"Theatre to disable your intellect and stimulate your imagination.."
“...provocative, challenging and very entertaining...”
Welcome to Different Light Theatre
What is Different Light?
Different Light was started as a theatre company in 2004. This came after a series of workshops that took place in Hohepa Hall in a residential community for people with intellectual disabilities.
DAMIAN: Back in the year 2004 JOSIE: A little thing called Different Light was born ISAAC: It was like a fish [NZSL SIGN] with a light bulb [NZSL SIGN] on its head [NZSL SIGN] (Welcome to the Different Worlds of Different Light, 2025)
The ensemble devises all the performances. The first three performances, A Different Light, The Birds and Dante were performed at the Southern Ballet Theatre in Christchurch New Zealand. They included disabled and non-disabled performers. After Ship of Fools (2007) toured to Australia the company generally only has disabled performers onstage.
Over 20+ years Different Light has continued to make different types of theatre and performance. It has developed into a small learning-disabled research laboratory. The company continues to look at different ways of being together: onstage, on film and video, in site specific and environmental performances in and around Otautahi/Christchurch, in participation in online and actual academic conferences and in reaching out into books, journals and international collaborations.
MATTHEW P: We are Different Light Theatre, a theatre group from Christchurch New Zealand. PETER: We’ve been through earthquakes, ANGIE: floods, massacres, MATTHEW S: fires, JOSIE: viruses, a global pandemic, ANGIE: lockdowns, isolations, BIDDY: Anti-mandate protests ISAAC: and a war in Ukraine… DAMIAN: And now Isaac’s poem… (We are Performance Philosophy Problems, Helsinki and online, 2022)
We’re Different Light We’re out of sight We are Learning Disabled YEAH, RIGHT!?!?!
