For the past 20 years, Back to Back Theatre has made a name for itself both in Australia and around the world through its contemporary performances created by an ensemble of actors with disabilities. The company aims to give voice to social and political issues that speak to all people. In January and February, they bring their piece THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES on a five-city tour in the United States, continuing to foster social and cultural dialogue between artists and audience.

The company describes THE SHADOW WHOSE PREY THE HUNTER BECOMES (SHADOW) as, “a group of activists with intellectual disabilities hold a public meeting to start a frank and open conversation about a history we would prefer not to know, and a future that is ambivalent.” Back to Back created SHADOW, as it does with all its new work, through a process of collaborative research, improvisation, and scripting between the ensemble, Artistic Director Bruce Gladwin, and guest artists.

Michelle Miles may have just graduated from college in May, but her career in the arts is already off to a bright start. Miles was recognized with the Grand Prize for the 2019-2020 VSA Emerging Young Artists Program. Her work hand model will be featured in the exhibition Connected, which will tour the United States over the coming year. Here, Miles offers insight into her artistic practice, her experience with the Emerging Young Artists Program, and what emerging artists with disabilities can do to support one another.

Since 2002, the Kennedy Center and Volkswagen Group of America have presented the VSA Emerging Young Artists Program to recognize and showcase the work of emerging young artists living with disabilities, ages 16-25, who are currently residing in the United States. Connected, the 18^th exhibition presented as part of the VSA Emerging Young Artists Program, gives 15 young artists the opportunity to display their work in venues across the United States where each artist’s individual talent, mode of expression, and view of the world is showcased and valued.

This year’s theme asks artists to connect, to span new distances, and to see unexpected relationships. When is connection, or disconnection, most needed? What roads lead us there? Overlapping stories and interrelated ideas can overwhelm or can create important new discoveries. These artworks resonate deeply and spark greater understanding of our connected lives.

Creative Generation is an organization that links the arts to advocacy by cultivating the creative capacities of young people to solve complex global issues. Jeff M. Poulin, the founder of Creative Generation, believes arts educators must be advocates and need to be involved in the processes of creating educational policy at the local, state and federal level.

“We need to be ready to talk about the role of the arts in the education of students with disabilities,” Poulin said. “And to ensure their right to an education that includes the arts is protected.” 

Laurie Baskin is the Director of Research, Policy & Collective Action at Theatre Communications Group (TCG), a national organization that supports and promotes nonprofit theatre through networking, knowledge building, and leadership. In 2012, TCG partnered with Blue Star Families to launch Blue Star Theatres, an initiative intended to build stronger connections between the theatre community and military families through accessible admissions. Blue Star Families has also partnered with other organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts for the Blue Star Museums initiative, to increase cultural access across the sector.  In our Q&A, Baskin shares about the partnership and the difficulties and successes of the program. 

Q: How did the partnership between TCG and Blue Star Families begin?
A: Through a contact at Signature Theatre in Virginia, our executive director was introduced to somebody at the Pentagon. They had a conversation about active duty and veteran programming, and the connection was made to Blue Star Families, an organization dedicated to supporting active-duty military families.

According to recent statistics from the US Census, there are currently over 20 million veterans and active duty service members in the United States. Although arts play an important role in healing, the veteran community is often overlooked in programming. New Mexico Arts (NMA), a state arts agency, and Art Spark Texas, a nonprofit focused on inclusive arts, are two organizations emphasizing and creating programming for veterans and military families. 

Discovering the Gap

“In 2009, we realized there were a lot of veterans in our community and people who we were going to war and coming back, but not identifying as people with disabilities, which is the population we work with,” says Art Spark’s ArtWorks Director, April Sullivan. “The terminology didn’t relate to them.” 

Vanessa Jones is the first person to hold the position of Access Programs Specialist at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. Although she has been a paraplegic wheelchair user since the age of 18, Jones’ diverse career in the arts didn’t begin with an eye towards accessibility. 

“My story is a bit interesting because it defies assumptions or expectations that people who are not in the disability community might have,” Jones shares. “People see me in the role as advocating for arts and access now, but that hasn't always been the case.” Jones developed a love of culture from a young age, finding herself drawn to foreign languages and humanities in high school. “In my own journey, when I became disabled I didn't feel like I had to be defined by that and I continued to pursue the same career goals and interests I always had. I felt I could advocate just in the way I lived my life, in expecting to participate.”

