‘Crossing the line': The precarious care aesthetics of access in Australian dance theatre work, Off The Record

One day in the creative development of an Australian dance theatre work by companies Force Majeure and Dance Integrated Australia, a performer is directed to ‘fake-sign’ in Auslan (Australian Sign Language) and another to ‘fake-interpret’. A few moments later, the only Deaf actor in the rehearsal studio raises his concern addressing the hearing group in Auslan. He signs silently. The spoken English words of his interpreter hang in the air: ‘hearing people fake-signing is offensive to Deaf audiences’. Months later, in the final production, this scene repeats itself – on stage. This multilayered essay reflects on this fraught scene as a tenuous instance of care aesthetics and then on my analysis as tenuous itself. In the first layer, the author insists on the probable anxieties inherent to aesthetics of care that this scene teaches us both in creative development and on stage. In a second layer, the author critically revisits her findings with regard to this scene to tease out the pitfalls in my own acts as a nondisabled, hearing researcher. Rather than proscribe, Maguire-Rosier’s account aims to distil possible interpretations and learnings. Ultimately, she identifies and acknowledges methodological cracks in her research on care and in her research as care.