Artistic Director and CEO of Graeae Theatre Company, local woman Jenny Sealey MBE has been advocating for the rights of D/deaf artists, and artists with disabilities, by promoting access in theatre for over two decades. She recently appeared at Nottingham Trent University's Distinguished Lecture series, looking back at her life, career, and incredible achievements...
"I did ballet as a child," says Jenny, wryly. "I wasn't very good at it. But I liked it."
With her last comment, the passion in her body balloons.
After hitting her head when she was young, Jenny Sealey suddenly became deaf; her mum asked the ballet teacher if she could still dance. Her teacher replied "Yes, I don't see why not. Even if she can't hear the music, she can watch the person in front of her."
"Thank you to her," Jenny says.
Graeae Theatre Company create world-class theatre by offering writing and development opportunities for D/deaf and disabled artists. In telling us of how she became CEO and Artistic Director, Jenny's lecture delivery is animated and engaging – qualities she says come hand in hand with BSL – with her stories hooking and tickling the audience throughout.
At the beginning of her career, Jenny met a group of women at Interplay Theatre – canes, guide dogs, disabilities and all – who liberated her to not feel self-conscious. Overjoyed by the diversity of people, Jenny says she found where she was supposed to be, and began to share a language that belonged to her. Eventually, she became Artistic Director of Graeae in 1997.
In an honest recount, she spoke of her failures and her successes in developing theatre productions, with her eyes lighting up when recalling the moments of teamwork, and enabling people to release their potential.
Jenny speaks positively about creating new, inspiring work by breaking down barriers for D/deaf and disabled people, including moments in theatre that've seen actors embed stage direction into performance verbally, as audio description, to develop a new dramatic language. Where actors have been unnerved by it to begin, she recalls amazing moments in creating a sense of claustrophobia on stage, for example.
In retelling the awful comments Jenny has witnessed surrounding D/deaf and disabled artists, with shameless othering coming up again and again, her vehemence to stand up to the injustices she and her contemporaries face fans the flames of equality fiercely.
Jenny co-directed the opening ceremony for the 2012 London Paralympics alongside Bradley Hemmings, after confronting the Head of Ceremonies for not planning to have D/deaf and disabled artists create the production. She was offered an interview, and got the job in what she describes as being the best thing she's done in her life bar having her son.
After seeing the spectacle of the ceremony on screen, and feeling incredibly inspired by the lecture, the room was filled with hands in the air, shaking with all the jazz they had.
Jenny Sealey MBE is a seemingly unstoppable entity. Hearing that Graeae are currently being priced out of their home in the continued gentrification of London twigged a reminder of the ever-opposing forces faced by the D/deaf and disabled community.
When asked about the future, though, Jenny replies brazenly and without hesitation: "We must go on."
Jenny Sealey MBE spoke as part of NTU's Distinguished Lecture series on Wednesday 20 March 2019
Nottingham Trent University website
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