“my job is totally joyful and beautiful because I always enter with open eyes”

The Connect2Abilities team had a chance to chat to No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability who have recently celebrated 25 years of community workshops, production and powerful storytelling. 

 Our conversation with Alirio Zavarce Artistic director, gave us insight into the company’s ethos, work processes and hopes for international collaboration. Alongside Kari Seeley, the company general manager, the theatre is working towards presenting work and practice at the Connect2Abilities Symposium in April.  

“The company has always been very political…” Alirio expresses how No Strings Attached started 25 years ago when Helen Flinter Leach founded the company. Due to discrimination from casting and the inability for disabled actors to have their own creative autonomy she thought, as Alirio put it, “screw it I’m making my own company”  

Alirio expressed that “we (No Strings Attached) find a very strong statement of advocating for the actors”. This advocacy includes the ability to be able to work with others, perform and explore areas of interest through the numerous workshops that No Strings Attached runs. Alirio explains his role as artistic director as putting a “frame” around the whole “painting” or work. This analogy reflects the autonomy of the performers and the workshop to production format that No Strings Attached uses. While individual actors can express their interests and modes they would like to work in, there is artistic strength in how No Strings Attached finds commonalities in such a large ensemble. Finding invidiual and collective voices is paramount, “you have to build so much on these (works) that you now the power and the voice and things, which is why I find it really, really, exciting”   

“that’s the joy of it, that every day I can enter a workshop and discover a whole world and go, how, what do you want to do and how do we do that?” in regard to developing individual actors skills and creative inclinations. He told the Connect2Abilities team about communicating an artistic inclination with a non-verbal performer. Alirio noticed that the young man was moving his finger to the music “So I just go and see a drum and I just started to sit next to him and then just started tapping on the drum…” The young man started to drum. This kind of connection and ability to find a way to work in any level of ability is at the centre of No Strings Attached ethos. Alirio explains the autonomous process of asking “what are you reacting to? What are you interested in?”  

Alirio stresses that the development and experimentation with pieces is vital as the piece (of work) can inform you of what it wants to eb also. And that everything becomes an abstract expression of lived experience. The works that No Strings Attached are purely human and deal with issues of both the personal and the political, Alirio affirms that as Artistic Director “It’s my responsibility to remind you of who you are”.  

The relationship with No Strings Attached that Connect2Abilities is building is allowing for cross-cultural collaboration. Alirio expressed that “I’m very excited to find ways of collaborating and creating things together and how we find this symbiotic way of working . International collaboration is important “Because it is the way we can change the world, I believe we can learn from each other and I think there so much that Korea can teach us”  

“I’m from Venezuela, so I love playing with different languages and just exploring everything. So working internationally and cross culturally, cross-ability and across all things is a possibility that opens many more opportunities”  

Alirio and the Connect2Abilities team discussed the value of the arts and collaboration; “in Australia, that bridge of collaboration to find what makes us ourselves again, what makes us the same, it won’t make us apart” There is also the potential for creative boundaries to be crossed. Connect2Abilities looks forward to following No Strings Attached onto the international stage in Korea and to the Symposium in April 2020.