Integrial Media

Jan 24 2012 Exhibition of Creativity by Caregivers

2012-01-22T13:44:00.000-08:00

Two of my poems, Remote and acts considering caregiving from those receiving and giving it, will be on display in an exhibition celebrating creativity by caregivers.

Tuesday January 24 2012. Garden Room. West Vancouver Community Health Centre.
2121 Marine Drive
West Vancouver
6.30pm to 8.30pm

North Shore Caregivers Resources

2011 A Great CREATIVE Year!

2011-12-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

Meg Torwl reading July 2011 at the SFU Writing and Publishing Graduation with Trish Webb, Karen Lee

2011 was a good year for me creatively! I got to work or exhibit in several disciplines - writing, performance, audio, video, new media and curate.

I wrote an audio Podplay in a workshop with Jan Derbyshire with Neworld Theatre. About dealing with cancer while going to university. How depression holds hands with illness behind your back and tries to convince you every day is the same. Meanwhile your creativity tries to see the sun and remember everyday is new and full of possibility - even as Fukushima burns.

Two of my films screened. Act Your Age!? with the Generations Project Local Docs Series. Where have all the lesbians gone? with an Out On Screen Retrospective Vancouver Visionaries screening.

I curated and exhibited a new media exhibition in Sechelt for a month - PORTAL/PORTAGE. A wonderful collaboration with meditations on nature with three other women artists whose work I admire very much, Claudia Medina-Culos, Lilianna Kleiner and Diane Tanchak. With the Sunshine Coast Arts Council.

I completed The Writers Studio 2011 at Simon Fraser University, with the wonderful Poetry and Lyric Prose mentor Jen Currin. Such a great group of fellow students too! My work grew and expanded so much in the fecund environment! I submitted 60+ pages for work-shopping and polished and shaped my final manuscript of 25 pages for deadline, with the help of Betsy Warland’s excellent Minding Your Manuscript class. My final poetry manuscript is a narrative arc through an intimate relationship, illness, to life transitions of all types. There are three inter-related sections 1. The Synesthete and the Kinesthete (intimate relationships, aging, illness). 2. The Autistic Rheumatologist (disability, illness) 3. Transit of Venus (things thought while traveling – family, disability, spirituality, bliss, happiness, mortality).

I took a fabulous elective paper at SFU - The Poems Story and Silence – with Betsy Warland, the out-going Program Director of the Writers Studio. I wanted to write about a magical childhood encounter with a flock of moths, and ended up writing a new suite of 13 poems on the joys and tensions of the great NZ extended family summer holiday! The diversity and talent of the other women in the class was inspiring when we all gave a 10 minute presentation at the last class, each of us with visual elements to our work. It is always wondrous as a mentor what Betsy is able to draw out of us.

I read my poetry at 5 public reading events, and had 9 poems accepted for publication. With Emerge, The Writers Caravan, Enpipe and Running the Stop.

I am looking forward to what 2012 brings, so far in the works seeking a publisher for a poetry book, a collaborative performance commission from Calgary, a Mentorship from NZ, and possibly a retrospective exhibition.

Namaste and gratitude.

The Writers Caravan 5th Chapbook Launch Nov 18 2011

2011-11-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

Thursdays Writing Collective launches its 5th Chapbook

Friday Nov 18, 8:15pm at the Memory Festival at the Roundhouse Community Centre

Thursdays Writing Collective and guest editor Michael Turner invite you to a reading and launch of
"The Writers Caravan Anthology," a cross-community publication with UBC Law, The 2011 Writer's Studio and Write Club!

Please join us to celebrate the authors, including TWS's Rua Mercier, Dhana Musil, Yaana Dancer and Meg Torwl, at this free event.

Read more about The Writers Caravan here

- I'll be reading from my prose poem in the chapbook 'eight doors to happiness' about Buddhist lessons learned while taking transit.

Come on out and listen the the authors read their work, buy a copy of the chapbook, celebrate inter-community writing.

Photos of The Writers Caravan Anthology Launch on facebook

Buy a copy of the The Writers Caravan Anthology 2011 here

PodPlay Workshop October 2011

2011-10-29T21:56:00.000-07:00

For two weekends in October I went on a fabulous PodPlay Workshop, facilitated by the wonderful Jan Derbyshire. A collaboration between Neworld Theatre and Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture.

'PodPlays is a hybrid of technology and performance and combines sound, story and text. Load PodPlays onto your portable media player, then step outside where the plays become a soundtrack to life on the streets of Vancouver.' (Neworld Theatre).

Playwrights choose a location and use cues from the urban or natural environment to write a play, often musing on life's large or small questions.

Six of us participated in the workshop, recording first draft readings of our short plays, and then we all went on the PodPlays route to check out the results. Marvelous! We wrote on topics as varied as a missing cat, lost love, life and death, justice and judgment and two a collaborative poem inspired by Occupy Vancouver. Photos here.

You can check out Jan Derbyshire's Westend PodPlay Dog of your understanding, and other PodPlays commissioned for Vancouver's 125 year anniversary on the Neworld Theatre PodPlay site.

Oct 22 2011 8pm Emerge Book Launch

2011-10-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Sat Oct 22 8pm - 10.30pm , Emerge Book Launch and Reading

Room 2555, World Art Centre  SFU WOODWARDS 
149 West Hastings (enter of Cordova St.) 

The Writer's Studio at SFU presents the 2011 student anthology, Emerge, edited by Hiromi Goto.

Students will read from their new work, fiction, non-fiction, poetry. Meg will read verse and prose poetry on relationships in a writers life.

Doors Open 7:30pm 
Suggested Donation $10
Door Prize* 
Special Launch Price for the Book
This event will be followed by a cash bar reception.

*Free Creative Writing Course from the Writing and Communications Program at SFU

Read more about what I and others have to say about The Writer's Studio course at SFU, at the blog of SmarttNet who kindly sponsored the printing of the book launch program and video of the event.

Register online if you can for catering purposes.
http://www.thewritersstudio.ca/emerge-2011-student-anthology.html

Act Your Age!? Screens Oct 20 2011

2011-10-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Act You Age!? screens Thurs Oct 20, 7pm - 9.30pm

Qmunity Generations: 1033 Davie, Room 103
1033 Davie St, Room 103, Buzz 103
Vancouver, British Columbia
Entry by donation.
Wheelchair Accessible.

Part of Qmunity's LOC DOC series. Documentaries by local filmmakers, who attend the screening. Director Meg Torwl, and some of the films participants will be in attendance for a discussion after the screening.

10 women aged 16 to 80 talk candidly about age, ageing, ageism, beauty, disability, friends, lovers. Music by Mik Syroid.

More info and Map here.

Miss Hap: Mashup Prose Poem

2011-09-13T23:13:00.000-07:00

The Great New Zealand Remix and Mashup Competition - Literature Remix

At fifteen I was drawn by my body. the heavy body, the light body. was it only yesterday. on the walls of the kauri villa. once a desiccated seahorse. Small-scale sand bars... ripple. we are on the other side. We hear the wind, but never each others’ voices; It is always huge and we are always ants.

A child, I skipped alone, over cracks in concrete. I took my shadow home with me. stared directly at the sun. Shadow stands up, filigree shadows lie. I press my ear to, any promise of warmth. A pale faced dark haired mother blows smoke, standing still. In this soporific state are those who have been dead for decades. Around the curve No. 3 line, escape when I was growing up.

At eight I learned the word, ‘potion’. like spell. Breath of Heaven. Across the road, down to the creek. Into the goat cave high up a mud wall. We stayed until it got dark. You fill it up. Don’t lean away. None of the hair I have now, knew you when. I shave parts of my skull to the scalp. To the floor.

Starting things is so easy. Less of a bleeding cacophony, more of a groove. stand still and wait for a while. I like the simultaneous association/disassociation...they are narratives in their own right. It's hard to keep up with the flow of ideas, and I have to write very quickly. I’m not exaggerating or making it up. what we have built has fallen from lack of care.

It's Sunday evening here in High Street, central Auckland on a warm muggy evening which is typical of this time of year. I've spent the weekend in what has become a series of habits, reading, or just musing. the usual subject, art - new zealand - lit. stroking, Auckland city. And it works! As I write, the storm has broke.

Sources: (in order of usage)

Dylan Horrocks, Siso. Hinemoana Baker, Self-portrait at fifteen. Bernadette Hall, Sastrugi. Helen Heath, On getting away. Lynn Jenner, She used to ask me, what is it like up there? Renee Liang, Crossed Cultures. Ian Wedde, Shadow Stands Up. Airini Beautrais East of the river. Helen Lehndorf, Tincture. Emma Barnes, Don’t Lean Away. Sarah Laing, The novel beast. Russell Brown, Debrief. Cheryl Bernstein, "This is about earthquakes". Pip Adam, The Anzac Centenary Bridge. Paul Reynolds, Weekend wandering. Emily Perkins, 'Dream'.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand License.

