SIZE OF COMPANY
10 on the road

SCALE OF VENUE
Small- to middle-scale

PERMANENT STAFF
Board of Directors
Maria Oshodi
Damien O’Connor
June Bretherton (Secretary)

ARTISTIC POLICY
Extant is the first performing arts company in the UK managed by visually impaired arts professionals. The company aims to promote the arts and culture of the visually impaired community and redress the discrimination that has resulted in the under-representation and exclusion of blind people from fully participating within the arts. Extant aims to do this by providing an opportunity for blind and partially sighted professional artists to work together in new ways that challenge traditional notions of blindness; by providing a forum for creative exchange whereby blind professional artists can integrate their creativity and expertise with each other and other disabled and non-disabled professional arts practitioners; and by promoting models of good practice whereby blind artists are proactive in researching, producing and disseminating their own work.

REVIEW EXTRACTS
'The choreography and performances achieve a fluidity of movement, which is nearly always impressive and exhilarating.' Disability-on-line magazine

'There are… moments when form and content are matched so perfectly that the sighted catch a tiny glimpse of what it must be like to be visually impaired.' The Guardian

CURRENT PRODUCTION
Resistance Set in a Gestapo interrogation room in 1943, the play explores the true story of Jacques Lusseyran, a blind teenage leader within the French resistance movement of occupied Paris. How could the blind teenager have anything to do with resistance activities against the occupying Nazi army? Adapted for the stage by blind writer Maria Oshodi, Resistance uses physical theatre, experimental dance and live audio description. (90 mins without interval, 6 on stage, 10 on the road)

WRAP-AROUND ACTIVITY
Drama workshops for groups of disabled and non-disabled people, demonstrating the company’s methods when working with visually impaired actors.

TOURING AVAILABILITY
Throughout 2007.