yeah, yeah.
Peta [00:09:48] And Katie I might direct this question to you first. How do you think the disability lens in this circumstance impacts creativity?
Katie [00:09:59] It's almost like it's a fuel. It can be a fuel for creativity.
Daniele [00:10:04] Lots of different people and artists to come and and yeah, engage in programs at sprung and also within the ensemble. And like Katie was saying before we communicate differently, that's probably one of the key things for us. But we do. We move differently. We have different needs, different access needs, but different needs as artists in the room. So I think something that I really love about working in this space is that, it is about difference. And it's like trying to remain curious and I don't get it right all the time. But, but that curiosity is so key, like being curious and being open to all of the incredible creative offers that we're given, like all the time in this space.
Katie [00:10:51] It requires you to because to be more creative.
Daniele [00:10:56] Like, I hate using the word innovation when we start talking about arts, but but you know, I really think that within, the disability and art space, like often the work is incredibly new and innovative and it, it is because of those diverse experiences and lenses and perspectives and like ways of being in the world that we all bring. Yeah,.
Katie [00:11:18] It's it requires us to do things differently. So we have to flip what the norm, what is has always been done particular ways. We want to see stories that reflect our experiences.
Tara [00:11:31] Yeah, we have like given stories like we are all dances that create different stories. We move our bodies to different types of. Body work mostly.
Peta [00:11:46] Now, Danielle, as someone who isn't always in this space and I'm speaking for myself, I've only come across something called an access rider very recently, so I'd love for you to better explain it to me and help the audience understand if they have not heard it before as well. Because as we know, access is so important for disabled and deaf people. And in other spaces there are specific considerations that need to be considered as well, aren't there?
Daniele [00:12:18] Access riders are awesome. They are still relatively new. We're still working through creating access riders for everyone.
Tara [00:12:27] Like writing stories?
Daniele [00:12:29] It's sort of like that. It's a bit different. An access rider is like where we put down on paper usually what we what our access needs are, what we need. So for me that this job, when I took this job, it was the first time that I actually I wrote an access rider for myself, and I provided it with the employer. And I was really nervous about doing that because I, even though I'd signed the contract, I was like, I don't know, is it going to is it too much? You know, like I had all of those like, fears, of yeah, the contract being taken away for me because I needed things that maybe, maybe the organisation couldn't support or, or would get worried about supporting. So I'm really privileged to be able and grateful to be able to say that that was for the first time, met with a lot of openness. And, and in saying like, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do our best to meet those needs. So and access riders like we, we put down on paper the things that we need to be able to do to be able to turn up and do our job. So like, as artists.
Tara [00:13:30] Yeah. Yeah.
Daniele [00:13:30] What do we need in the, in the room. But then we also think about an access rider as a group. Because when we work as an ensemble we have competing access needs. Yeah. So we kind of have to. So that's definitely where we, we need to brainstorm all of those things and like how we work together.
Peta [00:13:47] And Katie, as the ensemble artist manager, I possibly Danielle as the artistic director. What is it like to foster and manage disabled artists while also trying to balance their access needs, particularly when those access needs are so varied for each different person and you're dealing with different people, different talent levels, and also different disabilities and requirements, what is that like?
Katie [00:14:18] Honestly, it's it's quite exhausting. It's a it's a.
Daniele [00:14:21] It's complex. It is. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. It's often a challenge.
Katie [00:14:25] It is. I think time. Is a thing that we're. And we're still learning that.
Daniele [00:14:32] Yes, we always need more time. Crip time is is such a thing. It's so real. And. Yeah. That's right. We keep learning, we keep giving ourselves more time. That was great. But it's still not enough. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah.
Katie [00:14:49] And that's us unlearning what we.
Daniele [00:14:51] Yes.
Katie [00:14:52] What is in us, you know? Yeah.
Peta [00:14:57] Yeah, that makes sense. And Tara, what have you learned from your fellow disabled and deaf artists around you? The ensemble?
Tara [00:15:08] Well, what I learn from them is that we we share, we share each others company and we share our friendships. And it's great that, our dances we have ten ensemble and they're from two people from Brisbane, and all around here. And so I think, what I've been learning from them is, just being connected by them. And because I've been with them for, like, you know, ten years and it's one of the best parts of our journeys.
Peta [00:15:47] And what about for you, Katie?
Katie [00:15:49] I think I've learnt. Not to assume. Things. Even though I've been working alongside these artists for nearly seven years now, I think, and I guess it's like what I said before, knowing when to lead and when to take it out of the way. Yeah. Not assuming that that I know everything.
Tara [00:16:14] She doesn't.
Katie [00:16:17] {laughs} because I don't.
Peta [00:16:21] What about you, Danielle?
Daniele [00:16:22] Yeah, I mean, I echo both of the things Tara and Katie have shared. I think, yeah, the connections are really strong. There's so much trust being able to be a director in a lot of these, projects. And in my role, it's a real privilege to be able to be in that position and I and it comes with a lot of responsibility. But it it comes from trust, like, you know, and I really feel that.