The social isolation that can be experienced by students with special needs places them at a higher risk for depression and anxiety, according to Margaret Ellis McKenna, MD, Senior Fellow in Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics at Medical University of South Carolina.

United Kingdom (UK) theater company Mind the Gap envisions an arts sector where there are equal opportunities for performers with learning disabilities*, and where artists with learning disabilities are recognized as leaders in their fields. Mind the Gap’s new leadership program, called Staging Change, aims to increase the visibility of artists with learning disabilities in the wider arts community and offer them skills development and advocacy opportunities.

Staging Change is based around three-way partnerships between Mind the Gap (MTG), six arts venues across the UK, and artists with learning disabilities. According to MTG Associate Producer Deborah Dickinson, the program has five objectives: to grow talent among artists with learning disabilities (LD); to increase participation in LD-led arts; to increase representation of LD people in high quality work; to nurture new leaders to advance LD-led work; and to accumulate better evidence to support the value and impact of LD-led arts practice. They plan to accomplish these goals through three strands of the project: active partnerships with their six venue partners; training and leadership development for artists with LD; and collaboration and knowledge exchange events that bring venues and artists with LD together.

Seven years ago, Danielle Hark founded Broken Light Collective, a nonprofit organization that offers photographers affected by mental health challenges a space to share their work. Here, she talks about creating a venue to share both her own work and the work of other artists.

What is Broken Light Collective?
Danielle Hark: Broken Light Collective is a nonprofit organization that helps empower people affected by mental health and developmental challenges using photography. We strive to create safe and accepting environments, both online and through live exhibitions and workshops, where photographers of all levels affected by mental illness can display their work, as well as inspire one another to keep going and keep creating, despite any challenges they encounter. The types of photography we feature vary greatly, and include self-portrait, nature, abstract, and street photography. No matter the genre, through art we can observe and share in the darkness and light of living with mental illness.

Christine Bruno is an actor, director, teaching artist, and disability inclusion consultant for the entertainment industry. She holds an MFA from the New School and is a lifetime member of The Actors Studio. Christine has worked extensively in theater, film, and television in the US and abroad. She sits on the New York board of SAG-AFTRA and is chair of the union’s New York Performers with Disabilities Committee. Christine can be seen in the documentary series ABLE, streaming now on Amazon Prime.

Where are you based?
I have been a proud New York City-based artist since 1995.

At the Los Angeles-based dance company Infinite Flow, Founder and Artistic Director Marisa Hamamoto and her colleagues are seeking to change perceptions, build community, and educate leadership about disability and inclusion. But their approach is unique.

“We live a little more in the entertainment and business space,” says Hamamoto, whose company is just four years old, but already working with big-name partners like Facebook, Apple, and Red Bull. “Corporations have invited us to various events, and we get a lot of interest in presentations from colleges and schools. I’m also a social entrepreneur in addition to being an artist.  I geek out on thinking about systemic change and binge watch TED talks. Television, media, or digital, I have always believed in the power of media, and we live in an age where anyone has the power to be a medium.”

At Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD®) we are able to share resources and knowledge, develop best practices and foster collaborative relationships to create communal success for cultural organizations. Often when we return to our hometowns, it can feel like the successes of fellow organizations are in direct conflict with our own. In the case of accessibility, knowledge networks around the country are proving this wrong. 

If you were in attendance at LEAD, you might have seen the session “Partners and Rivals: Championing Access Across a Community.” At first look, the panelists didn’t come across as rivals or even colleagues, but friends. All five panelists hailed from Pittsburgh and have been working together for inclusion and accessibility in the arts community. Organizations in Pittsburgh have banded together, becoming a national model for how different kinds of organizations can foster a community-wide collaboration that effectively bridges knowledge and experience gaps around accessibility, aiming to fully connect people with disabilities to the arts community.

“Promoting Equity at the Intersection of Deaf Education and the Arts” is a full-day preconference session at the VSA Intersections: Art and Special Education Conference taking place October 25-28, 2019 in Irvine, California.

Theater artist, advocate and educator Fred Beam has been a driving force in support of arts learning for D/deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) students. He and Brian Cheslik, a theater teacher at Texas School for the Deaf and Founding Artistic Director of Deaf Theater Austin, will present at the first session in VSA Intersections history to focus exclusively on arts education and D/HH learners. 

