Anthony’s Experience

My name is Anthony Gough and I am a visually impaired theatre-maker and a Director of an arts organisation called Engage 2 Stage. We set up originally back in 2017, and as a Community Interest Company last year in 2020. We produce work with, and alongside visually impaired people and I see our work not only as a way of connecting with visually impaired people or connecting the visually impaired community with the sighted community around them, but I see it as a tool to raise awareness. Also, from the perspective of using the performing arts to empower people, to give them a voice, to highlight their experiences and to show people that the arts is such a huge and adaptable industry and if people wish to do so and want to try and pursue a career in the arts then that’s something that’s achievable and something that is definitely possible.

I am visually impaired myself; I’ve got a condition called Congenital Stationary Night Blindness and that means that I have, overall, about somewhere between 20-30% of my vision. I’ve got about 50% vision in one eye and about 20% in the other, and at nighttime, obviously, because I have a night blindness, that bit of useful vision I do have becomes even less useful, so effectively, at that point, and in those kinds of dark environments I am more reliant on support and more reliant on people around me, supporting me.

So, I am Manchester born and bred and Engage 2 Stage is based in Bury, Greater Manchester. We’ve worked alongside various organisations, The Bury Society for Blind and Partially Sighted People, for instance, and The MET Theatre in Bury, but we are always open to any kind of new partnerships and just say to people ‘do you want to go on this journey with us, this adventure with us?’ What’s been interesting about this past year and a half is that obviously so much has been going on, there have been so many different changes, so many different challenges that so many people have faced. This past year, we’ve gone into several new spaces that we never actually thought would be on the horizon; we’ve gone into filmic work, which as an arts organisation, we didn’t see ourselves doing. We contributed to a project with Manchester International Festival called ‘Playing Through the Looking Glass’ (Credits: MIF, Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Blain Cousin.) and we’ve recently brought out a short film called ‘Lockdown Thoughts’ with Bury Library and Archive service (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Joshua Lord, Blain Cousin, Produced by Engage2stage.). We are also working on a film called ‘Our Journey Home’ (Credits: Elizabeth Roney (Engage2stage), Rachel Gillies, Production by Engage2stage.), which follows the lives and journeys of visually impaired people and important places and locations in their life. It explores what it is that they see as being their home, whether it be a metaphorical home or their location in terms of home or whether it’s a home away from home for them. So that process was interesting with a bit of filming between lockdowns last year.

I always see every new experience as an opportunity, so for me, The Roots Programme was an opportunity for me to not only get involved but learn about other people’s perspectives on things. I am always really interested in other people’s perspectives on things because, for someone who does have limited vision, I do find it interesting, although we may not always see eye to eye on politics or policies or on what we prioritise, for me what was interesting when I was talking to my peer on The Roots Programme was that our similarities far outshone any differences that we did have. It made those differences more and more insignificant really and that’s probably one of the things I am going to take away, that even though people almost go to war on party politics, not something I particularly like – it’s more divisive than a lot of things, but for me, I really felt that our similarities and that common ground should be a real focus because we can build our ideas from there.

My peer was very much into sport and how it can increase positive mental health and wellbeing, obviously our physical health and wellbeing too, but I saw similarities with how I saw performing arts – as a tool. Actually getting people connected, getting people talking, improving mental health and physical wellbeing as well as routes into employment, which is another important subject. Over two-thirds of visually impaired people who are of working age are out of work, that is something that really annoys me. I have seen first-hand how dedicated visually impaired people can be and how proactive they are in the work they can produce and I don’t think there is enough effort made in the communities surrounding the visually impaired. The employment and support agencies don’t work, they just didn’t understand the areas in which I wanted to work. I think that’s the case for not just me but a lot of people who want to go into certain areas, there isn’t a good enough understanding and I think it deserves a really good rethink and reform around how we make work actually work for people. I think that having a job, having a career and having employment is something that gives people purpose and we all need that.