Short film screening August 16 Vancouver Visionaries

2011-08-12T15:28:00.000-07:00

August 16 Meg Torwl's mockumentary ‘where have all the lesbians gone’ is part of a ‘Vancouver Visionaries’ retrospective with Out On Screen. Tinseltown 9.30pm. August 16 2011.

Wheelchair accessible.

$8, $11, with $5 membership.

Enjoy the Out On Screen Queer Film and Video Festival!

http://www.videoout.ca/catalog/where-have-all-lesbians-gone

PORTAL/PORTAGE OPENING AUGUST 3 2011

2011-08-08T00:23:00.000-07:00

The Installation and Opening of the new media exhibition PORTAL/PORTAGE went off without a hitch! Exhausting but work it! Thanks to a lot of help from A, S and P. I have to admit, given in the past year I have fractured my spine, arm, shoulder, ribs, pelvis and had to take preventive measures to avoid fractures to my neck, thigh and hip, I was kind of worried I was going to fracture something installing the show! But I got away with only a carpet burn on my foot while duct taping down all those wires.

There was a good turn out to the Opening with friends and strangers coming from near and far. What with the great equipment provided by photographer Paul Clancy, a warm welcome from Sunshine Coast Arts Council Chairman musician Steve Wright, and artist Anna Banana serving wine, and the many volunteers helping out what could make for a better evening? People really interacted with the exhibition!

Highlights of the trip to the coast were rattling down the steep road to Roberts Creek in the electric wheelchair in the dark at 10pm having been dropped off by the bus, after the opening with my friends in a car in front of me guiding me slowly down the hill. Having gelato with S at Davis bay on a hot coast evening. Swimming with D, H, T, and A at Roberts creek beach. Meeting a woman on the bus who was visiting the coast and raving about a great art exhibition she had been to, turned out it was mine! Choice!

Check out the photos of the Opening and the Installation on Integrial Media Facebook.

You can check out the exhibition in Sechelt until August 28 2011.

Below is a video (thanks Carol!) of me reading my poem called 'bear', a dedication to the earth, at the Opening.

Featured on The Writers Studio Blog

2011-08-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

My tips on reading your writing is featured on The Writers Studio Blog, for that and more tips each week by the local writers community. check it out.

August 3 to 28 PORTAL/PORTAGE in Sechelt

2011-07-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

PORTAL/PORTAGE meditative nature installations in Sechelt, Sunshine Coast BC, new work by Meg Torwl, Claudia Medina-Culos, Liliana Kleiner, Diane Tanchak

August 3 - 28, 2011, with the Sunshine Coast Arts Council,

Doris Crowston Gallery, 5714 Medusa St, Sechelt, BC, Canada.

Reception August 3 2011, 7pm to 9pm.

Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11:00 am - 4:00 pm

Sunday 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Wheelchair accessible.

PORTAL/PORTAGE is a collaboration between four artists who are each currently exploring in our work, humans as part of nature. PORTAL/PORTAGE combines Meg Torwl’s work in photo based video installations; Claudia Medina-Culos video installations and sound-scapes; Liliana Kleiner video work drawing on her photography, painting, and mixed media work; and Diane Tanchak abstract-realist style paintings. Each artist explores the nuance of location and the universality of story, cycles of growth and decay while negotiating our bi-national, or tri-national cultural identities and/or art practices, in places we each understand as home. These are the stories we collect, create, and carry from LAN (Local Area Network – an internet term) to LAND, to LANGUAGE; or images as a language bypassing spoken language all together. The exhibition is designed to be experienced as a rest, an emptying of the mind, a walk in the woods, a swim in the ocean.

Each artist has based part of their work on the Sunshine Coast or Gulf Islands of BC. Meg Torwl’s works Going Coastal (7mins, 2010), TIARIKA (11 mins, 2008), and AQWAI (14 mins, 2006) cover Roberts Creek to Rarotonga. Alongside work by Liliana Kleiner, her LUMINOZA INANNA (5 mins, 2010) draws from Galiano Island to the Gulf of Mexico. Claudia Medina-Culos’ Powell River based work, On the Trail (33 mins, 2010) and Heron Study (3 mins, 2010) was completed as part of a Masters in Media from Barcelona. Diane Tanchak's paintings A Dream of Trees (3mins, 2011) range from the Okeover Inlet to New York.

Audiences can negotiate the exhibition by way of 4 TV/DVD stations, each screening a different artists work, and listen to the soundtrack music or audio through headphones. Alternately the complete 90 minutes of work is projected into the gallery with audio coming through gallery speakers.

For more information about PORTAL/PORTAGE, artist bios, photos and videos.

Great article about PORTAL/PORTAGE in the Sunshine Coast Reporter by arts reporter Jan DeGrass.

PS: Read about the Opening or check out photos of the exhibition opening.

For Technical Support thanks to VIVO Media Arts Centre, Paul Clancy, EnMedia Productions.

Reading at SFU Writing and Publishing Graduation 2011

2011-06-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

I am humbled to have been chosen by my peers to to read at the SFU Writing and Publishing Graduation 2011. I will be representing The Writers Studio from the Poetry and Lyric Prose mentor group. Trish Webb from Fiction, and Karen Lee from Creative Non-Fiction will also be reading.

There will be a presentation by Dr. Helen Wussow, Dean, Lifelong Learning Unit, SFU

Certificates will be awarded in Business Communication and Professional Writing; Editing; Publishing; Public Relations; Creative Writing; Technical Communications.

Wednesday July 6 7pm SFU Harbour Centre.

June 22 Reading New Work at the Roundhouse

2011-06-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks! I will be reading new poems at the Roundhouse Tuesday June 21 2011 7pm to 9pm with The Writers Caravan. See you there! This is a free event. Fellow The Writers Studio readers will be Yaana Dancer, Dhana Musil, and Rua Mercier. More details below. Spread the word ( :

'Thursdays Writing Collective is hosting an evening celebration and reading for the culmination of its pilot project: The Writers Caravan. The project was designed to foster creative contact between city writing groups that might not otherwise intersect, by writing together on common themes and reading together in local venues. Members of three Vancouver writing communities participated: UBC Law students, The Writer’s Studio 2011, and Write Club! Literary Mamas. The connections were electric! You are invited to join us from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM on Tuesday June 21 at the Roundhouse, 81 Roundhouse Mews (Davie and Pacific). Find The Writers Caravan on facebook and online at: Thursdayspoems.wordpress.com'

check out photos from the event here

Reading with the Writers Caravan April 15

2011-04-13T16:37:00.000-07:00

I will be reading with the Writers Caravan, a collaboration between the Thursdays Collective and The Writers Studio.

Friday April 15 2011
Take 5 Cafe
7pm to 9.30pm
429 Granville St (at Hastings)
Vancouver
Wheelchair access is at the back on Hastings St (604 697 9090)

Co hosted by Elee Kraljii Gardiner of Thursdays Collective and Fiona Scott of The Writers Studio Reading Series. Featuring writers from the lively Carnegie Centre based Thursdays Collective, and The Writers Studio. Including my compatriot Rua Mercier, and my fellow Poetry and Lyric Prose students Dhana Musil and Yaana Dancer.

I will read a prose poem '8 Doors to Happiness' loosely based on a Buddhist poem '8 Steps to happiness'. In my disability friendly version, a journey via transit reveals the interconnectedness of all beings.

The Writers Caravan will feature more collaborative readings and a publication later in the year.

Canadian Women Studies Journal: Women and Cancer

2011-04-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

I have a piece published in the Spring/Summer 2010 Volume of Canadian Women Studies Journal: Women and Cancer; Volume 28, Numbers 2,3. Apart from my poetry chapbook, (in) valid, this marks my first publication in an anthology in Canada. Yeehaa!

The Canadian Women Studies Journal: takes a critical look at women and cancer with scholarly and creative contributions on: Challenging Existing Paradigms; Intersectionalities and the Biopolitics of Cancer Care; Cultural Politics of Cancer; Witnessing: Personal Narratives of Illness, Agency and Care; Poetry; Book Reviews.

My piece Cancer Comedy: Would You Like Hormones With That? is in the Witnessing: Personal Narratives of Illness, Agency and Care section. I ponder amongst other things the relative media hype of illnesses like cancer as opposed to other less 'glamorous' disabilities we might have.

With contributions from over 50 women the whole anthology looks like quite the interesting read.

The Writers Studio at SFU

2011-01-16T02:16:00.000-08:00

I am in week 2 of The Writers Studio at Simon Fraser University. I am very excited to have been accepted in to this much sought after course. I will be working in the Poetry and Lyric Prose stream, on a manuscript of 60 poems - The Synesthete and the Kinesthete over the next year with mentor Jen Currin. It is great to be able to focus on writing again and be amongst other writers! Yay! Go team!

