By Benjamin Millar
Rachel Edmonds had heard it all – helpful suggestions, unsolicited advice, hopes for a cure.
The non-binary theatremaker, performer and producer with a disability is bringing exploratory performance work, Have you tried yoga?, to Footscray for this month’s Fringe Westside, part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
A sold-out hit at Adelaide Fringe, the work explores the wider community’s response to people living with visible and non-visible disability.
Edmonds said the show, based on a series of interviews with people living with disability, was about deep-seated inequality in our society and the problems with “wellness culture” – including presumptions that people with a disability wanted to be “cured”, when that was not the case.
“It gets exhausting, explaining these things to people constantly,” Edmonds said.
“A lot of it does come from a caring place and a lot of people do want to know how they can help, so this is partly about explaining what they can do, in a non-lecturing way.”
Edmonds, who lives in Hillside, said it was exciting to be bringing the work to the Bluestone Church Arts Space as part of Fringe Westside from September 13 to 30.
Full program: maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/fringewestside
