DaDa Annual Rushton Lecture featuring Kaite O'Reilly

Each year DaDa present the Edward Rushton Social Justice Lecture on the United Nations International Day for People with Disabilities (3rd December) to keep alive the passion and fire demonstrated by Rushton, a Liverpool poet, activist, abolitionist and disabled man.

This year we are thrilled to announce that we have secured a fantastic and insightful keynote speaker for the event, Kaite O’Reilly, who will be exploring ‘Rage’ which will be the theme for our 40th anniversary celebration during DaDaFest International coming in March 2025.

If you are passionate about disability rights, equity and inclusion within the arts and beyond, this event will resonate with the “quiet riot” within.

This is a live in-person event that will be BSL interpreted, but will also be streamed online for those who can't attend in person, so please book an online ticket if you would like to receive the links for this.

Exploring ‘Rage’

Our keynote speech this year will be delivered by Kaite O’Reilly, award-winning writer and dramaturg. Kaite advocates the importance of righteous rage - knowing when there is nothing left to do but rage because the injustice is so great, drawing from her own experience of growing into a maturity of knowing when turning your rage into quiet action is more likely to influence change and to benefit in the long run.

Kaite reflects on works such as The War on Disabled People written by Ellen Clifford which reflects the scapegoating and marginalisation of disabled people that has evoked a vibrant movement of disabled activists and their supporters determined to hold systems and system-makers to account – making the slogan ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ more apt than ever.

The keynote social justice lecture this year will open discourse around disabled rights (or lack thereof), injustice and activism we hope will continue into DaDaFest 40.

Kaite O’Reilly is an award-winning writer and dramaturg. Prizes include the Ted Hughes Award for new works in poetry, Peggy Ramsay Award, Theatre-Wales Award and Manchester Prize. She was honoured in the 2017/18 International Eliot Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy. A leading figure in disability arts and culture internationally, her Atypical Plays for Atypical Actors and The ‘d’ Monologues are published by Oberon/Bloomsbury. Her first feature film, The Almond and the Seahorse, featuring Rebel Wilson and Charlotte Gainsbourg, winner of a ‘Hitchcock’ Special Jury Prize at Dinard Film Festival, was released in the UK in 2024. www.kaiteoreilly.com

Introducing Our Panel

Following our lecture from Kaite O’Reilly, a panel of experts will shed further light on the topic. Our panel hosted by Cultural Consultant Lara Ratnaraja includes:

Julie (Mack) McNamara – Julie McNamara is an award-winning playwright, performer and documentary filmmaker passionate about social justice. She is a recipient of a Miegunyah Award from Melbourne University, 2019; Three Picture This...Film Festival Awards, 2018 Best of Festival, Best Documentary and 2017 Best Performance on screen; a South Bank Show Award, 2010; and her favourite - a DaDaFest Writers Award with ITV 2009. Her work has been produced on international stages, and her poetry and essays have been published in anthologies and non-fiction collections. And she still wakes up feeling like an imposter.

JulieMac is a survivor of the mental health and criminal justice systems, lives with a brain injury and a ridiculous sense of humour.

Cheryl Martin – Since January, Cheryl’s been lucky enough to be Artistic Director at Red Ladder Theatre in Leeds and was a former Associate Director, New Writing/New Work at Manchester’s Contact Theatre and Guest Curator for Homotopia 2018.

A Manchester Evening News Theatre Award winner as both writer [musical Heart and Soul, Oldham Coliseum Theatre] and director [Iron by Rona Munro, Contact], Cheryl’s solo stage show Alaska featured in 2016’s A Nation’s Theatre, & 2019’s Summerhall Edinburgh Fringe & London’s Wellcome Festival of Minds and Bodies. Her first poetry collection Alaska was longlisted for the 2015 Polari Prize.

Winner of an Unlimited Wellcome Collection Partnership Award for her film One Woman, she directed The Walk: A Sleeping Child for 2021’s Manchester International Festival, which launched the journey of the giant puppet Little Amal. She had a wild time directing Dominoes and Dahlias (+ Oware!) for the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2022 - still touring! - and won Best Age-Friendly Outreach in the Fantastic for Families Awards 2023. Her first Red Ladder show, Sanctuary is touring nationally this autumn.

Ruth Fabby MBE - Ruth Fabby [formerly Gould] trained in performance arts, speech & drama at Liverpool Theatre School 1983. In 2001 Ruth established the internationally renowned DaDaFest International in Liverpool, UK. This was a game-changing festival not only in showcasing disabled and deaf artists, but also in changing the culture of arts venues and institutions to be more inclusive in terms of visitors, audience and in programming and contracting people with the living experience of disability.

Before retiring from full time work, Ruth was Director of Disability Arts Cymru, Wales lead in disability and Deaf arts. Ruth is a proud patron of DaDa and Graeae Theatre Company.

Ruth identifies as proudly living with a Deafness gain and has now developed a life-limiting lung condition: she is still awaiting a formal diagnosis for neuro-divergence.

About Our Panel Host Lara Ratnaraja

Lara Ratnaraja is an independent Cultural Consultant who specialises in culture and diversity, innovation, leadership, collaboration, and cultural policy and placemaking within the cultural, the HE and digital sectors.

She also co-produces a series of cultural leadership programmes for people from diverse backgrounds linked to geographical place, curates a digital Conference called Hello Culture and works in place based cultural strategies through the lens of intersectional inclusion.

Her clients include Southbank, The Space, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, OPUS, ixia, DASH, West of England Visual Arts Alliance, West of England Combined Authority,Unlimited, Birmingham City Council, mac, Arts Council Collection, National Theatre Wales, new art exchange, University of the Arts London, the Decolonisation Institue @ UAL, the ICO, CAN, Warwick Arts Centre, Jerwood Arts, FACT and Artangel. HE clients include ManMet University, University of Birmingham, Coventry University, Birmingham City University STEAMhouse and University of Salford delivering and developing projects on diversity, digital engagement and research collaborations between arts, HEIs and SMEs.

Lara is on the board of Compton Verney. She is on the UK Council for Creative UK as well as their Diversity Forum, the National Trust Midlands Regional Advisory Group and the Access, Diversity and Inclusion Group at the National Memorial Arboretum and the Board of All Saints Community Catering; a community food welfare programme

Host or Publisher DaDaFest