S4DAC
LINKS
Copyright 2003-05
Society for Disability Arts & Culture
S4DAC
LINKS
Copyright 2003-05
Society for Disability Arts & Culture
In September 2006, 18 people from a variety of disability arts groups and other organizations met to discuss how we could best take advantage of opportunities for collective projects and collaborations before, during and after the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
We agreed as a group that we want collective participation at both Olympic events, and that the legacy from those events - what's left behind after the Games - is equally critical. We also agreed that programming and capacity-building for the entire field are important, and that some kind of a network would be useful in helping us reach our collective goals and maximizing resources.
What emerged from the meeting was the beginning of a regional network of disability arts creators and presenters, called the B.C. Regional Integrated Arts Network, aka "BRIAN". Our goal is to create a collective strategic plan – a useful, practical action plan that could be shared with various funding bodies as we near the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics – and their associated cultural events. To that end, we've hired a consultant, Richard Marcuse, to survey groups throughout B.C. in order to gain a comprehensive picture of the disability/integrated arts and culture movement in the province.
You can help us! If you can speak on behalf of an organization in B.C. (including unregistered groups or informal collectives) that supports or presents artists/performers with disabilities (either emerging or professional), or that uses the arts as an integrating or community-building tool for people with disabilities, we'd like you to fill out our questionnaire.
We thank 2010 Legacies Now for providing funding in support of this initiative.
It's not only in B.C. that Disability Arts networks are forming! In March 2006, a small, informal group of disability arts presenters from B.C., Alberta and Ontario came together for an inaugural meeting in Calgary. In February 2007, they met again in Toronto and continued a dialogue around the quality, development, dissemination and context of disability arts and culture presentation in Canada.
The network plans to continue providing a forum for sharing information and exploring possibilities for collaboration to producers and artistic directors of professional multidisciplinary disability arts events, as well as people who have made a scholarly contribution to the field of disability arts and culture.