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informonline.org.au
Feature
Andi Snelling
Creative Possibilities: Andi Snelling on art and disability
Andi Snelling is an award-winning performer, writer and theatre-maker living with Lyme disease and co-infections. Last year, she received an Arts Access Australia Travel Grant to attend Meeting Place, a forum hosted by Arts Access Australia for artists with disability. Andi loves tea, baths and being alive! Her favourite thing to do is smile. Inform caught up with Andi to discuss her work, the importance of forums like Meeting Place and how her disability informs her performances. How did you get into performing? I think I was just always accidentally performing; creating choreographies as a child and making little videos as a teenager. I used to move buttons about on a table as if they were on a stage, creating different formations and patterns. I grew up dancing and always landed the comedy roles.
Although I didn’t actually recognise it until I finally went to drama school in my mid-20s, I was clearly always performing in one way or another and it was pretty inevitable that this is where I’d end up. At my recent 20 year high school reunion, no one was surprised to hear my career was acting, even though it surprised me initially!