History of Pride
The history of LGBTQ+ pride, starting with Marsha P. Johnson and extending to the present day, is a testament to the ongoing struggle for equality, visibility, and acceptance for the LGBTQ+ community. Let’s continue the timeline:
Author: Claudia Alick
Tactile Tours
Tactile tours are a type of tour designed for individuals with visual impairments or blindness to experience and explore various places, such as museums, landmarks, theaters, or cultural sites. These tours focus on providing tactile and sensory experiences to engage participants and offer them a comprehensive understanding of the location.
SOCIAL AUDIO DESCRIPTION COLLECTIVE
Calling Up Justice recommends the Social Audio Descriptive Collective for expertise in visual descriptions. Audio description, or more precisely visual description, is a form of narration used to provide information surrounding key visual elements in a media or live work for the benefit of consumers who are accessing by sight. This includes blind and visually impaired participants.
Submersible and Billionaires Discourse
Enjoy these videos reflecting on the submersible and billionaires dissource made in June of 2023. Titan, a five-person submersible operated by OceanGate, went missing during a dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic. The submersible, named Titan, had British billionaires Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood, French submarine pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet, and Dawood’s son Suleman on board. The submersible lost contact with its operator, OceanGate Expeditions, and a search operation was launched. Unfortunately, it has been confirmed that all five people on board did not survive. The U.S. Coast Guard located a debris field on the sea floor, indicating a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.
Dot’s Home
Maiamama, captivated her live-stream audience as she delved into the immersive world of Dot’s Home during a captivating episode of Gaming4Justice. The game itself, a single-player masterpiece, revolved around the life of Dorothea “Dot” Hawkins, a vibrant young Black woman in her late twenties who resided in the bustling city of Detroit, Michigan, alongside her beloved grandmother, Mavis Hawkins. This interactive narrative, which merged gaming with the themes of housing and racial justice, proved to be a thought-provoking and enlightening experience.
LEDIA Let’s Talk about the 6 C’s
The LEDIA Talkspace held on June 21, 2023, focused on the topic of healing from colonizer illness through the utilization of the 6 C’s: curiosity, creativity, collaboration, connection, clarity, and consistency. Facilitated by Matthew Reynolds, with support from the Calling Up Justice practice, the conversation delved into the adverse effects of supremacy culture and toxic belief systems, emphasizing the importance of these 6 C’s in the healing process.
Backbones Talk
Claudia Alick held an empowering talk about disability identity with the BACKBONES Youth Summer Program. BACKBONES connects people with spinal cord injuries and their families with events and one on one meet-ups. The ten youth participants shared their stories about how they entered the disability community. Claudia shared history of disability movement, disability justice concepts, and accessibility vocabulary that allowed the group to talk about disability identity and their world. We closed with a conversation inspired by The Justice Producers Collaborative about how our disabled identities inform our work in the world and make us uniquely qualified. It was awesome to end reflecting on disabled innovation, resialance, perseverance, creativity, and advocacy. It’s a cool accessible program and we were honored to participate.
Inspiring Speech for Theaters
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.
TAP AAAA Workshop
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 2023
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