”My business” – experimental performance about love, being a couple and pregnancy of people with Down Syndrome. The artistic work of theatre company of adults with intellectual disabilities as the right to (co-creating) culture – a sketch

Abstract

The presented text aims to show how the experience of love, being a couple, pregnancy is performer in the artistic work of theatre company of adult people with intellectual disabilities. Particularly I concentrate on the theatre company BRO which conducted a kind of priming experimental performance entitled ”My business”. The experimental nature of the performance means it was conducted in collaboration with professional script writer, scene artist, music composer and most especially professional actors, who perform on stage together with actors with Down Syndrome/intellectual disabilities. The text is focused on the performance ”My business” and attempts to show how art – performances of theatre companies of people with intellectual disabilities – creates a space in which they could show how they see love, relationships between women and men, parenthood/pregnancy and how they function and ?nd themselves in a social context. Theoretical inspiration for the discussion is theory of dialogue and carnivalization by M. Bakhtin. Art and performances serve as a perfect tool to change meanings ascribed to people with intellectual disabilities: either to their needs and ability to love, being a couple, experience of parenthood or to their creative output that could be negotiated and altered. They also convince that people with intellectual disabilities not only have the right to (access, participate and create) culture but simply are a part of it.