Clem Baade is a striking young man. His shaved head reveals the curve of his skull and his mouth curls quizzically. His face communicates a strong sense of empathy with eyes that appear, at times, to verge on tears. It was perhaps this presence that prompted Kate Sulan, director of RAWCUS Theatre Company, to choose him for the video sequences flowing through the company’s most recent work, Sideshow.
A collective of actors with and without disabilities, RAWCUS was established four years ago. Earlier this year, Sideshow received significant acclaim as part of the 2004 Next Wave Festival. A group-devised performance, Sideshow was inspired by Angela Carter’s fairytale of the same name, based on the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Clem’s character in Sideshow was projected on screens and sheets, and moved with delicate purpose across a darkened stage, creating an ominous sense of things about to go horribly wrong. Uncannily, these sequences mirrored Clem’s personal journey over the last few years.
The eldest of four children, Clem Baade has intellectual and physical disabilities. Born in the early 1970s, doctors indicated that because of his disabilities, he would be best supported by specialist services rather than in his own home. ‘Evidently, I felt like a puppet because I didn’t have any use of my hands or legs for a while. So the doctor told mum to send me to a home and forget about me’, he says, his eyes watering slightly.
As was the practice only 30 years ago, doctors did not foresee much potential in a baby born with a disability. Children like Clem, they thought, were best institutionalised and forgotten. Clem’s parents, however, decided to challenge the professionals and contradict the advice of the time, giving him all the energy they could muster. Clem speaks with pride and a deep love of his family. In a world striving for perfection where many of us feel uncomfortable about our own inabilities, let alone others’, he feels that family is often a haven for people with a disability.
The second last night of RAWCUS’s season of Sideshow, Clem celebrated not just another successful performance, but the six-month anniversary of the kidney transplant operation he underwent in December. His commitment to RAWCUS meant that rehearsals and performances for Sideshow were staggered around hospital visits where he received anti-rejection medication. Prior to his kidney transplant, most of his time with RAWCUS—the weekly rehearsals and numerous