'Scott's aired a couple of things' : back to back theatre rehearse Ganesh versus the third Reich

This chapter tracks the creation of Back to Back Theatre’s 2011 performance, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, based on first-hand observation of the final stages in devising and refining the work. Ganesh traces two parallel narrative strands – that of an imagined journey of the Hindu God into the dark heart of Nazi Germany to reclaim the sacred Hindu symbol of the swastika, and the narrative which constantly threatens to engulf the Ganesh story – the fraught relations between a group of disabled artists and their non-disabled director as they negotiate the process of making the work.

The focus of this chapter is the development of a single scene from the performance work, Ganesh Versus the Third Reich, tracing it’s evolution through periods of creative development and rehearsal. The stark contrast between the working practices observed on the studio floor and the brutally knowing and parodic representation of power relations in rehearsal seen in the performance work testifies to the peculiar and productive self-reflexivity that generates the work of Back To Back Theatre. An account and analysis of both real and fictional rehearsals reveal how Back to Back’s creative processes position members of the ensemble “perceived to have intellectual disabilities” as entirely legitimate professional artists, while claiming the authority of ‘outsider artists’ to challenge perceptions and representations of disability.