Company is taking inclusive theatre to the next level
Inclusive theatre company Taking Flight celebrates its 15th birthday this year – and it has big plans to broaden its reach further, writes Jenny White...
THIS year Taking Flight Theatre Company turns 15 – and it has a packed year lined up. It has just received funding to redevelop its lockdown digital family show First Theatre Drops for live theatre audiences and it’s cooked up a selection of outdoor shows destined to be seen at festivals in 2023 and beyond.
It’s come a long way since its early days as a fledgling Cardiff theatre company with big plans for inclusivity.
One of the company’s defining characteristics is that it works with groups of people who have traditionally been under-represented in theatre by creating high-quality creative work with professional deaf, disabled and non-disabled performers.
The company aims to push the boundaries when it comes to access, seeking new and exciting ways to make its work accessible to as wide an audience as possible and challenging perceptions of disability.
“I would never have believed 15 years ago that Taking Flight would still be here,” says artistic director Elise Davison, who co-founded the company with Beth House.
“What started as a tiny workshop company in 2007 has grown into a leading force in theatre in Wales. Having created more than 20 productions featuring fabulous deaf and disabled artists, we strive to continue to make our work welcoming for all audiences – ensuring equal access to experiencing the arts – as makers, creatives and audiences.”
As well as its current team of four full time staff and a huge pool of freelancers, the company has a dedicated and supportive board of trustees who bring a wealth of industry expertise or lived experience of being deaf or disabled.
One of these is Ben Owen-Jones, who as a child appeared in the BBC children’s programme Grange Hill. In 1995, he had an accident that caused a spinal injury, leaving him paraplegic, and since then he has used a wheelchair for mobility.
“A couple of years ago it was suggested to me that I put myself forward as a trustee for Taking Flight,” he says. “I was very flattered – I have always been a big supporter of the company which is firmly rooted at the forefront of creative accessibility in Wales.
“I wanted to be active in this sphere but I didn’t think I could be of any use.”
He initially felt he “didn’t have anything to offer” and doubted his ability to make the commitment having spent a year on bedrest due to deteriorating health.
“Two years on and I am still incredibly excited to be working with such a knowledgeable and diverse team,” he says. “Learning from the other Taking Flight trustees and from the staff team, gaining strategic experience of how a project-based theatre company runs, has been good for me and a lot of amazing, exciting ideas have been thrown around and important work done.
“It’s an honour for me to be part of this organisation that always uses new, current, vibrant, genius and playful theatre to lead the way and set the benchmark for creative accessible work in Wales.”
Also key to the company’s success are its Creative Collaborators – a group of artists it regular works with or consults to keep pushing the boundaries of its work.
“From Tafsila Khan, a registered blind creative practitioner and access consultant who was previously on our board, to Becky Davies, a theatre designer and artist from Pontypridd, to Jenna Preece, a south Wales disabled actress and facilitator who began her career as a volunteer with Taking Flight, our creative collaborators are vital contributors to our work,” says Elise.
For Tafsila Khan, working with Taking Flight has enabled her to build a career in a sector she once felt excluded from. She now plays a key role working with audio description consultants on the audio for Taking
Flight’s shows, as well as providing consultancy to other companies seeking to provide audio description.
“It was Taking Flight that brought me into the art sector as a blind person,” she says. “Prior to that I didn’t really access the arts – I didn’t really think they were for blind people. It was only when I started with Taking Flight that it hit me that I could be a part of this world – that it is a space for disabled people.
“Their ethos just really spoke to me and my values – I’ve always been one for creating change and social justice and they kind of brought that to me in a way that was creative and fun.”
As its creative collaborators have grown their careers, Taking Flight has also developed an early career creatives group, which was piloted as part of Breaking The Box, an Arts Council Wales-funded partnership between Taking Flight and RCT Theatres, Theatrau Sir Gar, Pontio and Hynt.
This saw young deaf and disabled creatives given placement opportunities across the industry, vital experience and opportunities to develop contacts and networks that are not easy to build in the early stages of a career in the arts. The company currently has five early-career creatives across disciplines of design, writing, directing and facilitating and hopes this initiative will continue to develop.
Running Wales’ only youth theatre for deaf and hard-of-hearing young people, the company is in a unique position to offer clear pathways into the industry for those young people, with the possibility of youth theatre leading to early career support and creative collaboration with the company. A key figure in facilitating this is the company’s access, participation and inclusion officer, Steph Back, who runs Taking Flight Youth Theatre.
“I work full time for Taking Flight as the access, inclusion and partici
pation manager – it sounds a bit cheesy but it’s truly my dream job,” she says.
“For two days a week I’m focused on our youth theatre – the only one in Wales for deaf and hard-of-hearing young people, and for the other three days I can be doing anything from plotting and planning with the team, running deaf awareness training, out and about providing consultancy for other companies and productions, facilitating workshops, acting, myself and Elise have done lectures at universities – and that’s just the start. There’s so, so much more and the variety of my role is really exciting – no two days are ever the same.”
Steph’s involvement with the company began in 2016 with their outdoor production of Romeo and Juliet: “It was my first professional job out of university and I had no idea that it was about to completely change my life,” she says. “It was the first time I had ever gone into a space and felt truly valued and wanted for me as a person. Until that point I didn’t know what I was missing. I didn’t know a space like that existed.
“I’d never done an audition even before, but even though we had interpreters Elise made sure to sign to me directly to introduce herself and that took so many of those nerves away. For my entire life I’d always been the only deafie and everyone else was hearing. In this Taking Flight space I wasn’t the only one, I felt safe, respected – all my access requirements were so seamlessly integrated into that space I never wanted to
leave.”
She adds that she was struck by Taking Flight’s extraordinary ability to unite everybody – deaf, disabled and non-disabled people alike.
“I cannot put into words the power there is in being in a space where there are other people like you. Deaf, disabled and non-disabled people all working together, deaf and blind people brought in as consultants, audience members that were the same as me – welcomed to the theatre, BSL and audio-description – everything so seamlessly and creatively interweaved into every single show so that people like me could come and watch it at any time.
“I saw deaf young people in awe that Juliet was like them – feeling that one day they could do that too.
“I never had that growing up and I witnessed first-hand that summer how powerful that was – and Taking Flight was doing that.
“They were the change that the world needed and I wanted to be a part of that.”
She went on to move to Wales to pursue her career with the company, initially working as a freelancer and then taking on the role of lead facilitator of Taking Flight’s youth theatre for deaf and hard-of-hearing young people in 2020.
“I never looked back,” she says. “From there my role has grown and grown to what it is now – and alongside all of that Elise supported me to write my first applications to create shows.
“Taking Flight is more than a theatre company – it’s a family, it’s a community. It’s exactly where I love being and working and to be a small part of the ground-breaking change that Taking Flight has been doing for all these years is a huge privilege.”
In the coming year the youth theatre will be holding a series of masterclasses with professionals and its early-careers creatives project hopes to expand, pending funding – helping more people like Steph begin their own careers in theatre.
On stage, the company has won much critical and audience acclaim, with pre-pandemic production, Peeling, receiving a four-star review in the Guardian and 2022’s co-production with RCT Theatres of Jim Cartwright’s Road wowing audiences with its commitment to integrated creative access.
With no plans to slow down, it looks like the future of inclusive theatre in Wales is bright.
“I feel pride to be celebrating Taking Flight’s first 15 years,” says Steph. “Pride to be a part of it. Pride to have seen it grow in to what it has and pride to see where that is going. Pride of what Taking Flight is achieving, where it’s going, thriving.
“Taking Flight is going places and I feel huge privilege that I can be part of this magic.”