NOTWITHSTANDING: 100 Years of Eugenics In Alberta, Stage Left's contribution to Alberta's Centennial celebration; Big Secret Theatre, Calgary (2005)
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DDMAAC > UPDATES
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DDMAAC promotes the collective interests of artists whose lived experience of disablement cultivates artistic autonomy, aesthetic non-normativity, cultural affinity and health equity – in and through impairment-informed artistic practices.
2024/25 FOCUSTaking Action on Truth & Reconciliation
From a 20-year collaboration with Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe DDMAAC's coordinator, Michele Decottignies, became an artist-in-resident to the Cumming School of Medicine's Indigenous, Local & Global Health Office in 2020. Since Covid shut down the arts sector, Stage Left's proven Theatre of the Oppressed practice has thus been immersing thousands of allied Health Care professionals in Truth & Reconciliation Calls to Action 18 - 24. Promoting Health Equity The knowledges we've received through collaboration with many esteemed Indigenous Health professionals is shifting DDMAAC's focus away from Models of Disability to Models of Health Equity. So DDMAAC will next be promoting a more inclusive framework of the dis arts domain, one that centres the social determinants of health instead of disability identity politics and consequently necessitates a Health Equity model. Decolonizing Disability We've also decolonized the professional arts sector's very definition of disability. We can't wait to share that knowledge with our peers throughout the broader arts sector, through our "Decolonizing Disability: Knowledge Sharing Series". Sharing Practice-Centric Dis Arts Knowledge Out of the live disability theatre symposium we produced in 2023, called Step Right Up, we're next creating a Disability Theatre Knowledge-Sharing Hub. With too many good things to share than we can name here. |
2023/24 IMPACTSharing Community Health Knowledge
DDMAAC's Coordinator, Michele Decottignies, has been immersing doctors-in-training in Stage Left's arts-based community development practice. And are they ever loving it! Because it's deeply informed by the more than 30,000 members of vulnerable populations we've collaborated with, on affecting Health Equity. Decolonizing Theatre of the Oppressed Knowledge Many Indigenous DDMAAC members are collaborating with on the decolonization of Stage Left's Forum Theatre practice – transforming it into a form of Narrative Medicine, embodied pedagogy and youth resilience. Metis artist, Holliston Logan, and Blackfoot artist, Autumn Eagle Speaker, are being apprenticed as jokers. Several others are being trained as what's called "non-actors". Metis artist, Bridget White, is coordinating DDMAAC's Digital Impact Program, through which we're sharing resources around our 2024/25 Focuses with the sector-at-large (see the column on the left for more on those focuses). Co-Generating Popular Theatre Knowledge Out of collaboration with a great many Indigenous Health professionals and their allies, we're discovering just how colonial Modern Drama processes are, and just how deeply Eurocentric the aesthetics of Realism. So DDMAAC is developing a Training Manual on The Aesthetics of Social Symbolism for those engaged in art as social justice practices. |
2020-2021 DISAPPOINTMENT |
2021-2023 DISAPPEARANCE |
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We refuse to grandstand
Stage Left and our DDMAAC network members remain ridiculously disappointed that the principals of equity, for the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, have been dropped like a hot potato amid the worst public crisis (so far) in recent memory: Covid. Ironically, we've noted that public health crises have most often emerged throughout history during times of greatest social inequality. Meaning that our members we're already down. Before Covid hit us all and gave you a taste of our daily meal. So we're not providing a public summary of our post-Covid activities, as too many of us haven't even made it to the "recovery" stage yet. We're not willing to exploit this very real struggle, for the far too many of us who are back on the margins again, for the benefit of this Network's public profile. Too many DDMAAC members are still deeply immersed in the struggle for basic human needs, and too many of our collaborators have to navigate the added inequities from the bottom up. While our peers in the arts sector horde cash. We especially won't be sharing any of the "we promise to do better, at long last" virtue signalling that we're seeing too much of now. We will, however, keep reminding our colleagues that Stage Left and DDMAAC's team of arts-based activists have been "building back better" since 2003.... |
We're going back to our own community
We very much appreciate that DDMAAC has given a seat to still-marginalized artists at the National Arts Service Organization table: We're all the power to make change lies. We've used that power very well, in ways that have benefited every artist in the dis arts domain. So now it's time to take care of our own: Those who've slipped through the Covid-recovery cracks. Those who remain the marginalized of the marginal. We need some timne with our own peers, to regenerate our own resilience Our thanks to all of you who keep reaching out, wanting to support us or join us. We'll let you know how you can be more directly involved in DDMAAC's efforts, when we regroup. In the meantime, our services will remain limited to the more under-serviced among us, our systemic-change advocacy remains radically inclusive. Thanks for your solidarity. Sorry we can't quite yet put it to more potent use. Give us time... |
2018/19 IMPACT |
2019/20 IMPACT |