Sinister Wisdom Volume 81

2010-12-13T20:43:00.000-08:00

I have three poems published in Sinister Wisdom Volume 81: Blue; Je t'adore; and Mountain. We had to pair our poetry with a 'poet of yore' and I chose Elsa Gidlow's work: Of Forbidden Love (1960), Love's Acolyte (1919) and To the unknown Goddess (1918). From her lovely book SAPPHIC SONGS Seventeen to Seventy. (Thanks to C, for introducing me to her work many years ago). Elsa Gidlow's work was reprinted with the generous permission of her literary executor Marcelina Martin. Sinister Wisdom Volume 81 features some 40 contemporary and 'poets of yore' including luminaries such as Audre Lorde, Gertrude Stein, Pat Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Muriel Rukeyser. A lovely read over the holidays.

Cover of Sinister Wisdom Vol 81

Here is Je t'adore; and a brief bio for Elsa Gidlow:

Je t'adore Meg Torwl

I have seen
your lips on my breast
like a worshipper
at a temple
I have felt
your tongues libations
I have known
your head fall down
with overwhelming passion
as my body rises
to meet you.

ELSA GIDLOW. 1898 – 1986
To quote Phyllis Matyi, Elsa Gidlow’s friend in a 1986 Press Release: ‘Born in Yorkshire, England in 1898, six-year-old Elsa Gidlow immigrated with her family of nine to the French Canadian village of Tetreauville. She was mainly self-educated, being allowed what she called, "the untutored space to be”. Gidlow left Montreal for New York in 1920, where she became poetry editor for Frank Harris' progressive, much censored Pearson's Magazine. Poet-philosopher Elsa Gidlow died peacefully in her mountain home retreat, "Druid Heights," near Muir Woods, Mill Valley, California on June 8, 1986’.
Many of the poems she wrote before 1923 were published that year in her book, On a Grey Thread, Will Ransom. Her other work includes: Sapphic Songs : Seventeen to Seventy, 1976, Diana Press; Makings for Meditation : A Collection of Parapoems Reverent and Irreverent, 1973, Booklegger Press; and Elsa I Come With My Songs the Autobiography of Elsa Gidlow,1985, Booklegger Press. Her work appeared in many journals and anthologies. She had many lovers, as is evident in her poetry. Including when she was a young woman with the older Tommy, - Violet Henry-Anderson, whom she met in New York in 1945, and lived with for thirteen years until Tommy’s death. In her seventies Elsa lived with Gretchen Muller who was then in her twenties. ( Sinister Wisdom Vol 81)

PrideNZ - Photography Profile

2010-11-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

Pride NZ is featuring a profile of me in their Visual Arts section, with a portfolio of my photography! Yay!

photo of yellow frangipani flower by Meg Torwl

It is a great website with many audio programs on just about every topic you can imagine - Arts and Culture, Community Profiles, Education, Health and Wellbeing, History, Identity, Media, Organisations, Relationships, Sport and Recreation, and Youth. PrideNZ aims to present positive stories and images by and about LGBTQI community. There is lots of current stuff online, as well as history and herstory, they provide transcripts of their audio files. A recent feature is Rainbow Touchstones, 6 people from LGBTQI community talk about their mental health journey's in 5 minute videos. Gareth Watkins, Hannah Ho and Roger Smith do a great job supporting and hosting the website, creating content.

EarSighted Live Audio Description - a first in Canada!

2010-11-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

It was the dream of Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture Artistic Director Geoff McMurchy, and Executive Director Rina Fraticelli to introduce Audio Description to theatres in Vancouver, and Canada. Which has resulted in EarSighted Live Audio Description first full season - 15 shows October 2010 - June 2011 with 6 greater Vancouver theatres.

What is Audio Description?

'Audio description brings the sets, lighting, costumes, and action of a theatre performance alive for blind and visually impaired audience members. Kickstart has trained a team of professionals who provide key action and other visual information, between the actor’s lines, through a wireless transmitter to a single earpiece worn by the recipient. Description begins 15 minutes prior to curtain, with an introduction to the overall production and design concept, and other programme notes'. Audio Describers preview the show 2-3 times and write succinct yet descriptive notes.

How it all began

Audio Description for live events has been available in the USA for 3 decades, and began in Washington DC, and San Francisco, CA. You can read a brief history at the Audio Description Coalition website. It was one of the co-founders of the coalition, Deborah Lewis who would become the trainer for EarSighted. The Audio Description Coalition provides, training and professional development, guiding principles and codes of conduct throughout the USA, and now also Canada.

In 2009 I was employed by Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture to coordinate audio description and quite a journey it has been for all of us! In the spring of 2009 we put out a call for auditions, and received over 40 applications, from this talented pool we auditioned 15 people, and chose 8 for the training. Auditions were recorded to assess for natural aptitude and feedback was taken not only from those of us conducting the interviews, but also from trainer Deborah Lewis, and a representative from locally based Access for Sight Impaired Consumer, Tamara Tedesco. Tamara and other people who are blind or sight impaired provided feedback to the audio describers throughout our training sessions also.

From the training a dedicated core of 4 Audio Describers has emerged, Khaira Ledeyo, Rick Waines, Teri Snelgrove, and Stephane Kirkland, who are all experienced in delivering live audio description in a variety of settings. At the time of the first training in Vancouver in late spring 2009, while Deborah Lewis was in the city, Kickstart took the opportunity to invite theatres to a meeting to learn more about audio description- from which may developments progressed.

The First Audio Described show in Vancouver

Kickstart's first show was a partnership with the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in the fall of 2009, with a performance of the early life of blind and Deaf person Helen Keller, as told in The Miracle Worker. Feedback from the audience was very positive:

‘I attended the Vancouver Playhouse's performance of The Miracle Worker. I was extremely impressed with the live AD. Not only was the service beneficial for me as a blind patron, but it was also beneficial for my sighted companion. Without the AD, my companion would be trying to provide the description. This is distracting to him, since he is not able to fully focus on and enjoy the play himself, but it can also be annoying to other patrons sitting nearby. In addition, my companion would never be able to provide as much detail about the set design, costumes, and physical attributes of the actors. Most importantly, the AD allows me the independence and choice to attend a live theatre production without having to rely on a sighted companion. I would be interested in attending more live theatre presentations that were accompanied by AD, and to pass on information to my sight impaired friends and acquaintances’ Linda Weber - BC CNIB Board Co-Chair.


Audio describer Teri Snelgrove with her script, in the technical booth, with a view of the stage at the Vancouver Playhouse. Photo courtesy of Meg Torwl, and EarSighted.

Equipment

Audio Description is able to use the same technology provided for hearing enhanced performances which many modern theatres already have. After some research Kickstart settled on purchasing a portable FM wireless transmitter and 20 headset and receiver system to give EarSighted the flexibility of being able to audio describe in any setting, indoors or outdoors, and with the option of adding more headsets. With funding from the City of Vancouver, and Canadian Heritage, EarSighted was under way.

Cultural Olympiad

The Cultural Olympiad of the Olympic and Paralympic games in Vancouver in the winter 2010 provided opportunities for partnerships and showcasing EarSighted Live Audio Description, with the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at SFU Woodwards, and HIVE3. Three intriguing shows provided their own unique challenges. At the Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, Robert LePage's The Blue Dragon/ Le Dragon Bleu and SPINE by Kevin Kerr, James Sanders, and Bob Frazer were both very visual shows, making use of frequent projections, so there was a lot to describe, and much crucial to the show that would have be missed by visually impaired audience members if not for the audio description. The Madama Butterfly-like story of The Blue Dragon set in China included scenes such as a projection of a giant hand tattooing on to the back of main character Pierre Lamontagne; the sights seen from a bicycle tour, trains; inside a revolving bar lounge; an art gallery show; and paintings of Vincent van Gogh appearing one after the other on blank canvases stacked against a warehouse wall. With SPINE, there are 12 characters, and at least half of them play their alter egos or avatar in a online video game.

While with HIVE3, where 12 theatres perform short scenes throughout the night, EarSighted audio described 4 shows the audio describers had prepared, including one with Touchstone Theatre which involved sitting in pairs listening to music while the actors told stories with pieces of cooking dough on chopping boards on the audiences knees. So enthused were the team and audience we tried a couple of off the cuff shows unprepared, one of which involved been towed around the car park in a bicycle drawn 4 person cart, with actors running beside, and some of the action happening via puppets seen through a periscope in the roof. Now that was a lot of fun for all! Funding to provide audio description for these shows was generously provided by 2010 Legacies Now. You can hear a great CBC interview recorded by Jen Moss, with myself as coordinator, audio describers Rick and Khaira, and audience members, during a performance of SPINE. The interview which was broadcast August 22 on North by North West starts about 30 minutes in to the 60 minute audio file.

Audio Description for Exhibitions

Also during the Cultural Olympiad, Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture partnered with the University of British Columbia and Ryersen University to bring the groundbreaking exhibition Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember, to the heart of the action, UBC Robson Square. right next to the free Zipline across the square. Audio describer Teri Snelgrove, and 2 local actors worked with the exhibition to provide pre-recorded full audio descriptive, and plain language audio tours of the exhibit. American Sign Language, Touch Displays, and print, large print, and braille formats were also available. All formats are available online with the exhibit under Access, and offer a gold standard in exhibition accessibility. EarSighted plans to develop live and/or pre-recorded audio description tours with major local art galleries.

