Flanders House was buzzing on Thursday morning as local group Dramamatics prepared for a big music, dancing and drama extravaganza set to delight locals next month.
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A mixture of adults and children with and without disabilities, teacher Stephanie Marshall will bring together students from the Dramamatics, Drama Dreams and local school support units for Unstop-Ability.
“You’re going to come to the play and you’re not going to look out for wheelchairs, you’re not going to look out for a bigger person or a smaller person. You look at them all as people,” Emma Kastelein said. She said each performer had their own strengths that they brought to the stage.
Bodie Nicholls felt people with disabilities are often put into a box, and said Unstop-Ability will be about looking past those labels.
“As someone with ADD myself, there’s just so much energy. These are supposed to be ‘disabled’ people. To be honest, I doubt that!” he said.
Emma’s favourite piece is a powerful dance with fairy lights from the performers in wheelchairs, called Sleeping Sun.
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“Sleeping Sun is a really gorgeous piece, and it shows the people in the wheelchair they can have fun and do a nice piece, and also the people pulling it. It’s all part of a performance,” she said.
“To see people dance when they’re not really physically able to is just amazing,” Bodie agreed.
Emma is also a fan of Thunder, which brings all of the performers together in one piece.
“It’s going to be very diverse, it’s going to be cool,” she said.
The universality of the music which underlines much of the play was special to Bodie, who studied music for several years.
“Music’s kind of a worldwide chain, you could say,” he said.
“There’s some guys we work with who can’t even hear, but they can still hear the beat, and still hear the bass in the ground. Even the people who can’t see, they can still hear it. Everyone can have a go being a part of it,” Emma said.
Loosely scripted but high energy, no two performances are the same in Unstop-Ability.
“It’s not perfect, nothing goes the way we’ve always planned, but it’s all just so much fun,” Emma said.
“Most people would leave with a smile on their face, because you can tell it’s just a bunch of people that are coming together and it’s a big family.”
Unstop-Ability will be held at the Inverell Town Hall at 6pm on September 19 and 12pm September 20. Entry is free, but attendees are invited to donate to the Terry Lawlor Vehicle Fund.