Tara [00:16:48] It means a lot to us
Peta [00:16:51] So for anyone who's listening and thinking, gosh, this really sounds like something that I would want to do. How did I get in touch? What's the audition process like? Tell me all about that.
Daniele [00:17:04] So we do lots of different programs at the moment. Most of them happen in the northern rivers of New South Wales. So you've got to come to us. But we do run things online. So, Tallulah, One of the ensemble artists. An incredible artist. Deaf artist is running Auslan Choir at the moment, so she's facilitating that.
Katie [00:17:24] She's an amazing, singer. Signer? Yeah. Sign singer. And so she interprets, songs, particularly pop songs.
Tara [00:17:37] Taylor Swift.
Katie [00:17:38] Yeah. She's a she's a Taylor Swift fan. And teaches Auslan choir online. And now we're up to about 50 people from all around the country. On, Tuesday evenings. And you don't need to know any Auslan at all. Complete beginners can come and it's a lot of fun.
Daniele [00:18:02] We we run regular programs, but we do programs that usually fall within the New South Wales school holidays. So not that they're not necessarily like it's not a school holiday program, but we run intensive, so usually with guest artists in a particular style or or kind of theme. So we have one coming up in a few weeks that's a collaboration between a contemporary dance artist, and an electronic sound artists, a band. That's. Yeah, some Sprung artists are a part of. So with the ensemble, it's it's, more of a commitment. The ensemble artists train twice a week. We do intensives when we make work together. So that's definitely. It's for, artists who are more serious and committed and really wanting to build a career. Yeah. And yeah. And our programs of the ensemble program is the only one that, where there's, you know, a bit more of a process involved where you do need to apply and come and audition with us because it's. Yeah, it's a professional program and it's it's got to be a good fit. But all of our other programs are open, so anyone can like, call, email, text.
Katie [00:19:10] If you're out there. Yeah. Listening to this podcast, you're dancing in your bedroom, secretly call us.
Peta [00:19:20] And for those of us who maybe aren't talented in this way but still want to support sprung. How do you suggest that we do that?
Daniele [00:19:30] Yes, absolutely. We need audiences for our work. Always. Probably the best is to follow us on social media at the moment. You can sign up to our newsletter. So we share a lot about our upcoming programs and upcoming performances and exhibitions there.
Tara [00:19:49] We do big productions as well. We do shows mostly.
Daniele [00:19:52] Yeah. We we have some coming up this year. So.
Tara [00:19:57] One in October one in September
Daniele [00:20:00] Yeah. So we're still waiting on the final date, but we'll have a big work showing in Lismore later this year. So I would say jump and jump on our socials and newsletter, and you'll find out more.
[00:20:15] @SprungDance on Instagram.
Tara [00:20:16] And, Facebook.
Peta [00:20:19] Well before my last question, I just want to say thank you for the three of you, for creating a space that allows for disabled people to explore creativity in any capacity that they feel comfortable. I think it's really important, and I really value your work, and I think it's fantastic that you also have a professional method for people to explore this into their career. I think it's really valuable. But keeping all that in mind, what do you hope for the future of sprung?
Tara [00:20:51] Well, I think for our ensemble we will be an older age. but we go to different paths, like we might go to Brisbane or somewhere else. Yeah. So for ensemble, I think we do things that are different in the future, but.
Katie [00:21:15] When I think about the future of, all our artists, I get really, really excited. I get a little bit, like, tingly excited, actually. It's been a hard few years, for all of us here at sprung, with Covid. And we've had a big flood up here, and. The future of and the opportunities for artists with disability. I think that I just looks really good.
Daniele [00:21:43] The future is bright.
Katie [00:21:44] The future is so bright.
Daniele [00:21:45] Yeah, I'd love to see. I'd love to see more growth. I think we're in the right path with what we're doing at sprung. I'd love to see more support of what we're doing financially. But, but also support in, like, more connections and networks, across the country, being regional can feel a little isolating sometimes. And, I mean, we have an like there's an incredible community here in the northern rivers. But yeah, I think it would be really great. I'd love in the future to, to have more, visibility. And not just for Sprung, but also like Tara, like you're saying, like all of the artists, within sprung, but also like artists with disability and or who are deaf outside of sprung just greater visibility and recognition of the incredible contribution that we make, like, I guess, in the arts, because that's where we work. But also beyond that, just, you know, as human beings in the world, and to see things shape, see the shape of things change, you know, as more diverse perspectives and lived experience, actually get to shape them.
Peta [00:23:04] Thank you for listening to this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget, you can always scroll back in the feed and listen to Annie. She is a human rights lawyer specialising in disability rights. And she herself has a disability. She was really open and honest and spoke about important topics including sexual assault. When you have a disability, if that's not quite right for you, that's over 160 episodes to choose from. It's like I have a listen. If you'd like to get in contact with me. You can always send me an email via icantstandpodcast@gmail.com, or you can follow me over on Instagram. My handle is @petahooke. I'd love to see you over there. Well, that's it for another week. Have a good one everyone. Until next time. Bye. I would like to respectfully acknowledge Wurundjeri people and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, of which I record the podcast today. And I pay my respects to both elders, past and present, along with and especially to those in the First Nations communities who are disabled themselves.
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