Training

Kickstart provided advanced training and certification for the 4 EarSighted audio describers with Deborah Lewis in the spring of 2010, and again met with theatres. In the fall 2010 we partnered with Access for Sight Impaired Consumers to provided training to theatres on how to appropriately accommodate visually impaired audiences in a theatre setting, the training by Rob Sleath was very well received. ASIC provide on their website homepage a whole range of useful resources including 'Proper Etiquette when you meet a person who is blind or sight impaired,' and 'Proper Etiquette when you meet a guide dog team'. Also providing a consideration of other factors, such as economic - ticket pricing is as much a disability access issue as any other due to the high rate in unemployment and under-employment of people with disabilities. EarSighted has built relationships with ASIC, CNIB and other organizations serving people who are blind and visually impaired and continues outreach in these communities.

EarSighted Live Audio Description Logo

EarSighted Season

In October 2010 EarSighted launched a full season of 15 shows with theatres in the greater Vancouver area. The three theatres who are all offering several shows launched their first shows in October, the Stanley Theatre and Vancouver Playhouse Theatre in Vancouver, and the Gateway Theatre in Richmond. In November the three theatres who are offering single shows will be launching at the Firehall Arts Centre in Vancouver with Touchstone Theatre and Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver. EarSighted has also partnered with the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance, offering a workshop on audio description at their fall 2009 Making a Scene conference, and currently in introducing audio description to theatre going audiences through a page on their online theatre guide. I have stepped down from the coordinating role after 2 years and a successful launch to pursue my own writing and artwork. Afuwa Granger has taken on the role of coordinator with EarSighted.

Kickstart Disbility Arts and Culture has been guiding a sister organization in Toronto, Picasso Pro through the process of introducing live audio description which they hope will be launched in 2011. It is our dream that eventually audio description will be offered in all theatres across Canada.


Trainer Deborah Lewis, members of the EarSighted Team, audience members, and staff at the Vancouver Playhouse. Photo courtesy of Teri Snelgrove, the Vancouver Playhouse, and EarSighted

IQC - IDENTITY QUOTIENTS CALCULATOR in Magdalena Aotearoa October Vol 36

2010-10-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

The second part of a two part series I wrote about working in performance and video, published on pages 15 -16 Magdalena Aotearoa Newsletter, Issue 36 October 2010. Puts my own artistic practice in the context of the development of women working in film, and disability arts practice both in Aotearoa and Canada. Particularly the mentoring role pf women who came through Canada's Studio D, feminist film studio; and my inventing the IQC - Identity Quotients Calculator - a tool for the multiply marginalized! Download the Magdalena Newsletter 36 PDF here.

Here's a sneak preview: 'Frustrated at times by a lack of understanding of my work, even within/between the various marginalized communities I belong to, I analyzed my work to discover in what context different disciplines have been presented 1999-2009. This resulted in the invention of my Identity Quotients Calculator – IQC ©. If mainstream society of the dominant culture defines ‘normal’ as male, European, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied, the further you are away from that, the least likely your work will be presented, commissioned, funded, reviewed in a mainstream context. This I call the Standard Deviation – how far you are away from ‘the norm’.

The more I am physically present in my work, such as performance I am defined as 60% queer; or radio, audio on the web 100% disabled. In film I am 1/3 female, queer, and disabled/human rights activist. When I work in new media I am 50% disabled, 25% human rights activist, and 25% mainstream - but neither queer nor a woman. When my poetry is published, and I’m not present I am 40% mainstream, and 20% each female, disabled, queer. Go on get out the calculator, work out your own IQC!'

The Magdalena Aotearoa Newsletter is a great read, this issue includes work from around the globe: Kahuku Empress Stiltdance month long residency and performance at the Cairns Arts Festival in Australia; Challen Wilson's residency at the Alaskan Indigenous Synergetic Collaboration: Winter with Cathy Rexford in USA; Madeline McNamara and Jack Trolove on critical race theory in theatre as white artists in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand; Andrea Arial attends and perform Alfonisna with Auckland LAB Theatre Company at the 2 weeks Magdalena project event Vertice Brasil; Sandra Dempster and Sandra Sarala attend a Teatr ZAR workshop to learn the 2000 year old polyphonic Georgion songs in Brzezinka, Poland.

Magdalena Aotearoa cofounder Madeline McNamara wonders in her review of 2 day long sessions to reflect on 10 years since the Magdalena International Festival 1999, and in looking to the furture: 'If a local Magdalena event can actually exist if there is not an international or cross cultural exchange of some kind?'

PORTAL / PORTAGE media exhibition

2010-10-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

PORTAL/PORTAGE a collaboration I am curating between four artists who are known to one another, and who are each currently exploring in our work, humans as part of nature. PORTAL/PORTAGE combines my own work in photo based video installations; Claudia Medina-Culos video installations and sound-scapes; Liliana Kleiner video work drawing on her photography, painting, and mixed media work; and Diane Tanchak abstract-realist style paintings. Each artist explores the nuance of location and the universality of story, while negotiating our bi-national, or tri-national cultural identities and/or art practices, in places we each understand as home. These are the stories we collect, create, and carry from LAN (Local Area Network – an internet term) to LAND, to LANGUAGE; or images as a language bypassing spoken language all together.

I are currently submitting the work to places we call home West Coast – Canada, New York - USA, Jerusalem -Israel/Palestine, Mexico, Aotearoa/New Zealand. This will also mean some or all of the artists will be available in each location for installation and to be present for the exhibition. This provides the option of adding components in each location, to make it a unique local experience, for example inviting local artists we know to exhibit also. In the essence of creating an eco-friendly exhibition, a primarily digital based work makes for ease of shipping and installation around the globe.

UPDATE: Our first confirmed show is for August 3 - 28, 2011, with the Sunshine Coast Arts Council, Doris Crowston Gallery, 5714 Medusa St, Sechelt, BC, Canada. Reception August 3 2011, 7pm to 9pm. Wheelchair accessible.

ART WORKS

Claudia Medina-Culos

On the Trail: Nature Inside and Out and Heron Study

A multimedia exploration of how humans connect or disconnect with the natural world through the imagery we see and create. With the participation of the local community of Powell River, BC, Canada this installation aims to create a focused space for reflection on how our senses interact with the natural world.

Liliana Kleiner

LUMINOZA INANNA is the first in a series of 8 videos, a collaboration of IMAGE and MUSIC, based on the ancient Sumerian myth of the Goddess Inanna. Luminosa Inanna is the first in the series: "The 8 Doors of Inanna" an ongoing public art piece collaboration between Liliana and Gabriela, at La Duna Ecology Center, Southern Baja California peninsula, La Paz, Mexico

Diane Tanchak

A Dream of Trees is a series of paintings in a hybrid abstract-realist style. Contrasting the darkness – night and winter in urban New York, and the light of Pacific West coast – arbutus, cedar trees, - cycle of life and rebirth each promise.

Meg Torwl

TIARIKA; AQWAI; GOING COASTAL

Matching ambient music - featuring the sounds of water, chimes; with mind relaxing visuals – colors, water, fish, flowers; Meg Torwl's computer installations traverse the south pacific and Pacific North west shorelines and waterways.

ARTISTS

CLAUDIA MEDINA-CULOS

Claudia Medina-Culos, of Mexican, and Italian ancestry, grew up in the small mill town of Powell River BC, Canada. Eleven years ago Claudia Medina began her career as a filmmaker working with acclaimed Canadian director Nettie Wild on her feature documentary "A Place Called Chiapas" Since then she has worked alongside a number of respected Canadian filmmakers as an editor, production coordinator, field producer and shooter. Most recently she worked alongside director Velcrow Ripper as he was shooting his latest award winning feature documentary, "Fierce Light", filmed in several countries, including Aotearoa/New Zealand. Claudia has been the recipient of numerous awards from the Canada Council of the Arts for her short dramatic films she has written, produced and directed – such as, Entre el Medio, Si Muero Lejos de Ti, and Finding Lloronna. For the past two years she has also been collaborating with artists of different disciplines to create visual projections for performances, and live vj-ing for electronic musicians throughout Canada and in Barcelona. She also develops and implements curriculum for workshops that combine community development and conflict resolution through filmmaking to diverse groups nationally and internationally. Claudia is currently living in Barcelona, where she is completing a masters in Visual Culture as well as developing a feature documentary project about alternative economics called Growing Growing Gone. She has completed the production of her latest fiction film, "Animal Blessings" in the Friuli region of Italy and a video installation series On the Trail: Nature Inside and Out.

