Making Noise: An Ethnography of a Community Performance Project between Vulcana Women’s Circus and People with Disabilities

Abstract

This study is an ethnographic investigation into the community performance work of Vulcana Women’s Circus, a feminist community circus based in Brisbane, Australia. I focus primarily on Stronghold, a community performance project created between Vulcana and a group of people with disabilities, who came to be called The Noisemakers. I situate my research within the three fields of applied performance, feminist theatre, and disability performance, and consider the potential convergence between them. The gaps that presented themselves in my review of the relevant literature from these three fields helped inform my three research questions: • How are bodies re-storied in and through feminist circus and physical theatre? • What are the political and affective labours of creating performance with people with disabilities? • In what ways can a theory of disability performance inform applied performance and vice versa? My study thus aims to bring the three abovementioned fields into conversation with one another, discovering where the convergences and divergences lie. In doing so, I also seek to reveal both the complexities and the possibilities of such work. This research also charts my changing role as ethnographer in the project. The relationships I established in the field were critical in achieving the trust necessary in order to engage with Vulcana’s work on a deeper level.