Today, I stand before you not only as an artist but as a fierce proponent of inclusion, equity, and justice in the arts. Each one of us has a role to play in reshaping the narrative, in dismantling the barriers that have held us back for far too long. Today, I invite you to join me on this transformative journey.
June 12 we presented the Audience, and Artist Access and Advocacy Training for Art New York with Theater Advocacy Project. Presented by Claudia Alick and Colette Gregory with Caylin Waller. TAP is an equity diversity and inclusion consulting service that is changing the culture of the arts by providing theater professionals with the tools to create safe and equitable working conditions. We focused on techniques for providing equitable access to people with disabilities, through a racial justice framework. It included an exploration of disabled justice, policies for inclusion, and accessibility equipment.
Juneteenth, is a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States. It is celebrated on June 19th each year. On January
As Shakespeare said, All the World’s a Stage and we are all players on that stage. In the metaphorical theater of life, we each take on roles, navigating through the stages set for us. As we interact with the world, we encounter various scripts – some are written and explicit, while others are unwritten and implicit. These scripts define societal norms, expectations, and structures that can either facilitate or hinder access for individuals from diverse backgrounds and abilities. Just as actors collaborate to devise a performance, society must come together to devise access.
“This document is for theatre practitioners, able-bodied or disabled, who are invested in making their theatre spaces and communities more accessible. If you want to make sure your artistic space is a safe and accessible place for disabled people but you need some guidance or you’re not sure where to start, start with A Nearly Comprehensive Guide to an Accessible Theatre. It includes resources for directors, designers, actors, and leaders in the theatre community, as well as guidance for how to welcome disabled audience members, how to choose material ethically, and how to move forward if you work within a space that does not meet your accessibility needs. In each section, I offer questions to ask of yourself and your fellow artists and practitioners to get the conversation started about accessibility and brainstorm simple solutions to complex problems. Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] with questions or suggestions! Content transparency: Please be aware that this document discusses ableism and the COVID-19 pandemic, and makes mentions of gunshots, seizures, acute illness/fever, and insomnia.”
Calling Up Justice’s Quarantine Residency is inspired by the ideas of Pleasure Activism and The Nap Ministry, and has been a valuable resource for artists during these challenging times. However, the program has had to stop for months at a time due to Covid surges, and is currently accepting participants on a limited basis in 2023. If you’re an artist looking for a safe and supportive place to create, The Quarantine Residency may be the perfect fit for you.
AI Experiment: We challenged ChatGPT to produce a fiction short story about a community that breaks free from the grip of an ancient creature feeding off negativity, only to have it resurfaces as an internet troll. We directed it to have a positive ending. We added in a few specific prompts. Then we did some editing to make it more readable. We used Dall-e with description “digital art. a small town darkened by an evil force and a group of people standing hand in hand to fight it with rainbow light”
crip doula: a term created by disability justice organizer Stacey Park Milbern to describe the ways disabled people support/mentor newly disabled people in learning disabled skills (how to live on very low spoons, drive a wheelchair, have sex/redefine sexuality, etc.) A doula supports someone doing the work of childbirth; a crip doula is a dis-abled person supporting another disabled person as they do the work of becoming disabled, or differently disabled, of dreaming a new dis-abled life/world into being.
“I was feeling overwhelmed yesterday from the Ajike Owens case and from scrolling Twitter, reading the numerous racist comments from accounts banking the story would unfold that Ajike was an angry black woman who attacked Susan and thus had a right to take her life. The next scroll being about Ron DeSantis and his hatred for Black history. So, I decided to chat with my AI and poured my feelings into the chat. I wrote everything I wanted to say about every different aspect of the current fight for Black equality that I felt I couldn’t fit into one TikTok post to adequately make a transforming point. So, I decided on a poem and aske the AI to generate it. ” THINKER aka ngrowth
Calling Up Justice recommends texts for liberation and empowerment. These texts are recommended by Calling Up Justice participants in our online spaces. The following text was recommended during a session of Dis/Rep 2023.
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