http://www.enmedia.ca/

LILIANA KLEINER

Liliana Kleiner, of Jewish ancestry, was born and raised in Buenos Aires Argentina, completed her schooling in Israel - a B.A in Fine Art and PhD in psychology, specializing in Dream Analysis. She has been based in Canada - Montreal and the Pacific coast, for the past 30 years, on Galiano Island for the past 10 years. In Argentina she learnt the art of painting in oils in the tradition of the old European masters. She works with painting, drawing, printmaking, hand made paper from organic materials, collage, artist's books, public art, film, performance art, and dance. Works include independent short art films - "Lilith and the Tree " 1993, (16mm, - shown in festivals around the world) and "Las 8 puertas de Inanna " ( "the 8 Doors of Inanna") or Luminosa Inanna, a collaboration with musicians in La Paz, mexico. Based on the Sumerian myth of Inanna. Recent works and exhibitions include The song of Lilith, and Song of Songs. Her work seamlessly combines, photography, painting, mixed media, and video. Since 1995 she has channeled all her creativity into visual arts coming back full circle to her first love - the art of oil painting, with a focus on west coast nature – arbutus trees, rocks, seals, birds, and traditional Mexican mythology. Liliana's paintings have been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout Canada and are in private collections in Canada, Israel, Argentina and the United States.

http://www.lilianakleiner.com/begin.html

DIANE TANCHAK

Diane Tanchak of Ukranian ancestry, grew up in Buffalo, NY. Her interest in drawing and painting began in early childhood. She moved to New York City to study with artist Nell Blaine, receiving a scholarship to Southern Illinois University where she completed an MFA in drawing. She has worked as a muralist, graphic artist, illustrator, and pursued her own vision in drawing and painting urban and rural landscapes in a hybrid abstract-realist style. She has had many exhibitions in New York in group and solos shows. She is currently drawn in her work to the darkness – night and winter in urban New York, and the light of Pacific West coast – arbutus, cedar trees, - cycle of life and rebirth each promise.

http://www.dianetanchak.com/home.html

MEG TORWL

Meg Torwl, of Celtic ancestry, grew up rurally in Aoteroa/New Zealand, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the south pacific and has been residing in the Pacific Northwest for the past decade - creating work in and from both locales. Meg Torwl is an interdisciplinary artist, working in New Media, Video, Radio,Writing/Performance, and Arts Administration. Her work has been screened, broadcast, exhibited,published, and performed in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, USA, UK. She has produced 4 new media projects; and 4 documentaries, which are distributed by Video Out. She has worked in radio, producing and presenting 50 half hour programs for Radio New Zealand National, including 16 with an arts focus. She was commissioned by Balancing Acts 09 to create and perform a solo interdisciplinary show with spoken word, poetry, new media, video, slides, and audio soundscape. Her writing and performance examine identity across communities; her documentaries consider intersecting political issues; her new media installations offer an opportunity to empty the mind. She received her training in media through VIVO media arts centre in 2000, and a BC Film associate producers internship 2002. She has also worked for the NFB and CBC. She has been a curator of visual and video art, in all her work she specializes in bringing diverse communities together.

http://integrialmedia.blogspot.com/p/meg-torwl-new-media.html

Te rain

2010-08-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

people ask you

- they always will

how come you

live here

you say:

I am at home

- and you mean it

you say:

what, besides the fact

where I am from

is a tiny island

(actually several)

in the middle of the ocean

they think

about this

and smile

they say:

don’t you miss it?

it’s your turn

to smile

nope

nice place to visit

wouldn’t want

to live there

you believe

and tell people it’s so

you got it all

outa ya system

missing it

by going back

to work there

for a year or two

you been back here

two years

haven’t missed it

don’t think

you ever will, again

and then

it hits you

one hot summer night

just before it rains

you find your mind

driving down

the Bombay hills motorway

in the dark

past the flower store

on your right

the manuka trees, swamp

turn off to Thames

on your left

or coming the other way

through Ngaruawahia

late at night

past the fish’n’chip shop

the pub

railway line
Turangawaewae marae

army camp

urupa on the hill

the dead looking over

the smooth, wide

Waikato river

Or it's a sunny day

and you’re hitch hiking

somewhere out back

near Te Aroha

on a country road

going past

the milk treatment plant

whatever you remember

you are always

in motion

drifting

always in

the inbetween places

moving on

that’s partly why, too

people ask you:

how long you’ve been here

you say:

ten years

except really

with all the coming

and going

if you add it all up

you spent three

of those ten years

there

used to be

when you could afford it

come november

and the grey west coast rain forest

by december

you were desperate

from the gloom

in the dead of winter

you’d book your ticket

back

to the sunny south pacific

by the end

of january

you’d be there

not missing it

at all

people ask you:

why you’re here, now

and you wonder

about the answer

because you feel safe here

how you felt at home

the first time you visited

a journey of love

the doors of art

which opened to you

or the spirit bears

who called

you painted

before you ever

came here

the bears who

came to you

right after

you got here

or the years

your spirit spent

hovering over this coast

yearning

because

you

just

knew

the

smell

rain.

Ngaruawahia photo by rytc on flkr (creative commons)

July 31 2010 the POWER of the SUIT

2010-07-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

Radclyffe Hall

If you have been wondering what I might have in common with writers Radclyffe Hall and Anne Frank, actors Marlene Dietrich and Julie Andrews, painter Frida Khalo, and musicians Patti Smith, Grace Jones, Annie Lennox, the Topp Twins, or k.d.lang - you can find out Saturday July 31 at 7.30pm at the Roundhouse, as part of the Queer Arts Festival (July 27 - August 4). I can tell you now it is not my musical ability!

I will be the opening act performing the story The POWER of the SUIT before KONCERT KONTINUUM presents an evening of music Crazy For Cole N Co. Come join my meandering personal and historical journey through the wonderful world of androgyny and suit wearing women! Here's a little taste: 'Whatever it was people saw in me as a child, which did not fit their idea of gender, my sister named it by the time I was 6 – Brian…. People are plagued by the question: what are you? Not who, what….When I wear the suit, I am contained, protected, distinct, a one trick pony, a complete package, entirely suit-able, covered from head to toe. No longer vague, indeterminate, in between. There is no question in peoples minds’, they are absolutely sure, I am whatever it is they see, they desire'

Followed by: 'KONCERT KONTINUUM presents a fabulous tribute to celebrated queer composer Cole Porter and his contemporaries, with a showcase of witty vocal repartee, smooth stylings of the saxophone and playful piano patter.

Transport back to the 1920s through to the 1940s, with Porter's sophisticated, brilliant and daring lyrics, his singable catchy tunes, and provocative social commentary of the times. The program is supported by two of his most famous songwriting peers, Hoagy Carmichael and Irving Berlin - both innovators of what are now jazz standards and whose songs are still "in rotation" today. Koncert Kontinuum will deliver their special mix of audience favorite sing-along’s, gorgeous ballads, comic pieces, and of course a few songs with the unexpected KK twist.'

There will be different performances each night, I recommend you check out Jan Derbyshire in Turkey In The Woods Monday | 09 August | 7:30pm. Jan was the one who encouraged me to write The POWER of the SUIT, last year while she was directing me in my show That's so gay! She is awfully smart and funny, and an electrifying performer!

Here's what Jan is dishing up for dinner this year: 'Hale's lover, Peaches wants to tie the knot. Hale wants to throw in the rope. On the advice of her questionable therapist Hale, hoping to solve some of her commitment 'issues, decides to go home to her family for Thanksgiving Dinner for the first time in ten years. Hale's mother decides not to have the dinner around the dining room table but outside in the woods, just like the pilgrims. The tract of land she choses for the festivities is surrounded by a rifle range. A burnt comedy for those with a certain type of humor. A drama for others. Lesbian friendly.'

An art exhibition will be up Tuesday 27 July to Saturday 14 August. Gallery Hours: Weekdays 10am - 10pm | Weekends 10am - 430pm. Apparently us literary types who will be performing before many of the shows, will also have an excerpt of our writing on display for the duration of the festival. So you will be able to check out a poem version of the story The POWER of the SUIT, which appears in my poetry chapbook (in) valid.

Blue Boots - Poetry on Sins Invalid Blog

2010-06-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

My poem Blue Boots - about disability, gender, sexuality, family, from my poetry chapbook (in) valid is featured in the June 2010 blog of Sins Invalid. In text and audio. I wrote about Sins Invalid in May. The recording is from a QUIRK-E event in June 2009. Where I read some poems for the first time in many years in Canada, got my performing mojo back - thanks QUIRK-E!

I write about why I lost my mojo for performing in Canada (it's an accent, humour, colloquial thang) in the Magdalena Aotearoa Newsletter in part 1 of a 2 part series of articles. Part 2 coming soon, how I got my mojo back!

You can check out photos I took at this years lively QUIRK-E anthology launch on my Integrial Media Facebook Page. There was reading, acting, singing, movies, book signing and general festivity - dancing even broke out at the reception!

