We’ve had a fascinating and impactful first year of a three year commission from the leading disability charity, Sense, to explore the theme of consent.

In the commission, we are working with Sense’s service users to investigate ways to express consent, through practicing choice. In a series of workshops, we use devised scenes, non-verbal, tactile drama games and our character masks, that clearly show emotions and characters - both positive and negative - to empower service users to be able to say no.

Some of the areas in which consent is being explored include personal choices around being touched, consent to having someone use material possessions and money that belongs to the user, relationships (both sexual and non-sexual), physically displaying both positive and negative emotions, consent to the receiving of care and more. Over this first year, we have already learnt so much - from taking in different textured costumes for people who are blind or partially sighted, to using basic BSL, especially for phrases like “you choose” and “which one?”

Artistic Director, Rachael Savage, who is delivering the commission alongside Creative Producer, Honor Hoskins, comments, “We are very proud to have been commissioned by Sense to explore consent. It’s absolutely fascinating how powerful the masks are in these sessions. We have an opportunity each week for students to choose, hold, try on masks. And, in each activity, there is noise and laughter, except when the mask scenes start - they pull everyone’s focus and a silence and concentration of interpretation takes place. We are being supported brilliantly by the staff at Sense - they cannot do enough to make the sessions a success. We are building together, evaluating together and celebrating the final session in this first year's course, which has been written with some staff members, directly out of care, love, experience and knowledge of their members. Honor and I love this work.”