The Body Knows – the Body Sees. Theatre within the Hand’s Reach

• Participants ― Janusz Adam Biedrzycki and Magdalena Paszkiewicz (members of CHOREA Theatre) and Sophy Laly with Annabelle Mailliez (members of Compagnie de l’Oiseau-Mouche)

Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are […]. People, too, no one will be there to see them.
José Saramago

Let’s talk about the need and opportunity of theatre to surpass the stereotype which associates theatre with show – and thus, showing – and the actor and spectator with seeing. Let’s ask, explore, and perform. In what consists the sense of sight or the sense of not seeing? In what consists the work with the body, with touch, with the common feeling of theatre actors that do not see in the conventional way, or whose experience is related to intellectual disability?

Which kind of theatre has an effect on the visually impaired? What theatre stimulates their development?

What can the seeing spectators / fellow actors / co-creators learn from the blind actors? And what from the intellectually disabled actors who prepare a performance, thinking of the people with the sense of not-seeing?