Media Representation of People with Disabilities

2010-05-30T09:55:00.000-07:00

HeartBeats - Teaching Poetry

2010-05-20T05:01:00.000-07:00

Hey guess what!? I am going to be teaching a poetry class with 'Write From The Heart writers program, a project of the Consumer Initiative Funds, Vancouver Coastal Health/Community Mental Health Services'. Very fun! I have been known to make people who 'don't even like poetry' - like poetry, and people who have stopped writing poetry be inspired to start again! I love poetry, its so free form! It's just words piled on top of each other!

Plus it's always good to get to say the words Kinetic, Magnetic, Tagnetic out loud, in a row. Don't worry I will say many more, less obtuse words a well, I promise! While we consider different types of poetry from many wonderful Canadian poets, and try some new things.

The course is facilitated by Susan J. Katz, who recently won a Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Prize for her poem The Bowpicker.

HeartBeats is the website for the 'Write From The Heart' writers program. Which includes a great clearing house of information on local and international opportunities and links for writing. Now in it's third year, 6-8 people meet once a week for 8 weeks and learn, share, practice, and create - writing.

Sins Invalid

2010-05-20T03:24:00.000-07:00

The poem in-valid, title poem of my poetry chapbook (in) valid, is featured on the Sins Invalid Blog, in text and audio. Sweet.

Based in California 'Sins Invalid is a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. Our performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body. Conceived and led by disabled people of color, we develop and present cutting-edge work where normative paradigms of "normal" and "sexy" are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all individuals and communities'

Sins Invalid has produced an annual performance since 2006, as well as workshops, and have a lot of interesting videos from shows on the Sins Invalid website. Including by compatriot and dancer Rodney Bell, and I especially like Maria R. Palacios graceful writing and performance.

You can also find Sins Invalid on Facebook. Music that accompanies the RNZ audio recording of in-valid poem is by prolific NZ composer Eric Biddington, whose music I sometimes featured on One in Five. His music accompanies the work of other poets. He named his cat after me. ( : All photos by Sins Invalid.

Yes we CanDance!

2010-04-24T08:04:00.000-07:00

I was kvetching in November 2009, on the NZ Disability Media Collective website, of which I am a member and commentator about the casting of a non-disabled actor to play the character of wheelchair using highschool student Artie Abrams, in the popular TV series Glee.

Let me be clear I mean no disrespect to the actor Kevin McHale, who is 22, this is a casting decision, made by the shows Directors and Producers. The whole inclusion of a character with a disability is a bit sad anyway, as Artie seldom stars in solo songs or dances and is rarely integrated in to the high school glee club's group song and dance routines story lines. Which is to say Artie is pretty much sidelined. This is perhaps to be expected in a program, like so much TV with one dimensional characters. There's Kurt who is Caucasian-American and gay, Tina who is Asian-American, Mercedes who is African-American, Sue who is the mean Caucasian-American lesbian sports coach, Artie who is disabled. Season 2 has returned with the same line-up of characters and actors.

No one is allowed to be oh I don't know even 2 dimensional, say disabled and gay, African-American and disabled, Asian-American and lesbian, Latin-American and have Downs Syndrome, Native-American and the smartest kid in school. Where so much is one times removed, you can be a gay couple, (Rachel's parents) or a sister with Downs Syndrome (cheerleading coach Sue's sister), if you are a relative of a main character. You can't be the main character.

What got us talking was this well researched article considering why actors with disabilities do not get roles in TV and film even for characters with disabilities. 'Glee' wheelchair episode hits bump with disabled by Lynn Elber.

Upon viewing the episode 'Wheels' where the whole glee club make a bad attempt at all performing a dance in wheelchairs I wrote on NZDMC:

'...But I wondered whimsically if like synchronized swimming, somewhere in the world there wasn't a paralympic synchronized dancing team that would do a much better job!? It is kind of an anomaly in 2009, that Asian, African-American, and possibly gay (?) actors get to play characters relevant to their identities, but characters with disabilities are still played by non-disabled actors. Apart from a few wonderful exceptions - Marlee Matlin, (who happens to be Deaf) Hollywood rarely allows disabled actors to portray characters with disabilities, or characters for whom disability is incidental to their character...'

Well search no further, here right in my own back yard as it were are the CanDance Team. I stumbled upon crowd favorites Jamie DeChamplain (in purple), and partners Sarah Lapp (in pink) and Matt Pregent (in blue) performing at an event this week. Sarah using an electric wheelchair, damn she has good control in the turn on a dime 360 spin! Jamie and Matt in manual wheelchairs, are hip-hop on wheels. The trio's synchronization, innovation, and sense of fun is awesome. My personal favorite move, when all three linked in a row do the 360 spin. Copyright the name of that move right now people! What I really like about this troupe, is all the dancers being wheelchair users. Sometimes with mixed ability groups there is a sense of inequality in the movements somehow, with an able-bodied dancer, dancing 'around' a dancer in a wheelchair, or 'guiding' them to make traditional ballet moves. The all wheelchair troupe make up their own moves so it is much more natural.

They are young, hip, and going places! Can they act and sing? Yep I expect some of them will. Below a clip of Sarah, Jamie and others of the CanDance Team performing that signature move in Robson Square, and ASL Singing along with the song lyrics. They told me during the performances for the opening ceremonies of the Paralympic Games 2010 there was only 1 wheelchair dancer, which they thought was kind of tokenistic and pathetic, on behalf of the organizers, directors and choreographers. You can contact CanDance through Wheeldance.ca/programs. Photos by Matthew Wild.

Magdalena Aotearoa

2010-04-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of a two part series I wrote about working in performance and video, pages 9 -10, Magdalena Aotearoa Newsletter, Issue 35 April 2010. Traverses my experience since the 1999 Magdalena Aotearoa International Performance Festival, including thinking about language, humour and accent. Download the PDF here.

Here's a sneak preview of the beginning: 'Kia ora koutou! I was very inspired by the December 2009 Magdalena Aotearoa Newsletter! Reflections on the diverse journeys many have taken in the 10 years since the magnificent 1999 Magdalena Aotearoa International Performance Festival. Like Miff Moore, Lisa Maule, Jale Karabekir; and the recent work by Madeline McNamara, Natalie Marcet, Jo Randerson, Jan Bolwel, Helen Moulder, Judith Jones. In Aotearoa, Denmark, Norway, Argentina, Turkey; prompted me to reflect on my own journey.

In 1999 I was involved in theatre, poetry, storytelling, including with Louise Maich who was preparing her show Drevna Viscera for the March 1999 Magdalena Festival. Drevna Viscera – ancient flesh, my many mother’s tongue, Louise’s tender exploration of her ancestry, history and connection to the former Yugoslavia. Together as Pandora’s Box we produced performances and an exhibition with women artists at the Silo Theatre and Kamo in Auckland May 1999.......'

I am very fond of the Pandora's Box logo, I drew it while sitting with a friend who was having chemo. The bag of medicine was down my trousers to keep it warm, as if it was too cold it made her have an epileptic seizure. We laugh about that day sometimes (she took photos!), it always seemed to sum up women working in performance! "And so while rehearsing my show, I drew the logo, at the hospital with a bag of chemo down my trousers......"

We LOVED the Pandora's Box Art Exhibition, I had the joy of being the curator of, we wanted to leave it up FOREVER! All the work was of such high standard, and diverse mediums, interesting to see where they and their work as artists has gone ten years on. There was stone sculpture by Patz McGahey, which seemed to be kaitiaki (guardians), paintings of older women's lips by Fran Marno, silkscreens by Justina Gruber, a goddess costume by Louise Maich, Raranga (weaving) by Tania Remana, painting/photo by Lisa Benson. Thanks to Jan Morrison we got to answer the question we have all been wondering - how many women does it take to hang a 200 hundred pound tile heart with a cartoon on it, on a brick will? FOUR! Plus me nervously biting my fist, I worried for the whole 2 weeks the exhibition was up it could fall from the wall and hurt some one! It didn't tho. Tracey Tawhiao performed poetry, and Lisa Costain music, with us at the Silo Theatre.

In part 2 to be published with Magdalena later in the year, I consider disability arts in Aotearoa and Canada, how NFB, Kickstart, and IGODAP ultimately lead me back to working in performance. With a commission from Michele Decottignies Director of the Balancing Acts Festival, and working with theatre director Jan Derbyshire.

Helpfully the fabulous 1999 Magdalena Festival has been archived online. Including lots of photos, the festival program, and insights from key organizers. You can read more about the herstory of the development of Magdalena Aotearoa on their website.

Or the establishment of the international 'The Magdalena Project is a dynamic cross-cultural network of women’s theatre and performance, facilitating critical discussion, support and training. The network was founded in 1986 and currently spans more than 50 countries, with autonomous national groups organising festivals, gatherings and events on a regular basis.'

With events coming up in 2010 in Australia, Brazil, and Italy; in 2011, Wales; 2012, India.
Their website is available in English, French, and Spanish.

I also reflected on my development as a filmmaker on the Development Facebook site, a film by Marian Evans, about a woman trying to make a film...

So like we say in the L&P (Lemon and Paeroa) soft drink ads - World Famous - in New Zealand!

