Insight into world of visual impairment

Auckland dancer and choreographer Suzanne Cowan will provide an insight into the world of visual impairment during performances of House of Memories, on in Dunedin in early July during the city’s Tertiary Dance Festival.
 
The venue is a villa near the University of Otago, where Suzanne is based as the 2010 recipient of the Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance. The director of House of Memories, Suzanne wants to give audiences a heightened experience of their own aural and kinesthetic senses, as well as raising awareness of the creativity of the performers, almost all of whom have vision impairments.
 
Audience members will be led through seven performance installations to experience five-minute slices of the performers’ lives through voice and sound recordings, dance, photography and film.
 
One room will feature the sound equipment of a blind man, juxtaposed with a graceful duet derived from guiding techniques. In another room, the audience will experience the precious memories of a man’s ballroom dancing days brought to life with a live band. Visitors will also navigate a maze entirely through the use of sound and texture.
 
Suzanne says that disabled people “live in a world that often doesn’t cater very well to people who don’t fit inside the box of what is considered normal. They have to be incredibly adaptive and creative in finding solutions simply to getting around and doing what they need to do on a daily basis.”
 
She is speaking from personal experience, having lost the use of both legs in a road accident in Canada in 1990. She has since gone on to perform with Auckland’s integrated dance company Touch Compass. She also spent more than three years touring internationally as a dancer and assistant teacher with the London-based CandoCo dance company.

Last year, Suzanne completed a Master of Creative and Performing Arts degree with first class honours at the University of Auckland.

House of Memories will be performed at 7pm, 8pm and 9pm on July 2 and 3. Entry will be by booking only because space in the rooms is limited and Suzanne wants to create a sense of intimacy, playing with boundaries between spectators and performers.