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Forging Reciprocal Relations: ASO Sector Organizing
Several members of DDMAAC, in partnership with CAPACOA and Mass Culture, have come together in an effort to diversify and equalize the arts service sector. If our joint funding application is approved, we'll be co-producing the 2020 annual gathering of ASO sector advocates. Stay tuned... Advancing Disability Justice: Canada Council Consultation In September, 2019, DDMAAC's core team followed up with policy and granting staff at the Canada Council. We presented the more recent outcomes of our solidarity-building Retreat (see Dis/Engaged below) and offered-up the recommendations we've heard across the national domain since we last reported from the field in 2018. Decolonizing DDMSTC* Arts: Prismatic Showcase DDMAAC consultant Barak adé Soleil was invited to co-curate, with Leslie McClure, Prismatic Festival's The Talk. Stage Left's artistic team was invited to showcase Closet Freaks, a highly original QueerCrip Physical Theatre production that is decolonizing DDMSTC Arts in both process and product! Cripping Queer Arts: Undercurrents Showcase Stage Left's artistic team was also invited to showcase Closet Freaks at undercurrent festivals's 2019 Fresh Meat Cabaret. Expanding Impact: A DDMAAC Team Stage Left was finally able to engage a team of paid staff to advance DDMAAC's disability justice efforts, specifically Jenna Reid, Barak adé Soleil, and Sara Meurling. Dec 2019 update: Unfortunately, thanks to recent budget cuts [and now also Covid] we've lost DDMAAC's paid team. Building Solidarity Dis/Engaged: A National Retreat 14 members of DDMAAC's national network converged at The Banff Centre, from Aug 27 to Sept 1 to forge needed cross-cultural solidarities in DDMSTC* Arts activity Dis/Engaged represents the twelfth national DDMSTC Arts gathering of diverse advocates in Stage Left's DDMAAC network. Representing Multiversality: ETA II Feedback At their invitation, DDMAAC passed on to the Canada Council many recommendations, from long-excluded, diverse DDMSTC Arts contributors, on the integration of disability justice tenets and practice-centric knowledge in their forthcoming national DDMSTC Arts policy - ETA . |
Making Systemic Impact: Recommendations Accepted
We're thrilled to report that each of the recommendations we put forward to the Canada Council for the Arts were integrated into their recently released ETA II strategy. Making Market Impact: Non-Normalization Affirmed We're equally thrilled to report that Closet Freaks is premiering in GCTC's 2020/21 season. This intercultural QueerCrip production is advancing non-normalizing creation techniques and accommodated presenting models that are opening up new market access for diverse DDMSTC* Arts producers. Making Regional Impact: Equity Integrated Through a unique partnership with Calgary Arts Development, and an evidence-based approached to systemic arts equity, we helped to create their first Demographic Profile, by developing equity & diversity reporting tools and immersing their staff and board in foundational Arts Equity training. Making Economic Impact: Diversity Valued Through the combined efforts of many other Calgary-based arts equity advocates as well, the sector's public funding was doubled overall! Most importantly to us though, Calgary Arts Development dedicated an exclusive portion of that increase to historically excluded arts organizations and individuals. Making Practice Impact: Mental Wellness Decolonized Through reciprocal collaborations with Drs. Lindsay Crowshoe and Cindy Jardine, and in partnership with many First Nations across Treat 6, 7 & 8 Territories, we're decolonizing Stage Left's applied Theatre of the Oppressed Practice – along with western notions of "mental wellness". Making Public Impact: Arts Equity "Canadianized" We successfully adapted the American model of advocacy currently being advanced in the ecology into a Canadian arts sector context. It is evidence-based, attends to the concerns of all equity-seeking constituencies, strengthens intercultural competencies – in individual, cultural and civic spheres of influence – and is being put to potent use, in every region! Making Sector Impact: Knowledge Shared We've gotten the permissions needed from Stage Left's advisory team to begin publicly releasing the 20 years of national DDMSTC* Arts knowledge we've managed to amass. We've posted a sampling of it here, with a lot more to come.... |
DDMAAC's use of "Dis Arts" is meant to be inclusive of artists who are DDMSTC:
D/deaf/ hard of hearing; Disabled/ person with a disability; Mad, person with a mental illness, survivor of psychiatric incarceration; Sick/ spoonie/ survivor; Traumatized by lived experiences of systemic injustice; Colonized by imperialists.... But that's way too wordy for way too many of us. So we use "dis arts".
DDMAAC's framing of "Disablement":
Disablement is a social condition that impairs vulnerable populations. Disablement stems from socially-imposed processes of hegemonic bias, exclusion, inequity and disenfranchisement that results in poorer health outcomes for entire communities. DDMAAC thus takes up Health Equity models.
D/deaf/ hard of hearing; Disabled/ person with a disability; Mad, person with a mental illness, survivor of psychiatric incarceration; Sick/ spoonie/ survivor; Traumatized by lived experiences of systemic injustice; Colonized by imperialists.... But that's way too wordy for way too many of us. So we use "dis arts".
DDMAAC's framing of "Disablement":
Disablement is a social condition that impairs vulnerable populations. Disablement stems from socially-imposed processes of hegemonic bias, exclusion, inequity and disenfranchisement that results in poorer health outcomes for entire communities. DDMAAC thus takes up Health Equity models.
