PICTURE yourself snaking through tendrils of seaweed, swimming over coral reefs, marvelling at the sounds and colours of ocean life. Maybe you are stranded on a sandy, tropical island, pondering your greatest needs. It could be a Coke machine.
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Theses imaginings are part of the Blue Grotto project, a creative filmmaking workshop for people with disabilities which landed in Inverell last week.
Blue Grotto was conceived by the performing arts program Beyond the Square at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre. Creative director, Alison Richardson enlisted the help of a friend to make a giant inflatable blue cavern complete with movie screen and studded with audio outlets so people who enter the grotto are immersed in a sensory experience.
The films are conceived and created by the people with disabilities. Alison, video and sound facilitators Tim Dennis and Peter Kennard and co-facilitator and Tropfest winning actor Gerard O’Dwyer spent last week working with clients of Brighter Access, Connections and students in the Ross Hill special unit.
Piece by piece, they helped the young people capture their imaginations and ideas on film. By Friday the crew had exhausted their hard drives and went home to create four films to screen during the Sapphire City Festival.
This is the second regional workshop for Blue Grotto, which has proved a success with disability programs in the Sydney metro area. Orange was their first venture from Sydney, and Alison said that 2011 experience was educational.
“Which kind of really made us think about that there is a real lack of creative opportunities, particularly in regional areas for people with disabilities,” she said.
“It’s kind of nice that we’re able to come in and generate that interest for the participants, but also for the wider community to see what’s possible.”
She was very pleased the project was integrated into the Sapphire City Festival program.
Rhiannon Summers is a program co-ordinator with Brighter Access. She was certain the clients would love to see the final results of their work.
“I think they did an amazing job. It was great to see them participate and see them do something new, and it’s a good opportunity to see them do something new and different to what they normally get a chance to do,” she said.
As a young man with a disability, Gerard said he has achieved the acting career he longed for. He is now in a position to advocate for those with disabilities by sharing his own journey to a wide audience.
“When I tell my story, because I am passionate about it, I give advice and I spread my message across, because I’m an advocate for people with disabilities,” he said.
“I give my message, and I say to them, we are what we are in life, and we deserve to be treated like anybody else and we’re not labelled by our disability. We are all the same, nobody’s perfect.
“We make a difference. A huge difference if given a chance. So never put anyone down.”
The inflatable Blue Grotto will arrive in Inverell for the official screening at the Inverell Club on Thursday, October 30 from 10am to 3pm with a barbecue lunch, and again at 6pm which includes a glass of champagne. For more information phone 0418 659 410.
The Blue Grotto project has been sponsored in part by TAFE New England, Macintyre Lions, Community Mutual and Coles, and included in the Sapphire City Festival.
