Quippings

Key Principles

Our mission is to produce work which is of a high standard and which challenges expectations.

Quippings operates from the Social Model of disability- a political perspective born out of the disability rights movement which says it is the barriers – social, medical, economic, educational and financial discriminations, physical and attitudinal - we face in the world which disable us.

We recognize our impairments as designating personal and political differences, which do affect us. We take pride in the creative expressions of our achievements, creations, struggles, joys and losses as part of a bigger picture of global crip/disability/deaf solidarity. We call this Disability Pride.

You don’t have to be both queer and deaf/disabled to be part of Quippings but it helps. Exploring queered notions of sexuality, love, relationships and gender with a QUILTBAG (Queer Undecided Intersex Lesbian Transgender Bisexual Asexual Gay) focus are key themes of all Quippings productions.

‘Perhaps the most significant similarity between [disability and queerness] …. is their radical stance toward concepts of normalcy; both argue adamantly against the compulsion to observe norms of all kinds (corporeal, mental, sexual, social, cultural, subcultural, etc.)’ Carrie Sandahl, Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer? Intersections of Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance, The Muse Project, 2003.

More: https://www.facebook.com/quippings

Quippings: Disability Unleashed was born in 2010, as a unique inclusive disability and queer led spoken word and performance troupe under the creative direction of a team of producers. Kath Duncan was a committed and part-time Quippings producer 2010-20.

The Quippings troupe embraces emerging and established artists who identify as being deaf and/or disabled and queer; or deaf and/or disabled and allies to the queer community.

Quippings’s work centres on the lived experiences of deaf and disabled embodiment and all works are written and performed by the artists ourselves. Quippings is a collaborative group and all works are subject to feedback by the group with final decisions by the producers. A considered engagement with disability rights politics as well as the quality of the work are the most important factors.

Quippings defines disability rights politics in performance as: disability and/or Deaf pride; social model ideals in the construction and execution of performance; interest in the struggles and achievements of other disabled and/or deaf artists; effort to address ongoing access, inclusion, disability arts aesthetics approaches.

Quippings herstory/history/cripstory

The name Quippings comes from the fusion between ‘Queer’ and ‘Crip’ with an obviously literary twist - penned by Hares and Hyenas impresario Crusader Hillis in 2010, with Greg Axtens and Kath Duncan. Quippings was born when Greg approached Crusader about establishing a queer and disabled activist group to fight for access to sex on premises venues, sex shops, parties, and clubs among other sexual freedom sites and issues. They drew Kath in and between them decided performance made sex rights activism focussed and fun.

The first Quippings show kicked off in early 2011 at the Midsumma literary fest known as Word is Out. 20 plus shows later, in 2017, the Quippings crew has now worked with over 50 performers and performed to 1000+ audience members.

In 2014 we become ‘Quippings: Disability Unleashed’ to highlight that our shows are about ‘unleashing’ or challenging/changing perceptions of disability especially with regard to the sensual life.