Philosophy, Access and the Performing Arts: a one-day symposium
Saturday 25 April 2026, University of Surrey
Click here to register
Supported by the British Society of Aesthetics and jointly hosted by Guildford School of Acting and the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Surrey.
This one-day symposium explores philosophical issues around disability and accessibility in the performing arts. Focused on themes including aesthetic justice and community, cross-modal perception, meaning-making, sensory sensitivity, inclusivity and specific access practices such as audio description, the event brings together philosophers, performing artists and access practitioners.
This event is free to attend but registration is required. Click here to register.
DRAFT PROGRAMME
09.15 – 09.45 Registration and coffee / tea
09.45 – 10.00 Welcome
10.00 – 10.45 Keynote: Rebecca Wallbank (Uppsala University): Aesthetic accessibility: Epistemic biases and pragmatic encroachment
10.45 – 11.15 Coffee / tea
11.15 – 12.45 Session 1: Aesthetic and disability justice
Ager Pérez Casanovas (University of Barcelona): Access as performance: Disability justice, infrastructural activism and aesthetic community
Jingan Chen (Jinan University): Beyond sensory exclusion: Class, aesthetics and accessibility in performing arts
Ess Grange (audio-describer): Dreaming bodies: audio describing for and with improvised performance
Session 2: Theatre industry, casting and training
Maria Oshodi (Extant Theatre Company): The invisible absurd: Presencing the invisible
Jessi Parrott (Independent researcher) and Jamie Hale (CRIPtic Arts, Independent researcher): “An inclusive cast informing the process for an inclusive audience”
Michael Budmani (University of the Arts, Singapore): Reframing the theatre production classroom: Disability and access in contemporary theatre production education
12.45 – 13.45 Lunch
13.45 – 14.30 Keynote: Amelia Lander-Cavallo (Quiplash): Remember who you’re doing this for: Access dramaturgy in integrated audio description
14.40 – 16.10 Session 3: Sensory modalities and sensitivities
Kelsie Acton (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama): Chill aesthetics and aesthetic communities of sensory sensitivity
Shuangshuang Cai (University of Warwick): Transcending sensory boundaries: Physical theatre King Lear as inclusive aesthetic
Victor Durà-Vilà (University of Leeds): Creativity and aesthetic appreciation beyond sight and hearing
Session 4: Movement and dance
Jack McIntosh (Birkbeck, University of London): My hands and feet are wiggling: Austistic poetics and the hidden joys of Stimming
Trupti Panigrahi (Queen Mary University London): Dancing the fine line between inclusion and exclusion: Negotiating disability in Indian classical dances
Arianna Carloni (University of Surrey): Watching and listening to dance: Audience reception insights into engagement and meaning-making, and their significance for access
16.10 – 16.30 Coffee / tea
16.30 – 17.15 Keynote: Ken Wilder (University of the Arts, London): Blindness arts, ‘bracketing’ and the question of aesthetic autonomy
17.15 – 18.00 Roundtable: Audio description in practice
With Josefa MacKinnon (Royal Shakespeare Company), Jenny Stewart-Cosgrove (Audio describer), Robert Shaughnessy (Guildford School of Acting)
Organising Committee: Sabine Braun (Centre for Translation Studies), Robert Shaugnessy (Guildford School of Acting), Hetty Blades (Falmouth University) and Anna Pakes (University of Roehampton and University of Surrey)
