‘I wanted and needed this show to be about how I inspire myself,’ says Australian choreographer-performer Dan Daw of his self-titled hour, which bows out with a farewell run at the International Festival. At first glance, the premise feels combustible. Daw shares the stage with dancer-collaborator Christopher Owen (playing KrisX) to explore the overlap of ‘crip’ identity and BDSM kink. The resulting devised work is a clever play of negotiating boundaries between Daw as a submissive and Owen as his dominant (it even features a latex vacuum cube whose sealed membrane turns Daw’s body into living sculpture under the stage lights). 

Yet what could read as provocation soon reveals itself as an essay in consent and tenderness. The movement material was harvested from hour-long improvisation warm-ups in which Owen tried out ways to dominate Daw. Sequences the pair found themselves repeating were then stitched into a tight score that nevertheless keeps space for real-time negotiation. In that sense, the show manages to straddle a fine line between its theatricality and a raw sense of vulnerability. 

Daw sees a direct link between that on-stage contract and everyday disability politics. The starting point for the show was a reflection on ‘inspiration porn,’ a term coined by disability advocate Stella Young, meaning the feelgood stories that hail disabled people as heroic. The resulting work reframes autonomy as a pleasure practice. ‘There’s a lot of shame attached to being disabled and a lot of pride. The same is true of being kinky. I draw the parallel to show how I want my body to be cared for.’ Isn’t it a scary premise? Daw agrees: ‘I was a closeted kinkster, so making the show felt like coming out again.’ 

The work has paid off in unexpected ways. ‘I’m now going to parties with friends I didn’t know were kinky. All of a sudden, people started coming out of the woodwork.’ And Daw was struck by how many women after the show thanked him for reminding them ‘not to apologise for the choices they make.’ Care is not just a stage device; it structures Daw’s rehearsal room. Now that he heads Dan Daw Creative Projects, every studio day starts with a check-in. ‘Everyone takes turns saying how they are,’ he explains. If someone needs ten minutes to call a partner or sort a bank problem, they take it. The practice is Daw’s application of ‘crip time,’ an acknowledgement that linear schedules rarely suit non-linear bodies.

That ethos will carry into his next venture, Exxy, a large-scale work on impostor syndrome backed by a New Dimensions commission. Accepting the brief triggered the self-doubt that this show examines. ‘When I got presented with the opportunity, I was like “I don’t think I can.” It’s just that little devil on the shoulder saying “you’re not good enough.”’

Turning 41 has helped quiet that devil. ‘I’m less worried about what people think,’ he reflects. ‘In the grand scheme of things, we’re a tiny pinprick in the universe; it all matters and nothing matters.’ This zen-like outlook lands like a coda to The Dan Daw Show itself: the piece is deadly serious about bodily autonomy yet refuses to take shame, or other people’s expectations, too seriously. Before Daw moves on to Exxy, Edinburgh offers a last chance to see the work that distilled 20 years of dancing and disability pride into one unapologetic hour. It’s an audacious show: two performers taking meticulous care of each other so that both (and, by osmosis, the audience) can breathe a little freer.

The Dan Daw Show, Lyceum Theatre, Saturday 2–Monday 4 August, 8pm.