AUDIENCES WITHOUT BARRIERS: PICASSO PRO AND CREATIVE TRUST LAUNCH TWO NEW INITIATIVES

TORONTO, ON – “We are delighted to announce that Toronto’s mid-sized music, theatre and dance companies are now poised to make their performances more accessible to new, diverse audiences, Deaf audiences and audience members who are low vision and blind,” said Jini Stolk, Executive Director of Creative Trust.

Creative Trust’s Engaging Audiences Project and the Sun Life Performing Arts Access Program, a collaboration between Picasso PRO and Creative Trust, will intersect to achieve these goals. Both initiatives were announced on Monday November 23rd at the Centre for Social Innovation by Stolk and Picasso PRO Project Manager Rose Jacobson.

The Launch was well-attended and accessible to Deaf and hearing participants through the services of American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters. Helping to introduce the Sun Life Performing Arts Access Program were Creative Trust Board member Caroline Hollway; Deaf filmmaker, actor and activist Mike Cyr; actor and ASL/theatrical interpreter Joanna Bennett; and Durelle Harford-McAllister, a senior theatre artist, educator and activist who is legally blind. All spoke passionately about the need for access to Toronto’s live arts by both performers and audiences who are Deaf or live with disabilities.

In January 2010 Picasso PRO and Creative Trust will embark on a substantive two-year program, training a core of audio describers and creating the start of ongoing communications access through Audio Description [AD] for blind/low-vision audiences and ASL Interpretation for Deaf/hard-of-hearing audiences. The program will work to strengthen ties with the interpreter community and help performing arts companies to integrate services properly into their organizational cultures.

“Toronto’s Deaf and disability communities are large, diverse, active and growing, as our aging population grows,” said Jacobson, “Access will allow Toronto to rightfully retain its place on a world stage which increasingly reflects the values of diversity and inclusion.”

Beginning December 10, 2009, Creative Trust’s Engaging Audiences Project offers sessions, research and deep analysis of performing arts audiences, facilitated by international expert Alan S. Brown. The two-year initiative will engage members in an in-depth approach to community engagement and audience development. Members will also receive guidance in box office, database systems and management, Web 2.0 best practices and audience diversification with specialist, Donna Walker Kuhne. The project’s learnings will be widely shared across Ontario and Canada.

For immediate release: April 27th, 2009; Download MS Word doc

media enquiries: Rose Jacobson

Picasso PRO Launches New Program in Collaboration with Creative Trust

Picasso PRO, a long-term project focused on bridging disability and the performing & media arts, is delighted to announce a new 30 month program cycle in collaboration with Creative Trust made possible through a province-wide grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Picasso PRO was formed to facilitate genuine opportunity for artists with disabilities and Deaf artists in the performing and media arts. It springs from the passionate conviction that Deaf and disabled artists belong on Canada's stages and screens and among our audiences, professional staffs, teachers and cultural leaders.

Since 1993, Picasso PRO, originally called DIS THIS!, has enjoyed five programming cycles under the management of Rose Jacobson. Picasso PRO remains highly responsive to the community's needs through an evolving program of skills development, artist support, networking, creation, collaboration and services for the up and coming professional. All activities are grounded in a strong commitment to the artists' creative, professional and human rights.

“Ryerson’s Disability Studies Program recognizes an urgent need for dedicated arts professionals to mentor and support the emergence of fresh new voices from the diverse and far-flung disability community. Picasso PRO serves a unique and critically important role in building artistic and cultural capacity and supporting distinct artistic practice in Toronto and Ontario.” - Catherine Frazee, co-director Ryerson RBC Institute for Disability Studies Research & Education.

Creative Trust’s mandate aims to improve the financial health and sustainability of some of Toronto’s most innovative and accomplished performing arts companies. Together CT’s members represent a sizeable chunk of the professional producing, presenting and training performing arts companies in Toronto.

Access is a key point of entry for Picasso PRO’s collaboration with Creative Trust. Along with other artistic and peer-to-peer opportunities, we will research facilities and advocate for resources to improve barrier-free access to Toronto and Ontario’s arts venues.

"This collaboration is based on trust and an awareness of overall social goals which go beyond any one organization’s efforts. It is bound by personal connections; it is peer-based. It requires knowledge-sharing and mutual support in dealing with complex problems." – Jini Stolk, Executive Director Creative Trust.

Picasso PRO/CT’s upcoming workplan positions Ontario’s artists with disabilities firmly within the international Dis-Art movement and hopes to act as an agent of social change, documenting the sector while supporting professionalism and excellence in artistic practice by:

*Building new regional networks through outreach to targeted communities

*Consolidating best practices and sharing tools with communities outside Toronto

*Enhancing the careers of intermediate and senior Deaf artists and artists with disabilities

*Identifying younger artists (18-25) and introducing them to a variety of arts practice

*Challenging industry standards, non-inclusive practices, negative media depictions of disability and advocating for positive alternatives.

Over the past 15 years Picasso PRO has grown from a nucleus of eight core artists to a pool of over 70 active participants, 30 artists in teaching/mentoring roles,18 ASL Interpreters, physical facilitators and tech specialists as well as more than 40 associate organizations, groups, community activists and advocates. Our specialists have included Alex Bulmer, Fides Krucker, Caglar Kimyoncu, Michael Kennard, Kate Lynch, Viv Moore, David Skelton, Donna Michelle St-Bernard, Mark Christmann, Karin Randoja, Paula Wing and Josette Bushell-Mingo to name only a few.

Aside from the obvious power which self-determination engenders, it is producing a vital canon of work: films, stories, performances, books, plays, installations and entirely new artforms created though the prism of disability. This is the work that Picasso PRO/CT intends to nurture and support.

“Someone once told me that you need to plant your own garden instead of waiting for someone to give you flowers…so… always remember to surround yourself with gardeners! We feel that Picasso PRO is building a greenhouse… so thank you Picasso PRO!” – Kat Germain and Allen Redford, founder and artistic associate, the Mutt Theatre Company

Please join us in celebrating the official Launch of Picasso PRO/CT on Sunday May 31st, 2009 at Tallulah’s Cabaret, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Picasso PRO/CT Launch

Sunday May 31st, 2009, 4:00-6:00 pm Tallulah’s Cabaret, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St. Toronto, via side entrance ramp.Meter-box street parking and small adjacent lot. Convenient drop-off for WheelTrans and drivers. Nearest TTC: Wellesley Station at Yonge or College/Carlton at Yonge

The Program

Brief remarks and performance tidbits followed by informal networking and drinks; cash bar; light snacks available. RSVP’s appreciated to Rose Jacobson: jacobsonr@sympatico.ca or 416-536-7522. Space limited.

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