If you want to brush up on your New Ziln accent after reading the above, I recommend the below clip:

Close Encounters

2010-04-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

In honour of Pink Shirt Day to stop bullying, and Poetry Month, here's a poem which opens my Interdisciplinary Show and Poetry Chapbook (In) valid. The show uses a 'patch' I designed with the programs MaxMSP/Jitter to turn music into colors.

Close encounters

do you remember
that film
from 1977
close encounters
of the third kind
came out when I was 10

where people communicated
with beings from
another planet
with musical notes
and colored lights

it always made me cry
always made me wonder
when my people
were coming
to get me

the truth is
they don’t come in spaceships
they come in ones
or twos

they don’t necessarily
look like you
but you can tell them
just the same
you'll know
when you meet.

MAKE VIA RAIL ACCESSIBLE BY 2012

2010-03-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Integrial Media Launches: MAKE VIA RAIL ACCESSIBLE BY 2012!
On FACEBOOK

Canada's train which travels across the country is not accessible to all Canadians. Particularly not to wheelchair users. In March 2010 Catherine Frazee, co-curator of the Out from Under: Disability, History and Things to Remember exhibition, was forced to travel from Toronto to Vancouver via the USA train service AMTRAK. As VIA RAIL could not accommodate her. She was bringing the Out from Under exhibition, to participate as part of the Paralympic Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver 2010. After some publicity around our inaccessible national train service, VIA RAIL sent a letter of apology to Ms Frazee, and the Vancouver Sun. At a reception in Vancouver for the Human Rights Museum, Catherine Frazee, challenged VIA RAIL to be fully accessible by 2012, when the Museum opens in Winnipeg.

Join us on Facebook, tell us about the trip you DIDN'T take because you COULDN'T get on the train or the trip you would like to take, when you can. Or just become a fan of:

MAKE VIA RAIL ACCESSIBLE BY 2012! On FACEBOOK.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/MAKE-VIA-RAIL-ACCESSIBLE-BY-2012/102639329774496

Kickstart Festival 2010

2010-03-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Doing some work with Kickstart Disability Arts and Culture, community outreach for the opening performance of the Kickstart 2010 Festival - She Laughed She Cried; and coordination for BRIAN, and EarSighted Audio Description Service.

SHE LAUGHED, SHE CRIED March 12 8 PM Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. UBC

Opening the performance stream of the Kickstart Festival 2010 in partnership with the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts. Soulful fado music with Sara Marreiros and comedian Jan Derbyshire performing the rollicking Funny in the Head.

Tickets: $22 ($16 students, seniors & fixed income)

www.ticketmaster.ca 604.280.3311

Interview with Jan about the show.

Kickstart 2010 Festival March 8 – 27
Art, dance, music, theatre, workshops.

BRIAN – BC Regional Integrated Arts Network
Meeting March 13.

EarSighted Audio Description of Performances
March 16 SPINE and March 18 HIVE3.

Kickstart is now on Facebook

This very cool exhibition is on March 9 – 21 UBC Robson Square, with a fantastic interactive website

Out From Under: Disability, History & Things to Remember. FREE. UBC Robson Square. 800 Robson Street. Hours: Monday – Friday: 8am – 10pm, Saturday and. Sunday: 9am - 5pm. A groundbreaking, interactive installation that pays tribute to the resilience, creativity and cultural contributions of Canadians with disabilities. Interpretation onsite and online is available in the following formats: Recorded ASL Podcasts. Recorded Full Audio Description. Recorded Plain Language Audio Tour. Print Materials – Braille, Large Print, Plain Text. Touch Display.

To see work by local artists Heroes

Exhibition March 8 - 27 at Pendulum Gallery

Parihaka International Peace Festival

2009-12-12T09:18:00.000-08:00

Our 90 minute documentary Towards the day…we are all free, will be screening at the 5th Parihaka International Peace Festival January 8 –10 2010. If you can, go to this wondrous festival, at least once in your lifetime.

Chapbook ( in ) valid

2009-12-12T09:00:00.000-08:00

My new chapbook of poetry is now available, ( in ) valid, with the 10 poems from my recent performance - the 'extended mix' versions, and so much more! 26 poems, 40 pages. If you like poems that are sensory, silly, sexy, serious, self-identified or about the south pacific, then this if for you!

Contact megtorwl(at)gmail(dot)com for more information or to order.

Listen to Audio MP3 of Poems - (In) valid and The Best Last Day

A Starfish in the Snow

2009-12-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Just back from performing my interdisciplinary show in Calgary at the Big Secret Theatre. Wow, the lovely people at Balancing Acts sure know how to take care of you and put on a great festival with a diversity of happenings! All went well a part from one touch and go moment when the city coping with day 3 of a howling horizontal snowstorm slid to a sleeting stand still! Getting to the theater for my first performance was a challenge!

The show must go on, and it did! Got some great feedback, people love my Identity Quotients Calculator - a tool for the multiply marginalized, it made them laugh a lot in recognition. Many found the show thought provoking. Others loved the hand-bound books with the poems and stories, wanting to know all about their origins. People were warmed by the purple star fish story and slides - and told me of their guardian animals, raven, horse, tiger. The performance inspired some to tell their own stories; others to write poetry or make films again; to embark on multimedia projects.

‘Your ability to weave so many different artistic mediums and issues connected to being ‘other’ is unprecedented. Thank you for your honesty, risk taking, and your original work. It’s a true pleasure to have you perform'.
- Nicole Dunbar. Balancing Acts Festival Producer 2009

Of a preview performance at VIVO:

'It was WONDERFUL to be there Meg. You are SUCH a performance artist, you were so natural up there, your courage is amazing! Loved the seamless flow of music, video, performance, colours. Beautiful weave of humour and pain, goofiness and insightfulness. Your writing is a gift, wise, evocative, truthful. Thank-you for all of it'.
- Mo Simpson

A big THANK YOU to the good people at Balancing Acts, Stage Left Productions, One Yellow Rabbit/Big Secret Theatre; Carousel Theatre, and VIVO Media Arts, for supporting me and my show. Thanks to T, N, and M for the beautiful handmade books. G for taking wonderful photos. Jan for being a great director.

Fibre-Glass: Art in Calgary

2009-12-12T08:24:00.000-08:00

I was humbled when after my second performance, Eleanor Boyden, who won both the Peoples Choice, and the Jury award for her fibre art at a Balancing Acts Exhibition, gave me some fantastic pieces of her fabric jewelry. See image above.

I returned to Prince’s Island Park on my last day as I was completely enamored with the marble sculpture of flower, leaf, dragonfly, fish, particularly the way the sun shone through the different colored marbles, and that the marbles can be rotated in their sockets by rubbing your hand across them to reveal different facets of color. It was minus 29 degrees with the wind chill factor. It completely drained the 2 hour battery on my video camera in 8 minutes! But I managed to get a few stills in before it died, see above.

Sculpture by: Lori Sobkowich. “Four pixilated images created with approximately 15,000 glass marbles which are captured in perforated and riveted steel framing. These images of flora and fauna are elevated to eye level on four simple concrete forms which are situated at right angles to each other. The theme encompasses the ecological aspects a visitor to Prince’s Island might encounter—water, air and land. The images themselves are a contemporary version of the traditional stained glass panel, making the changing direction and quality of the natural light as much an element of the sculpture as the glass, metal and stone”. To quote the Calgary public art media package.

The snow and bare tree trunks seemed to have turned even the creatures to white and black. I met three cute white birds who flew all around my walking stick and bear-eared hat, considering alighting. Two black squirrels met high on a tree, communed for awhile nose to nose. Another perched in a cleft trying to open an acorn it had retrieved from it's winter stash, with no success, as the acorn was clearly frozen. I thought how much harder a squirrel's life may be than mine, but then again I don't have fur for frozen temperatures, so maybe we are much the same...?

I was excited to discover while I was there not one but two Judy Chicago Exhibitions were on in Calgary! She has been and still is at 70 such a leader for women in art. I was particularly inspired by some of her recent glass works (see image above from her website), as well as the sheer size of her tapestries, and that one project took several years and 150 women sewing to complete! Now that’s visionary! An accompanying exhibition of fibre art by local women artists was equally as intriguing - She Will Always Be Younger Than Us.

Also on while I was there an exhibition by Paul Wong, one of VIVO Media Arts founders, called 2 Hot 2 Handle at the Glenbow Museum. An interesting take on Alberta’s cowboy/cowgirl culture drawing on historical bronze statues and new video work. He has some innovative installations coming up in Vancouver in February/March 2010.

