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Why we need an artist-led critical disability arts network
The disability arts and culture movement grew out of the disability rights movements of the 1970s and 1980s. Its origins coincide with a more general shift toward a concern with representation and cultural production in the 1990s. While in the uk, greater possibilities for community-based arts initiatives, as well as a vocal and highly organized disability rights movement with greater access to arts higher education has given rise to a radical community of independent artists and artist-led organizations, in Canada, the emerging disability arts and culture movement has continuously been threatened by arts institutions and charitable organizations that seek to promote disability arts while dismissing its political base.
"Disability culture" only emerged as an organizing concept in Canada in the past seven years. In 2000, Ryerson University launched its first disability culture event, "An Evening of Deaf and Disability Culture," as part of its fledgling disability studies program.In 2001 Geoff McMurchyof theSociety for Disability Arts and Culture (s4dac) organized the first "KícIc-start Festival" in Vancouver. "Stages," the first disability arts festival in Calgary took place in 2002 (now called "Balancing Acts," it is an annual festival produced by Stage Left Productions). The Canadian Disability Studies Association convened for the first time in June 2004; while Spirit Synott, a professional dancer who uses a wheelchair, was on the cover of the Canadian dance magazine, The Dance Current that year.' In 2006, Bonnie Klein weighed in with her NFB-funded documentary "Shameless: The Art of Disability."
When in 2006, Michele Decottignies, the artistic director for Stage Left Productions in Calgary, announced that she had received funding to start a national Disability Arts and Culture Network, many artists were excited about the possibility of a network that could develop disability culture and promote disabled artists. Funding from Canadian Heritage would allow Decottignies to gather disability arts festival organizers to discuss the challenges of sustaining and developing audiences for the different festivals. This would be the first time that disability arts presenters would meet to discuss the future of disability arts in Canada. People from six organizations were called to the table: Balancing Acts; Ryerson's Art with Attitude; Kick-START; s4dac (the organization that runs Kickstart); Madness and the Arts; and...