Post by Colleen on Nov 30, 2006 0:56:38 GMT -5
Celebrate your inner freak and join us!
Come down to a free event at Calgary's city hall from noon till 1 pm. Its FREE!
Join 80 artists with disabilities and celebrate disability culture.
If you want to learn more about Freak Out. Catch this weeks Fast Forward! See below for more the interview with Pam and Colleen
www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2006/1123/the2.htm
THEATRE
by JOCELYN GROSSÉ
Breaking down barriers
DisArts Collective’s Freak Out! Celebrates diversity through art
>>PREVIEW
FREAK OUT!
Thursday, November 30 at noon
DisArts Collective
City Hall Atrium
Defined as "a shared passion about who’s been marginalized, and creating a voice," Calgary’s DisArts collective promises to Freak Out! Calgarians with new voices and diverse, talented artists.
DisArts Collective member Colleen Huston states the goal for the one-hour festival is to create a cultural place for the arts and for people with disabilities.
"Some people may not have a so-called diagnosis, but they work around disability," she says of the participants, noting, "there’s many types of disability."
The celebration will mark the International Day of Disabled Persons. While this has been observed by the United Nations since 1992, and Alberta joined the celebrations in 2003, this will mark the first occasion Calgary has displayed the diverse talents of artists with disabilities in a single presentation.
"There’s eight shows plus there’s going to be about 80 people taking part," says MoMo Dance Theatre’s Pamela Boyd. "We just sort of opened up the idea to whoever wanted to participate."
Events surrounding the International Day of Disabled Persons will continue to happen all weekend. Freak Out! features theatre (including theatre with sign language), dance, stand-up comedy, art, drumming and film. Artists and groups featured include Studio C, Indefinite Arts, CP Association, David Thiaw, MoMo Dance Theatre, Inside Out Theatre, Power Council, Disability Action Hall and Activate Your Sense of Humour.
"I think that’s what (the DisArts Collective) is really dedicated to – creating these cultural spaces," says Huston. "The city’s been great about getting us translators and closed captioning services, because we wanted to make it an accessible event and to make it free. Especially if it’s visible in the street (at City Hall) – bringing art to people in the street, the public space."
Boyd had decided she wanted to help organize an event to mark an occasion that was arts focused.
"I had decided that I wanted to do a dance event at City Hall to mark the occasion with MoMo. I mentioned it to Colleen and it took off. But in a way, it (was inspired by) an event I went to in London several years ago, the Disability Arts Forum. They had a daylong festival in Trafalgar Square that I went to where there were many things happening and it was fabulous. And I thought, ‘We can do this. We will do this.’"
Boyd, who works as a DanceAbility teacher with MoMo Dance Theatre, saw an opportunity for the diverse company to make a similar impact along with others in the Calgary arts community.
"MoMo is a mixed-ability company – and that’s very specifically chosen by me because I wanted to bring experienced artists together with potential artists and artists with disabilities to share the kind of wealth and understanding that we have. Bringing it together for me is a very powerful thing."
Huston notes the different movements that have come together to activate the disabled community in Calgary, including the Disability Action Hall, the Disability Arts Festival (started in 1998 and inspired in part by the work of Vancouver theatre artist David Diamond of Headlines Theatre), Public Dreams and the Arusha Centre.
As a board member of Arusha, Huston did a workshop with Public Dreams on how to animate activism. She sees a need for such events, "Because when you talk about disabilities, people just turn off completely and say, ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ so I always think of how to animate that, how to engage people around the rights of people with disabilities. And art, stand-up comedy and film have always been places to break down those barriers."
"And as a theatre artist all my life, when I began to get involved with disability, it was a very natural place for me to go," Boyd adds. "My personal motto, is ‘bringing visibility to disability.’ Which is the same kind of thing, you know. You can talk, be academic and make all sorts of statements, but until it’s out there in front of people and celebrated, it’s not going to boost society with the same impact."
Come down to a free event at Calgary's city hall from noon till 1 pm. Its FREE!
Join 80 artists with disabilities and celebrate disability culture.
If you want to learn more about Freak Out. Catch this weeks Fast Forward! See below for more the interview with Pam and Colleen
www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2006/1123/the2.htm
THEATRE
by JOCELYN GROSSÉ
Breaking down barriers
DisArts Collective’s Freak Out! Celebrates diversity through art
>>PREVIEW
FREAK OUT!
Thursday, November 30 at noon
DisArts Collective
City Hall Atrium
Defined as "a shared passion about who’s been marginalized, and creating a voice," Calgary’s DisArts collective promises to Freak Out! Calgarians with new voices and diverse, talented artists.
DisArts Collective member Colleen Huston states the goal for the one-hour festival is to create a cultural place for the arts and for people with disabilities.
"Some people may not have a so-called diagnosis, but they work around disability," she says of the participants, noting, "there’s many types of disability."
The celebration will mark the International Day of Disabled Persons. While this has been observed by the United Nations since 1992, and Alberta joined the celebrations in 2003, this will mark the first occasion Calgary has displayed the diverse talents of artists with disabilities in a single presentation.
"There’s eight shows plus there’s going to be about 80 people taking part," says MoMo Dance Theatre’s Pamela Boyd. "We just sort of opened up the idea to whoever wanted to participate."
Events surrounding the International Day of Disabled Persons will continue to happen all weekend. Freak Out! features theatre (including theatre with sign language), dance, stand-up comedy, art, drumming and film. Artists and groups featured include Studio C, Indefinite Arts, CP Association, David Thiaw, MoMo Dance Theatre, Inside Out Theatre, Power Council, Disability Action Hall and Activate Your Sense of Humour.
"I think that’s what (the DisArts Collective) is really dedicated to – creating these cultural spaces," says Huston. "The city’s been great about getting us translators and closed captioning services, because we wanted to make it an accessible event and to make it free. Especially if it’s visible in the street (at City Hall) – bringing art to people in the street, the public space."
Boyd had decided she wanted to help organize an event to mark an occasion that was arts focused.
"I had decided that I wanted to do a dance event at City Hall to mark the occasion with MoMo. I mentioned it to Colleen and it took off. But in a way, it (was inspired by) an event I went to in London several years ago, the Disability Arts Forum. They had a daylong festival in Trafalgar Square that I went to where there were many things happening and it was fabulous. And I thought, ‘We can do this. We will do this.’"
Boyd, who works as a DanceAbility teacher with MoMo Dance Theatre, saw an opportunity for the diverse company to make a similar impact along with others in the Calgary arts community.
"MoMo is a mixed-ability company – and that’s very specifically chosen by me because I wanted to bring experienced artists together with potential artists and artists with disabilities to share the kind of wealth and understanding that we have. Bringing it together for me is a very powerful thing."
Huston notes the different movements that have come together to activate the disabled community in Calgary, including the Disability Action Hall, the Disability Arts Festival (started in 1998 and inspired in part by the work of Vancouver theatre artist David Diamond of Headlines Theatre), Public Dreams and the Arusha Centre.
As a board member of Arusha, Huston did a workshop with Public Dreams on how to animate activism. She sees a need for such events, "Because when you talk about disabilities, people just turn off completely and say, ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ so I always think of how to animate that, how to engage people around the rights of people with disabilities. And art, stand-up comedy and film have always been places to break down those barriers."
"And as a theatre artist all my life, when I began to get involved with disability, it was a very natural place for me to go," Boyd adds. "My personal motto, is ‘bringing visibility to disability.’ Which is the same kind of thing, you know. You can talk, be academic and make all sorts of statements, but until it’s out there in front of people and celebrated, it’s not going to boost society with the same impact."