Songs of the Wayfarer
Claire Cunningham

I really love turning into this sort of four-legged creature. All the little places that you can wedge the crutch really right into a corner or into a crack. In Scotland, we’d say 'nooks and crannies'. I get so lost in that sort of play…when the ground really becomes… my companion.”

Inspired, in part, by Gustav Mahler's ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’, led by her lived-experience as a disabled person, her memory of training as a classical singer and knowledge drawn from mountaineers and disabled peers, Claire Cunningham sets out to make a show where she traverses known and unfamiliar landscapes.

In this new solo Cunningham asks: what it is to wander? To seek to scale great heights? What can be learned from those of us who reach for the ground through crutches as 4-legged creatures, the choreography of crip* navigation and the maps we would re-draw? Of scale and time and energy?  What it means to keep going and, importantly, the wisdom to know when to turn back.

Join this internationally-renowned Disabled leader and choreographer for an evening-length work, where she comes to understand her own journey as a love song - to the ground, to her disabled peers and the innate wisdom of crip* expertise and joy. 

In the solo performance ‘Songs of the Wayfarer’, disabled choreographer and singer Claire Cunningham traverses landscapes of nature, stage and Gustav Mahler’s song cycle, led by the compass of crip* expertise and joy.

*Crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled individuals

Foto: Sven Hagolani