Karina Jones at Extant Connect

Extant Connect is Extant’s regular online session for blind and visually impaired (VI) people to network, talk, learn, and share ideas, taking place on the last Monday evening of every month. We vary between hosting guest speakers, workshops – and sometimes just having an open session to chat about whatever is on people’s minds! 

We have been spoiled for guests recently, with actor Gerard McDermott joining us in June to talk about his illustrious career and share his top tips about acting across stage, screen, and audio. More recently, at the July session we were joined by the equally impressive actor, aerialist, vocal coach and audio description consultant, Karina Jones. As an actor, Karina has performed with prestigious theatre companies including the RSC, Leeds Playhouse and Ramps on the Moon, in addition to screen and voice work – including her voice performances for recent Extant shows No Future and I Dream in Colour.  

Karina spoke about her recent work as an aerial hoop performer and her accessible circus project in Zimbabwe, funded by an Unlimited International Award. Karina first trained as an aerialist in order to perform at the 2012 London Paralympic Games, became hooked on the artform and since then has started making her own circus work with integrated audio description.  

Karina and her collaborator Amy Nicholls applied for around £50,000 from Unlimited in order to work with the disability-led organisation Tamba Africa Social Circus in Harare, Zimbabwe and create a show called Where Do I Sit? There was a first stage development process and sharing of the work in Harare, and the show will be presented in the UK at Shambala Festival this summer with a combined cast of British and Zimbabwean performers.  

Karina and Amy identified Tamba Africa Social Circus as a partner organisation through extensive research, communication, and meetings to build relationships, using resources available via Unlimited’s website to identify which countries they fund projects for, and leads on potential companies to work with. The British Council were supportive with administration and logistics around relationships, visas, and paperwork. The international disability organisation L’Arche arranged for disabled participants to attend the sharing in Harare. Karina noted that there was a huge amount of admin and emails! The team brought on a producer with international experience to support the project, and a producer from Zimbabwe was also involved. Altogether, from idea stage to final show, the project has taken around 2 years to bring the show to fruition. 

Both the UK team and Zimbabwean artists were interested to learn from their cultural differences, and Karina was quite sobered to learn the situation for local disabled people in Zimbabwe, where sadly people still face considerable risks and ill treatment. The Extant Connect attendees went deep with their questions around this, prompting a discussion around the shadow of Western privilege and ‘white saviour attitude,’ and noting that the UK artists were a predominantly white team, albeit not all from a traditional ‘Western’ background. Karina explained that the team aimed for a state of mutual cultural exchange, learning and equality, and took care to have open conversations around respect and boundaries at the start of the process. There were many conversations around cultural appropriation, particularly when it came to incorporating elements like traditional rumba dance and tribal prints into the show – the input of the Zimbabwean producer was integral to avoiding making cultural faux pas.  

Karina and her team set up several opportunities for mutual learning through the project, including skills-sharing workshops for the team, which led to the show incorporating poetry into the integrated audio description, combining the skills of the UK and Zimbabwean artists. The UK team held 2 campfire sessions, one in London, with ‘The Girls Network’, young women in a school on the Isle of Dogs, and in Zimbabwe with Deaf Zimbabwe Trust, who have a school in Harare, which included young people of all genders. Some of the stories were then woven into the show. Some discoveries were more surprising – one VI lady who attended the sharing had never been asked to self-describe before and revealed that she had never considered what she looked like to others, so she was fascinated to learn new audio describing skills.  

The UK team brought aerial equipment with them when they visited Zimbabwe, and ran a rigging workshop the Tamba Artists, local artists and everyone from L’Arche. For many of the disabled participants, it was a new and joyful experience of physical freedom to ‘fly’ using the aerial harness, and Karina mentioned that this session was one of her highlights of the trip!  

The final show, Where Do I Sit? combines cabaret and aerial sequences with poetry written by the Zimbabwe artists. It will be shared at Shambala Festival in August. All stages of the project have been filmed and will be edited into a short film later this year. This will be available on Instagram: @makespacecircus and Facebook @makespacecircusco.  

Louisa Sanfey, Artist Development Manager, July 2024