Phamaly Theatre Company, also known as just Phamaly, is a theater group and touring company based in Denver, Colorado, formed entirely of people with disabilities from across the spectrum. Phamaly was founded in 1989 by five people living with disabilities who wanted to create a theatre company that provided individuals like them with the opportunity to perform. Since their debut, Phamaly Theatre Company (PTC) has produced more and more shows each year, including original works which have received multiple local awards, such as Denver Post Ovation Awards, Westword Awards, and Colorado Theatre Guild Henry Awards. The company's season also includes various touring and educational shows.
The Green Room Awards are peer awards which recognise excellence in Cabaret, Dance, Theatre Companies, Independent Theatre, Musical Theatre, Contemporary and Experimental Performance and Opera in Melbourne.
Restless Dance Theatre, formerly Restless Dance Company, is a dance theatre company based in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Founded in 1991, Restless works with people with and without disability.
Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood is a British conductor. After winning the European Broadcasting Union conducting competition in 1995 whilst still in his twenties, Hazlewood has had a career as an international conductor, music director of film and theatre, composer and a curator of music on British radio and television, Motivational Speaker and founder of Paraorchestra – the world's first integrated ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians. He was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in May 2019 and became Sky Arts' Ambassador for Music in January 2021. In 2023 Hazlewood was recognised for his 'outstanding contribution to the musical life of the UK' when awarded the Sir Charles Groves Prize by music charity Making Music.
Chamber Made, formerly known as Chamber Made Opera, is an Australian arts organisation based in Melbourne, creating work operating at the intersections of music, sound and contemporary performance.
Kate Champion is an Australian choreographer and artistic director.
Next Wave is a biennial festival based in Melbourne, which promotes and showcases the work of young and emerging artists. Next Wave encourages interdisciplinary practice and fosters the creation and presentation of works by emerging artists working across a broad range of art forms, including dance, theatre, visual arts, performance, new media, and literature.
The notion of postdramatic theatre was established by German theatre researcher Hans-Thies Lehmann in his book Postdramatic Theatre, summarising a number of tendencies and stylistic traits occurring in avant-garde theatre since the end of the 1960s. The theatre which Lehmann calls postdramatic is not primarily focused on the drama in itself, but evolves a performative aesthetic in which the text of the performance is put in a special relation to the material situation of the performance and the stage. The postdramatic theatre attempts to mimic the unassembled and unorganized literature that a playwright sketches in the novel.
AXIS Dance Company is a professional physically integrated contemporary dance company and dance education organization founded in 1987 and based in Oakland, California. It is one of the first contemporary dance companies in the world to consciously develop choreography that integrates dancers with and without physical disabilities. Their work has received nine Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and nine additional nominations for both their artistry and production values.
Disability in the arts is an aspect within various arts disciplines of inclusive practices involving disability. It manifests itself in the output and mission of some stage and modern dance performing-arts companies, and as the subject matter of individual works of art, such as the work of specific painters and those who draw.
The physically integrated dance movement is part of the disability culture movement, which recognizes and celebrates the first-person experience of disability, not as a medical model construct but as a social phenomenon, through artistic, literary, and other creative means.
Kip Williams is an Australian theatre and opera director. Williams is the current Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company. His appointment at age 30 made him the youngest artistic director in the company's history.
Rodney Bell is a male dancer born in Te Kūiti, North Island, New Zealand.
Deirdre Heddon, is Professor of Contemporary Performance at the University of Glasgow (UK). She is a practice-based researcher and has published articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as academic monographs and book-chapters. She is well known for her interest in autobiographical performance, site-specific performance and walking art.
Kaite O'Reilly FRSL is UK-based playwright, author and dramaturge of Irish descent. She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Ted Hughes Award (2011) for her version of Aeschylus's tragedy The Persians. O'Reilly's plays have been performed at venues across the UK and at the Edinburgh Festival. Her work has also been shown internationally including in Europe Australia, Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. O'Reilly openly identifies as a disabled artist and has spoken of the importance of "identifying socially and politically as disabled" to her work. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Jamie Beddard is one of the UK's leading disabled theatre practitioners. He is a writer, actor, director and workshop leader as well as a trainer and consultant. At present Jamie is co-director of Diverse City, Lead Artist of Extraordinary Bodies, and an Associate Artist at the New Wolsey Theatre.
Mark Leonard Winter is an Australian actor, known for performances in film, television and on stage.
Peter Knight is an Australian musician, composer and producer. He was the artistic director of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2013 to 2023 and founding member of Melbourne group Way Out West., 5+2 Brass Ensemble and Clocked Out.
Georgina Naidu is an Australian actress, stage writer and university lecturer. From Melbourne, she began acting from an early age and completed her professional training with the Victorian College of the Arts in 1994. She began her film career taking small roles, such as Mary in the 1998 film Dead Letter Office. Her television career has also been formed of many guest roles in Australian drama series. Her role as Phrani Gupta in the 1998 Australian Broadcasting Corporation drama SeaChange heightened her profile. The actress continued to play numerous roles in film and television over the two decades that followed. She also studied law and became a university lecturer.
Sarah Houbolt is an Australian Paralympic swimmer and a physical theatre performer. She is a strong advocate for disability rights and the arts.
