Photo: Danielle Maycox talks about Affirmations and Cells – A Body of Work

On Thursday the 8th March we returned to Manchester Art Gallery with our new group group production ‘Affirmations’ along with our individual pieces from the original ‘Cells’ installation.

I was nervous for my individual performance but excited to see the group piece for the first time. Unfortunately I missed the final week of rehearsals for Affirmations but it was amazing to see how much it had developed and come together in such a short space of time. It felt strange for me not to be performing with the group, but it was nice to see it from an audience perspective.

After watching the group perform Affirmations, it was time to move on to our individual pieces. I had been nervous about this for a long time. Performing on my own is way out of my comfort zone and my work can be quite uncomfortable and challenging for both the audience and myself. It was hard but I’m really glad that I did it, the audience responded really positively and I felt like they ‘got it’.

It was great to see people experience the whole evening. Seeing people moved to tears and then moments later crying with laughter made the evening feel more like a journey or an experience rather than just a performance.

I hope that I can further develop my work in the future. I enjoy creating work that is funny but that is also challenging and gets people thinking about disability differently.

Artist and Proud & Loud Arts member, Danielle Maycox, performed HELP