Festival Preview
A SECOND LOOK AT DISABILITY ARTS FESTIVAL
Calgary SCOPE Society and Stage Left Productions
December 3 - 7
Big Secret Theatre (OYR)
When Michele Decottignies was studying for a career in arts-based community development, she was influenced by Brazilian director Augusto Boal’s revolutionary idea that theatre should be an interactive dialogue between the audience and the stage.
Today, the Calgary producer and activist’s company, Stage Left Productions, uses the techniques of Boal and others to assist in development for the disabled, homeless, immigrant and other potentially marginalized communities.
Last year, Stage Left joined forces with artists from the Calgary SCOPE Society – an organization that works with people with disabilities, and stages the Picture This Disability Film Festival every year – to create Stages: Unmasking Disability Culture, an event that showcases the artistic process. The event was so successful last year that its creators are back with an expanded edition called A Second Look At Disability Culture. With support from the Calgary Community Lottery Board and One Yellow Rabbit as presenters, they’ve taken a big leap this year to become a full-scale festival.
"The arts program helps people with cognitive or developmental disabilities, and physical disabilities," says Decottignies. "It challenges boundaries, and the process lets them shed their masks and attitudes in front of an audience."
Held over five nights, A Second Look will feature 40 artists with 10 different works in various stages of development. Plays and readings include the work of two visiting artists from Toronto and Ottawa.
One is Alan Shain, whose one-man show Still Waiting for that Special Bus won the audience pick at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. Shain will also perform a stand-up number entitled Smashing Stereotypes. In addition, a staged reading of Alex Bulmer’s Smudged will be presented under the direction of Betty Mitchell Award winner Gail Hanrahan.
Decottignies herself has been rehearsing heavily for more than six months on her remount of As I Am, a major reworking of her collective creation from last year. As I Am is a historical deconstruction of attitudes toward the disabled spanning more than 200 years, featuring everything from circus freaks to medical specimens, all in an effort to reflect our perceptions of the under-developed.
"A lot of the pieces are hard-hitting and challenging, without a shred of sentimentality," says Decottignies. "So it’s not what you might expect."
In addition to the theatrical performances, the festival will feature an auction, a fine arts gallery, a dance cabaret and a fund-raising gala for SCOPE, which will also screen videos from October’s Picture This festival.
Decottignies’s own Stage Left will present Dis’ This!, a multimedia performance featuring a sound orchestra that, among other things, deconstructs a wheelchair and jams with its parts.
One Yellow Rabbit is also joining in with extracts from The Dream Machine as part of the festival’s fund-raiser, and will be helping out big-time by throwing in the majority of the profits for SCOPE to continue its program.
Decottignies adds that interest is mounting. Along with SCOPE and the International Theatre of the Oppressed News Network (yep, there’s a network), the producer hopes to make the annual event an international one, parallel to the High Performance Rodeo’s activities. For now, she is spreading the word by lobbying and attending conferences, and is excited about the possibilities.
"There’s always that need to create awareness, but the thing that the artists get out of it is dignity. For many, it’s the first time people see them, and they come out of it with such a sense of pride and empowerment. How many of us have the ability to make that kind of change?" |
