Paper Session 4
3.10-3.30pm: Cripping Circus Through Spatialised Access by Dr Maria Oshodi
In this contribution, Dr Maria Oshodi will reflect on the contribution of Extant, a British theatre company based in London, that has attempted for over the last quarter century to provoke, disrupt, and redefine expectations of the visually impaired presence in theatre. from her own perspective as a visually impaired theatre maker and the company’s current Artistic Director and Founder, new notions of ‘Invisibalism’ will be examined to describe the impact on the social underrepresentation of visual impairment, and how through original ideas of ‘PresenceIng’, this community has taken political and creative agency over the performance space to break the spell of being obscured from within its own cultural history. Drawing on one of the Company’s productions,
The presentation will describe how three theatre companies led by Global Majority artistic directors – Extant, Upswing and Yellow Earth (New Earth) – collaborated to explore the Japanese medieval Biwa Hōshi and Goze tradition with four contemporary, multi-national, visually impaired artists. The six-year research practice investigated Extant’s fusing of aerial movement with auto-description, autobiographic narrative, and binaural and spatial sound tracking. Flight Paths toured in 2019 and furthermore, was re-invented as a digital online experience in 2020. The presentation demonstrates how Flight Paths offers PresenceIng of ‘affirmative freakery’ in politically blending aerial with audio description, determined by the historically invisibilised female Japanese visually impaired training methods of the Goze. Further, it discusses how this centralises an inescapable crip aesthetic, which shifts the norms of circus representation, and how intersecting this with spatialised sound tracking for visually impaired audiences, amounts to Mills and Sanchez ‘disability as method’ (2023)and thereby attains a David Fancy’s (2018) ‘new circus’ status.
Dr. Maria Oshodi is a researcher, writer, theatre director and arts consultant. She has worked in disability arts development,, for BBC drama production and as a playwright, with Her first play, The S Bend, being produced as part of the royal Court Theatre’s young Writers Festival in 1984 and later by the cockpit theatre in 1985. She went on to write four more plays including, Blood, Sweat and Fears, From Choices to Chocolate, Here Comes a Candle, and Hound, that all toured nationally and were published by Longmans, Metheuen, John Murray and Arora Metro Books.
In 1992 she graduated from Middlesex University with a 1st BA honor in Drama and English. In 1997 she founded Extant, the award winning, UK leading performing arts company of visually impaired artists, where she is currently CEO/Artistic Director. Her Phd critiques and positions four of Extant’s ground-breaking productions produced by the Company over the last 25 years.
3.30-4pm: Artist Residency Reflections / Approaching the IKO by Kat Pegler and Lara Weaver
Kat Pegler and Lara Weaver share insights from their residency experience, exploring the relationship between artistic practice, place, and process. Through conversation and reflection, they discuss how engaging with the IKO shaped their thinking, influenced their creative methods, and opened new ways of approaching collaboration, observation, and material experimentation.
Lara Weaver – I am a composer, sound artist, and Doctor of Music. In December 2025, I was awarded my PhD from the Sonic Arts Research Centre (SARC) at Queen’s University Belfast. My thesis investigated the unusual sounds of two contrasting environments: the bubbling of Northern Irish peatlands and the ‘singing’ sand dunes of the Empty Quarter desert (Rub’ al-Khali, United Arab Emirates), by means of field recording and sound composition. Previously, I was at St John’s College, Cambridge, where I read for my undergraduate degree in Music, achieving a First, and MPhil in Composition, which was awarded with Distinction. As a composer, my output includes orchestral, choral, chamber music and song, electroacoustic music (often using my own field recordings), immersive audio and ambisonic works (including expertise working with the SARC Sonic Lab), and multi-channel gallery installations. I am currently working on a commission with the London Symphony Orchestra (resident at the Barbican) as a Helen Hamlyn Panufnik Composer (2026-2027). Other recent projects include works composed for the Crash Ensemble as a Crash Works Creator 2023-2025 (‘Singing Sands’, premiered at New Music Dublin 2025); and Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble (‘Soft Ground’, exploring the sounds of Irish boglands, premiered at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 2024). I compose music for a wide variety of artists and ensembles, my music has received multiple broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, and my work has recently been released on Crash Records as part of their Crash Works II album.”
Kat Pegler is an interdisciplinary artist and artistic researcher working across immersive sound, participatory practice, and ecological methodologies. Her work explores flow-state and music as a method for environmental connection, creating sensory and collective experiences that investigate relationships between people, place, and more-than-human systems. She develops spatial sound compositions, installations, and community-led projects that bridge artistic practice and environmental research. Kat has been Lead Artist on the Horizon EU VOICE project and is Co-Founder of Kerbside Collective, a sustainability-led research studio working across heritage, public space, and climate engagement. Her recent work includes immersive sonic projects on climate futures (Brunel University), and spatial audio for XR and exhibitions. She has received Arts Council England funding to develop her spatial sound practice and has contributed to international collaborations across art, science, and technology.