HISTORY
Fflamingo director, Gareth has a background both in theatre and cabaret performance, set & costume design and worked as a primary school educator for 7 years. Gareth was asked to host an event for Drag Syndrome – a troupe of drag performers with Down Syndrome who performed at an event organised by Mencap Cymru as part of the 2019 Learning Disability Week events. Many people came to the event and were inspired and empowered by how inclusive and fiercely fabulous the event was. This led to adults in Wales’ learning disability communities to express how they wished they could do something similar.
Gareth was working as a volunteer for project Gig Buddies, and agreed for this work to be the focus of his final project at the University of South Wales Master’s degree in Drama. The aim was to set up a small group of 5 members to collaboratively explore drag performance, identity and self-esteem with adults with a learning disability and/or autism. The small-scale project showed promising signs that work like this could be a useful experience for adults with a learning disability as the members reported that the project helped them to:
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Look at themselves differently and more positively
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Find their voice and make them heard
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Find self-knowledge and using their queens as a source of knowledge
One participant explained that their disability meant they had the mind of a child. But through the course of the project they realised that their queen was an adult, and that meant that they were an adult too. This led them to reconsider how they saw their disability and themselves.
Following the initial pilot project, it was clear that this work should be developed further and the project’s collaborators wanted to continue.
The House of Deviant have since performed at numerous events, including Pride Cymru, sell out shows at Wales Millennium Centre and Riverfront Theatre, as well as Electric Umbrella TV, Insight events, Mirus Stars, Gig Buddies Kazoom. We also worked with Hijinx’s Vaguely Artistic Band to create our first single (you can listen to it here - https://houseofdeviant.bandcamp.com/track/come-into-our-house )
We now have a quarterly show at the Riverfront Theatre and Wales Millennium Centre Cabaret bar, as well as performance opportunities and enquires from other organisations and events.
For more information visit the project website at www.houseofdeviant.com