Through the lockdowns and beyond, FRSA Kim Mughan, the artistic director of IMPACT Theatre, has been coordinating and putting together an innovative immersive experience at the charity’s Community Arts Centre at Perivale in collaboration with art director and designer Lynda Elson.
Red Rope: Impact on Ocean Pollution is a powerful film highlighting the problem of plastic in the oceans, and it features beautiful poetry, artworks, dance and music by performers and artists with Down’s syndrome, autism, and other learning disabilities. The project has kept the learning-disabled members of IMPACT Theatre optimistic and engaged through the lockdowns, and it has been impressing audiences who enter an underwater paradise created through state-of-the-art projections on all four of the Studio Theatre’s walls.
Mughan and Elson have, through this project, found a way to give artists and performers with learning disabilities a voice to communicate their feelings about how we should be caring for the natural world. They are also showcasing the talents of people with learning disabilities and raising expectations for what they can achieve, while promoting disability arts as a genre. For more information visit impacttheatre.co.