BOP × Nepal

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BOP has established an ongoing relationship with partners in Nepal, particularly Diverse Patterns (DP) and its founder and director Sagar Prasai. Working together, BOP and DP have exciting plans to build on work to date towards access to and increased involvement in the arts in Nepal for disabled people. BOP and DP first worked together on a British Council Project in 2019 — see below — and then in 2022, Sagar Prasai invited BOP’s Producer Michelle Rolfe to collaborate on an event examining how to make the arts more accessible as part of the second Nepal International Theatre Festival.

Current Project Development — UNWRAP When did BOP first work in Nepal? What happened next?

Current Project Development — UNWRAP

UNWRAP is an international collaboration that has been awarded an Unlimited International Open Award 2024 — you can find the full list of UK and International recipients here. UNWRAP will see Michelle and Sagar working as co-producers and agents for change, leading a collective of 10 international developing artists drawn from Scotland and Nepal. These artists will collaborate remotely in online workshops that will explore artistic practice, storytelling and creative access. These workshops will generate ideas and content that will form the basis for an exciting new production in Nepal in 2025. This production will be a first in Nepal in the way it centres lived experience, representation and creatively embedded access.

For the new production, BOP Theatre will be working with UK emerging disabled director Emily Ingram, and will be performed live in Kathmandu in 2025. As leading proponents of creative access and disability equality, BOP will work closely with all Nepal partners to develop a work that centres access and representation.

Remote workshops will be facilitated by the BOP team, including Emily Ingram, who has direct experience of BOP’s artistic development work, and BOP Development Officer Morna McGeogh. UNWRAP is a key professional development opportunity for Morna and Emily, representing the first time they will work internationally. In the video below, Morna and Emily discuss the opportunities the project provides:

To turn captions on click on the wheel for settings and click on subtitles/cc.

UNWRAP is an opportunity for creative development across continents and the amplification of disabled artists’ voices and stories. Alongside the artistic outputs, the project aims to impact access and disability equality in the arts in Nepal, where the inclusion of disabled people and accessible practices in the making and presentation of theatre is in its infancy.

“In Nepal, a country grappling with complex disability issues, this initiative is particularly impactful. Disabled individuals in Nepal face challenges in accessing education, employment, and social activities, often hindered by infrastructural barriers and societal stigma. UNWRAP provides a platform for these artists to share their stories, enhancing visibility and challenging existing stereotypes. This not only shifts public perception but also inspires other theatre groups to make their work more accessible, increasing arts access for people with disabilities.” – Sagar Prasai

In the video below, Sagar and Michelle explain more about the history of the companies’ working relationship, the project and its aims:

The 1, 2, 3 stages of the project…

1 – 10 disabled artists from Nepal and Scotland meet online to explore their creative practice.

2 – In Nepal, a production is created that tells the stories of disabled people in an accessible way — a first for Nepal!

3 – Theatre in Nepal is more accessible because people understand and know more about disability equality in the arts.

When did BOP first work in Nepal?

Following the successful collaboration between Sagar and BOP for the second NITFEST workshop outlined below, Sagar continued his efforts in making the arts more accessible. He partnered with the British Council, with support from BOP Resources, to create a starter toolkit which we will use and build on for UNWRAP on how to make arts events and festivals accessible to disabled people. This toolkit focuses on access to culture rather than cultural production. You can find more information and access the toolkit by visiting this link: British Council Disability Accessibility Guide.

In 2019, BOP was invited to Nepal by the British Council based in Kathmandu. The reason for the invitation was to lead a series of workshops, sharing the skills and knowledge that BOP has developed at how to make creative work in a way that is accessible to and inclusive of disabled people. The dates of this workshop coincided with the Nepal International Theatre Festival, and our Executive Producer, Mairi Taylor, was invited to speak as part of a panel discussing the different barriers disabled people face in engaging with performance – and how BOP works to remove these barriers.

Based in the British Council offices in Kathmandu, Mairi Taylor (Executive Producer), Michelle Rolfe (Producer) and Callum Madge (Engagement Manager) from BOP worked across 5 days with 29 Nepalese people, from Kathmandu and the surrounding area. The workshops focused on disability equality, BOP’s use of creative access and collaborative working while developing ideas for a British Council grant which was due to open for applications at the end of the workshops.

The five half-day workshops consisted of a mixture of: sharing knowledge about good inclusive practice from BOP’s Disability Equality Training; talking through examples of BOP’s work as case studies; practical activities that grouped together artists and disabled people so they could better understand the others perspective; discussions around the practicalities of being a disabled person in Nepal; sessions that provided guidance on best to apply for the British Council grants – in consultation with British Council Nepal staff. It is important to note that BOP made clear from the outset that its knowledge and skills come from a UK perspective and we didn’t pretend to understand the nuances of the Nepalese experience – to this end we worked closely with Sagar Prasai from the National Rehabilitation Society for the Disabled (NRSD) and Diverse Patterns based in Kathmandu, himself a disabled man.

A photo of a blue door that reads 'Training Room 1'. Underneath this there is a British Council sign that reads 'Exploring approaches to access and inclusivity' .

A room filled with people, some are sitting and some are standing. They are all facing a large red board with various clusters of sticky notes on it. In front of the board, there are two people in wheelchairs, a man and a woman. The woman is wearing an orange top and appears to be talking.

A photo taken from behind two people standing at the front of a workshop. One is a man wearing a maroon hat and the other is a blonde woman wearing a red top. There are around forty to fifty people sitting in front of them listening.

Mairi and Michelle posing with participants from the workshop, doing the Nepalese sign for 'wmoan' on International Women's Day

A large group of people gathered for a workshop. A small row of five people present at the front with the other participants sat watching them.

Three people, a man and two women pose in front of a small white temple with a golden spire and strings of coloured flags descending from it

Two women and a man pose in front of what looks like the entrance to a stone temple. There is a large archway behind them. They all smile at the camera

Three people pose by a heart sculpture that reads: 'I love Chandragiri'. A man and a woman are standing in it, smiling and leaning on the sides, and a woman in a wheelchair with long dark hair sits in front of it.

Five people, two women and three men pose with their arms around each other, in a lush green garden for a photo.

A large group of around thirty people are sat in a circle, talking to each other. One man stands.

A large room of around forty people gather in seated clusters and appear to be talking amoungst themselves

Around 40% of the participants were disabled and very few of them spoke English so we worked through an English-Nepali translator – the Deaf Nepalese . BOP worked responsively with the group, shifting activity in response to the group’s size and learning needs. To do this we drew on our the knowledge and on the established processes of the company – including artistic practises and knowledge around disability equality and artist development. Read the full evaluation report at the link below.

BOP Workshops with British Council Nepal: Evaluation

You can read about the workshops on the British Council Nepal website here

What happened next?

In 2022 Sagar involved BOP to collaborate on a workshop for the second NITFEST in Nepal. Creating an event examining how to make the arts more accessible as part of the second Nepal International Theatre Festival. This workshop was held hybridly with Michelle in Scotland and Sagar in Nepal on the 28th of November.