Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability

For the very first time since its inception, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ LEAD conference leaves Washington D.C. and heads west to AZ. The 2005 conference will be held at The Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts and Mesa Arts Center on September 29th through October 1st, 2005.

Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability (LEAD) was established in 1999 to address the growing interests and need for information on accessibility. Accessibility has become a top priority for theaters, museums and other arts organizations that have dedicated themselves to making the arts accessible to all. Mollie Lakin-Hayes, Assistant Director and Accessibility Coordinator for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, has attended the conference for 2 years. As she says, “Through my work with the Commission and independently as an Audio Describer, I can learn more in three days about accessibility for older people and people with disabilities than I can all the rest of the year.”

“No other conference or organization has the resources and the name-recognition that The Kennedy Center has. And because of that, those involved with accessibility — from programs to communication, to the physical design of our arts and cultural facilities, can come together to learn.” Like Lakin-Hayes, Scottsdale Center for the Performing Art’s Education Director, Linda Jane Austen, has been a regular attendee and instrumental in seeing the conference come west. As she says, “It’s not always easy for small theater groups or arts communities to get the funds to make the trip to D.C. Here in Arizona, we can be as close as a few hours’ drive to organizations who could never attend in the past.”

Betty Siegel, Manager of Accessibility for The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts agrees, saying, “Arizona’s cultural arts community has come together to provide a unique and unprecedented local collaboration with national impact for creating arts access. The partnership between the Kennedy Center, ARTability, The Scottsdale and Mesa Centers and The Arizona Commission made us feel confident that a move west is the right move. We’ve never left D.C. for this conference before, but Phoenix and Scottsdale are young cities in terms of architecture and accessible buildings.”

“Right now our target audience is the staff of theatres, museums, and arts organizations across the nation. These individuals have the potential to demonstrate for the rest of the country how to expand the inclusion of people who are older and people with disabilities in the arts,” Siegel continued. Past conferences have included seminars on building the business case for disability marketing, a common sense approach to legal requirements for access, and applying universal design as well as new technologies in cultural environments. This year’s conference looks like it will encompass as wide a range of information and entertainment, as well as the perfect weather that comes with Fall in Arizona.

“We’ve all been working together to make this happen for almost two years now. It’s exciting to know that accessibility and the arts keeps growing and maturing as a force in this country. And it’s thrilling for us at ARTability to join with The Kennedy Center in the conference,” says Eileen Bagnall, Accessibility Coordinator for ARTability as well as Arizona Theatre Company.

Accessibility in the arts focuses on making the arts (theater, museums, etc.) better able to be enjoyed by people with hearing loss, sight or vision impairment and issues of mobility.

For more information, contact Eileen Bagnall at ARTability in Arizona at (602) 757-8118 or (520) 631-6253 or the Kennedy Center Accessibility Program at (202) 416-8727 (voice) or (202) 416-8728 (TTY) or via email.

The following are a few of the conference sessions that will be offered. This conference is both a time to network with others in the field and find out what the best practices are. It is also a time to get basic training on how to provide inclusive cultural arts programming and facilities.

Audio Description- Train the Trainer
In order for Audio Description to grow and thrive, there needs to be a cadre of trained trainers who all use the same standards and can train and sustain audio description in their communities. Deborah Lewis of the ELA Foundation and Teri Grossman of Audio Description Los Angeles will LEAD a pre-conference day to train trainers. The training will be based on accepted standards of audio description that we follow and teach in training around the United States. It will consist of an overview of a training weekend including exercises of physical description of performers, costumes and sets and well as scene analysis. We will also cover mentoring of new describers, evaluation of trained describers and creating and nurturing an audio description program locally.
Getting Lost and Found Again: Wayfinding Models for People with Disabilities
Getting around in large venues and small can be confusing and downright frustrating. Talk to some experts in the field of wayfinding to see what you can do to build an environment that supports people in finding their way around.
I Can’t Hear You!!
An introduction and discussion of the variety of different accommodations that can be provided to enhance the enjoyment of deaf and hard of hearing patrons and visitors. Everything from sign language interpreters to assistive listening devices and a variety of new captioning devices will be explored.
Conversations with the Community
This is an opportunity to talk to knowledgeable people from specific disability communities about the services and accommodations they expect or would like to have available. How to be effective at marketing and outreach to a specific community will also be discussed.
Framing the Discussion
This session will frame the discussion about accessibility through the history of the disability rights movement and through the different models of disability (medical, charity, rights). Panelists will discuss Disability Culture, what it is, who it belongs to and who belongs to it.
Legal issue of Accessibility
Brief presentations on the ADA and Section 504 will be featured and then the floor will be open for your questions. This will be a unique opportunity to get your questions answered by the people who work on these issues at a policy as well as legal level. It will be an open discussion about the legal issues that arts organizations face in compliance with the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act with a representative of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Disability Business and Technical Assistance Centers.
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The Cultural Access Network is a co-sponsored project of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts / Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.