Disabled choreographer, dancer, designer, engineer, and founding member of Kinetic Light Laurel Lawson talks about performing aerially in a wheelchair, accessibility as its own artform rather than an add-on, and their app Audimance which includes haptic interpretation and sensory modulation.
Megan Lummus shares her experience as the first openly autistic director to direct a professional production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She explores why it is important to have autistic artists taking the lead on sharing autistic stories, and what theatremakers can do to make sure productions are accessible.
How might neurodivergent adults like to experience theatre? Taking this question as his starting point, Rob Onorato explores an approach to performance that embraces elements of neurodivergence as catalysts for formal innovation.
Theater Mu managing director Anh Thu T. Pham and development director Wesley Mouri discuss the ideology behind the theater’s Pay As You Are program, how it works, and what impact it’s having on the theatre six years after its implementation.
A Weekend-long Conference Celebrating the Strides Being Made in Inclusive and Accessible Theatre
Saturday 11 November 2023
Evanston, Illinois
Seesaw Theatre Presents: the 8th Annual Inclusive Theatre Festival (ITF)! This event is a weekend-long conference celebrating the strides being made in inclusive and accessible theatre. ITF aims to bring together theatre artists and practitioners from across the country, giving us all the chance to learn about the amazing work being done and how we can also improve our own work while supporting marginalized communities. The conference is intended not only for theatre artists (students and professionals alike), but also for the disability community and their families, educators working with autistic and otherwise disabled individuals, and truly anyone interested in this ever-expanding and heartwarming field of inclusive theatre.
Theatre educator Sofia Lindgren Galloway explores the complicated question of whether one should use content warnings when teaching theatre, and offers an approach for others to consider.
Keelin Sanz discusses the development of WOMI, which she created to explore the healing capacity of art. By rooting WOMI in the work of choreographer Anna Halprin and memoirist Sarah Ramey, Sanz crafted a performance that worked to a mend the relationship between body and sense of self for those with chronic illnesses.
Host Nicolas Shannon Savard, Dr. H. May, and Dr. Liz Thomson discuss the creative and collaborative possibilities that emerge when audio description (AD) is made an integral part of the artistic process, as opposed to solely an accommodation for individual audience members. They critique traditional models of AD that demand objectivity and propose alternative approaches that embrace self-determination, specificity of lived experience, and universal design.
Playwrights Carlyle Brown, Elaine Romero, and Catherine Filloux come together to discuss their experiences as working theatre artists who also act as caregivers to their spouses.
Nicolas Shannon asks Joy Brooke Fairfield and Raja Benz how their intimacy work is informed by queer theory and critical theory. Their conversation bounces between queer of color theory, decolonial theory, disability theory, and the dim glow of the night club; between past, present, and future; between the ideas they’re sure of and the ones they’re working out in real time. Bonus! It comes with dozens of recommended readings.
Second Hand Dance embarked upon research on support for artists with access needs after artistic director Rosie Heafford had to pull out of a festival that did not provide sufficient accommodations for her invisible disability. She shares takeaways from that research in the form of actionable steps that festivals, showcases, and industry events can implement.
Hari Somaskantha and Gitanjali exchange letters discussing their work with Teardrop Collective, a Toronto-based group that centers stories of queer, trans, Deaf, and hearing people of Tamil, Sri Lankan, and South Asian descent.
Theatre artist and educator Katie Butler discusses the need to recalibrate movement practice toward accessibility and body autonomy, and shares her own experience navigating changes in her body’s abilities.
David Salsbery Fry’s career in opera shifted dramatically when he publicly disclosed his disability in 2015. In this candid discussion with Marianna Mott Newirth and Gregory Moomjy, co-founders of New York City’s first disability-affirmative opera company, he details his experiences navigating an industry that has not made itself fully accessible or welcoming to artists with disabilities.
Gregory Moomjy and Marianna Mott Newirth share their approach to creating disability-affirmative opera productions in which disability artistry flourishes.
Robert Magasa is an experienced dancer, choreographer, and actor who trained in Zimbabwe and now runs UjeNi Dance Ensemble Theatre in Malawi. In this interview, Magasa discusses his career, the economics of producing theatre in Malawi, and his current work to bring a combination of traditional and Afro contemporary dance to schoolchildren in Malawi.
Morgan Skolnik argues for theatre that goes beyond physical accessibility and disability representation to actively center disabled artists and the creative potential the disability community holds.
In this week’s episode, hosts Bíborka and Zsófi focus on different abilities and handicapped people in the performing arts. Translating their guests’ responses into English, the co-hosts sit down with independent theatremaker, poet, and dramaturg Ádám Fekete; and the core members of the ArtMan Association, Dorka Farkas, Kata Kopeczny, and Ferenc Kálmán, who work with integrated dance and movement practices to produce amazing contemporary dance shows.
Melissa Lin Sturges shares her experience attending Olney Theatre Center’s bilingual production of The Music Man, which was presented in both English and American Sign Language.
This episode is inspired by recent and current events regarding Roe v. Wade and their potential impact on birthing people. We think about the representation of reproductive justice (things such as abortion, contraception, and anything regarding decisions to birth or plan a family) especially from Black women playwrights. We discuss plays such as They That Sit in Darkness by Mary Burrill, Rachel by Angelina Weld Grimke, Come Down Burning by Kia Corthron, In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, and Abortion Road Trip by Rachel Lynett.
From the “Gentleman Freak” to the “Rage-Filled Recluse,” simplistic tropes limit popular representation of disabled individuals. Ben Ranaan explains these tropes and advocates for more complex portrayals of disability in theatre and other media.
#DeafWoke is a virtual consciousness-raising engaging online talk show, led by Black and Native American Deaf host Mr. Antoine Hunter PurpleFireCrow.
Thursday 26 August 2021
San Francisco, California
Join us for an enlightening evening with award-winning multi-disciplinary artist, independent curator, disability advocate, and published author, Aleatha Linsday. Livestreaming on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday 26 August 2021 at 4 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 6 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 7 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
In this entry of Devising Our Future, Aly Perry asks, “How might we position and design theatre as an essential space for healing, pleasure, and connection through an intertwining and interdependent realm of the senses?
A Virtual Consciousness-Raising Online Talk Show, Led by Black and Native American Deaf Host Mr. Antoine Hunter PurpleFireCrow.
Thursday 19 August 2021
San Francisco, California
Join us for an inspiring evening with Denise Saunders Thompson, president and chief executive officer for the International Association of Blacks in Dance. Livestreamed on the commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday 19 August 2021 at 4 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 6 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 7 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
With Michelle Banks of Visionaries of the Creative Arts
21 July 2021
Yura Sapi sits down with Black, Deaf artist Michelle Banks to talk about Visionaries of the Creative Arts, an organization Michelle co-founded, dedicated to responding to the critical needs of d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing artists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color, in Washington, DC.