Christena Gunther is the founder and steering committee co-chair of the Chicago Cultural Accessibility Consortium which was honored with a Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Emerging Leader Award in 2015. Christena speaks nationally and internationally about cultural accessibility, and is a strong advocate for the importance of establishing a local access knowledge network in one’s own community. We sat down for a Q&A with Christena about the benefits she has seen working with the cultural community in Chicago, Illinois. 

2017-2019 CCAC Steering Committee at their first fundraiser in May 2019 at Lagunitas Brewery. Pictured from left to right: Anna Cosner, Evan Hatfield, Christena Gunther, Hillary Pearson, Alyssa Harsha, Brittany Pyle, Matt Bivins, Risa Jaz Rifkind, Rachel Arfa, Lynn Walsh, Jeanna Rathell (and baby Frankie), Kris Nesbitt. Missing from photo: Steering Committee member Mike Shaw.

Alice Sheppard’s artistic practice includes many different roles: dancer, choreographer, artistic director, speaker, writer, educator, and creator. She was recently awarded the 2019 Juried Bessie Award for “boldly and authentically inventing new movement vocabularies full of supercharged physicality and nuanced detail.” Sheppard’s dance ensemble, Kinetic Light, will embark on a tour in fall 2019. Here, she shares about her training, inspirations, and how disability impacts her work.

Where are you currently based?
I am based in Los Altos, California and New York, New York.

As the threat of the climate crisis becomes ever more imminent, the importance and benefits of nature to human health become ever more undeniable. Highlighted in books such as “Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness” by Qing Li, various practices of nature therapy are said to improve mental and physical health. A 2018 report from the Nature Conservancy states “a growing body of scientific evidence suggests contact with nature provides a multitude of health benefits...nearby nature provides a positive emotional experience that has been shown to speed up recovery time for hospitalized patients, motivate healthy behaviors such as exercise, and provide therapeutic benefits to people living with mental disorders.” 

Due to the varied and often challenging terrain the natural environment can present (steep grades, unpaved pathways and delicate ecosystems), access to our natural resources for those with physical disabilities has historically been confined to the parking lots and nature centers, restricting their ability to fully partake in the benefits of a natural connection. 

Being able to keep many balls in the air is one of Sarah Aziz’s strengths as Director of Festival Management at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Aziz programs the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, a free music and art festival that draws over 500,000 people to Pittsburgh’s Point State Park over the course of 10 days, as well as Highmark First Night Pittsburgh, a family-friendly New Year’s celebration that takes place in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

Many people know Blessing Offor from his impressive appearances on the television shows The Voice and Platinum Hit. But before television audiences fell in love with him, Offor was a 2010 VSA International Young Soloists Award winner for his piano and vocal skills. Today, the Nashville-based musician is still writing and performing his infectious original songs, and urges other emerging artists with disabilities to decide to be the best at their artistic practice with “no qualifiers.”

What is your area(s) of artistic practice?
Music: songwriting, singing, multi-instrumentalist

Since 1984, the VSA International Young Soloists Competition has recognized talented, emerging musicians living with disabilities from all over the world. Five young artists have been named winners of the 2019 award, each receiving $2,000 and the opportunity travel to Washington, DC for pre-professional development activities culminating in a performance on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. The winners of the 2019 award are: soprano Tori Adams of Minneapolis, Minnesota; saxophonist Avery Dixon of Riverdale, Georgia; pianist Kasyfi Kalyasyena of Jakarta, Indonesia; pianist José André Montaño of Washington, DC; and singer/songwriter Maya Wagner of Hillsborough, New Jersey.

Based in Minneapolis, soprano Tori Tedeschi Adams, age 22, is in her fifth year at Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Her most recent performances include Miles in Turn of the Screw and Constance in Dialogues de Carmélites with Oberlin Opera Theater and Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel with LAH-SOW Minneapolis Opera Workshop. In past summers, Adams has been a Young Artist at Songfest and the Oberlin in Italy program where she sang Bianca in La Rondine. Other notable performances include the title role in Griffelkin by Lucas Foss with Project Opera and roles with the Minnesota Opera in the world premiere productions of The Shining, Doubt, and The Giver. She is pursuing her singing career while living with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes hypermobility, chronic pain, among other symptoms.