Balancing Acts Commission

2009-09-08T03:13:00.000-07:00

Meg Torwl has been commissioned by Balancing Acts Annual Disability Arts Festival in Calgary, Alberta, December 2009, to do a solo spoken word show of poetry and storytelling. Entitled ‘That’s so gay!’ - about solidarity across lines of gender, sexuality, disability, race; and species - in the case of purple star fish! It's about being the only one, not being the only one, times when you wish someone would drop from the sky and help you in the fight against oppression, - sometimes they do! What do the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, brand new blue boots, influential Maori women, grrls in men’s 3 piece suits, and purple star fish have in common? All will be revealed in ‘That’s so gay! Writer and performer Meg Torwl will be directed in 'That's so gay!' by the fantabulous Director Jan Derbyshire

Creative Momentum Interview Online Sept 2009

2009-09-08T02:59:00.000-07:00

Meg Torwl will be CREATIVE MOMENTUM'S FEATURED CREATIVE for the month of September 2009 with a 2 part audio interview about her artistic practice in media – film, radio, new media. Visuals accompanying the audio interview include stills from the making of the film “Towards the day…we are all free” - with refugee and Aboriginal women. Photos from her meditative underwater and color based computer installations – AQWAI, TIARIKA, SINGING BOWLS; and video footage from an experimental film in development, “9 Lives 6 months” – about disability, art, poverty, dreams, craziness and wonder, in the lives of 4 women.

NZ based "Creative Momentum is a virtual movement around creative diversity. Through this international website and local events we aim to create awareness of creativity and diversity through dialogue and exploration. We want to know what creative diversity means to diverse creatives. Comedian, consultant and entrepreneur Philip Patston describes diversity as the synergy of similarity and difference. Here at Creative Momentum, we think of creative diversity as the ultimate expression of human uniqueness."

Moving Images of LGBTQI Elders

2009-09-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching older LGBTQI folks video interviewing skills for a Moving Images project. It's been interesting and a lot of fun, they are about to go out and record video and oral history.

The purpose of Moving Images, a project of Qmunity’s Generations Project is: To create a video archive of accurate and diverse accounts of our history in the LGBTQI Community.

August 2009 Queerotica Poetry

2009-09-08T01:57:00.000-07:00

Meg Torwl's New Media Work

2009-09-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

NEW MEDIA MEDITATIVE INSTALLATIONS

Matching ambient music - featuring the sounds of water, chimes, and Tibetan singing bowls; with mind relaxing visuals – colors, water, fish, flowers; Meg Torwl's computer installations offer a quiet journey, to rest the mind, emotions, body and soul.

Tiarika: 5 minutes looped. 2008.
Submerge yourself in an underwater journey, close up with rainbow parrot fish (ika), pink sea urchins, blue lipped clams, and purple star fish, emerging into violet lotus flowers (tiare), yellow frangipani, red hibiscus blossoms, green taro leaves and blue skies, of Rarotonga. Music: Spacious by Tony Riparetti and Micheal Gibian, water and chimes.

AQWAI: 11.5 minutes looped. 2006
AQUA - WATER - WAI - WATER - AWA - RIVER. AQWAI opens in Vancouver’s Fall with abstract images of rain, reflecting on leaf-filled puddles, winter Sunshine Coast beaches, lakes, and snow. To spring at the seas edge on Ayhus Island, light playing on the ocean floor, sea grass and shellfish beds, taking us underwater to Hawaiian coral and fish. Drawing to a close in summer, with the pebbled alpine streams, of Manning Park BC; Tongariro National Park, and Te Waipounamu - Aotearoa. Music: Spacious by Tony Riparetti and Micheal Gibian; water and chimes.

Singing Bowls: 40 minutes looped. 2004
Singing Bowls is a new media computer meditation installation utilizing the programs MaxMSP and Jitter to create a liquid music effect. The on screen colors pulse through a range of tones for each color of the rainbow, in time with the music - which is creating the color – as pitch, rhythm, and volume, are attached to red, green or blue. Creatively it is structured around chakra, (energy centers on the body) comprising 7 pieces of music - each 5 minutes long - one for each chakra. Each piece of music is composed for, and uses a Tibetan singing bowl for each chakra. The colors which appear on screen correspond to the color for each chakra, beginning with red and moving through the rainbow to violet. Singing bowls begins and ends with a 3 minute piece of music for all chakra, which creates all the colors of rainbow. Music: Tibetan Chakra Meditations by Ben Scott & Christa Michell, singing bowls, flute, triangle.

Meg Torwl's Video Work

2009-09-08T01:35:00.000-07:00

Towards the day..we are all free. 2007. 90 minutes.
Researcher, Producer, Director, Interviewer, Editor.
Distributor: Video Out.
Women and girls from Canadian First Nations, Iran, Afghanistan, Algeria, Bosnia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Uruguay, Aotearoa, tell their dangerous hopeful stories; through personal narrative, art, poetry, drama, discussions, and demonstrations, recounting their persecution, activism, journeys to and within Canada. Three years in the making, with an all women crew, in 6 languages, featuring over 30 women. Music by Yvette Narlock. DOP Claudia Medina. Editor Lenka Svab. Sound Editor Emma Hendrix.

Dr Sima Samar. 2001. 11 and 40 minute versions.
Producer, Director, Camera 1, Editing.
Distributor: Women for Women Afghanistan.
In December 2001, Dr. Sima Samar received the annual award from Rights and Democracy Canada. She toured across Canada, speaking about her work, running schools and hospitals for women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the 20 years of war, from her home in a refugee camp in Pakistan. About the lead up to and effects of 911, conditions in Afghanistan under US bombing. Three days after recording her Vancouver presentation, she was named Deputy Prime Minister of Afghanistan.

Act Your Age!? 2000. 42 minutes.
Director, Producer, Script, Interviewer, Editor. Distributor: Video Out.
10 women aged 16 to 80 talk candidly about age, ageing, ageism, beauty, disability, friends, lovers. Music by Mik Syroid.

where have all the lesbians gone? 2000. 7 minutes.
Director, producer, camera, sound, editor. Distributor: Video Out.
A mockumentary with a serious message, a humorous wake up call to political complacency.

Meg Torwl's 50 half-hour Radio Programmes with RNZ

2009-09-08T01:09:00.000-07:00

One In Five

A weekly magazine and information programme about the issues and experience of disability.

See sidebar for availability of programme audio on the web.

Copies of past programmes of One in Five not available online can be obtained from Replay Radio. CDs are $30 each. Email Replay Radio or telephone 0800 737 529.

2008

A 6 part series on Disability, Relationships and Sexuality, May 18 to June 22.

22 June 2008: Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 6: Auckland - Sexuality, disability and internet dating
Charles Tauhore, Philip Patston, Huhana Hickey and Maria Anderson of the Auckland panel discuss disability and sexuality. Huhana, Philip and Maria compare experiences with internet dating; if, when and how to disclose disability?

15 June 2008: Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 5: Wellington - Sexuality and disability
Mani Bruce Mitchell, Victoria Manning, Ivan Yeo and David Corner of the Wellington panel discuss whether disability effects their sexuality or not; their own attitudes and those they find prevalent in society.

8 June 2008: Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 4: Auckland - Long term relationships and having children
Charles Tauhore, Maria Anderson, Huhana Hickey, and Philip Patston discuss long term relationships and having children. Is disability an issue? Societal attitudes tend to think disabled people only have partner relationships with other disabled people, but is that really true? Or that most disabilities are genetic, and therefore disabled people should not have children. The Auckland panel explore these myths.

1 June 2008: Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 3: Wellington - Long term relationships and having children
The Wellington panel discuss discuss long-term relationships, if those have mostly been with disabled or non-disabled partners, and decisions around having children. Even when faced with the positive relationships they experienced between their parents, in the absence of disabled adults, none of the panelists thought partner relationships would or could be something they would have when they were adults. What changed for each of them, was meeting other people like them, in relationships. For two of the four people this meant going to a different country. The Wellington Panel are: Mani Bruce Mitchell, Victoria Manning, Ivan Yeo, and David Corner.

25 May 2008: Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 2: Auckland - Dating
The Auckland panel discuss what ideas they had about partner relationships growing up, if their disability has affected their dating, and what they are looking for in a partner. The Auckland panelists, known to their friends as: surfer dude, the legalator, ambisexual theorist, and in internet chat rooms as Phylis; take a more humorous, even flirtatious approach. They are Charles Tauhore, a blind straight Maori sportsman, Maria Anderson a young bisexual Pacific Island woman, Huhana Hickey, a freewheeling wahine takataapui lawyer, and Philip Patston, a gay wheelchair using theorist.

18 May 2008 : Disability, Relationships and Sexuality
Part 1: Wellington - Dating
Over several weeks eight people with diverse disabilities, cultures, ages, genders, sexualities dispel myths about disability and dating, sex, relationships, having children. A mother and psychologist who happens to be deaf, an Asian gay guy with experience of mental illness, a straight guy with an intellectual disability who works as an advocate, and an intersex person who is a counselor sit down to talk about their intimate relationships.
The Wellington panel discuss what ideas they had about partner relationships growing up, if their disability has affected their dating, and what they are looking for in a partner. The Wellington Panel are: Mani Bruce Mitchell, Victoria Manning, Ivan Yeo, and David Corner.

11 May 2008: Disability and Health Issues for Asylum Seekers
Dr Tony Wansbrough who works with asylum seekers in Auckland through The Peoples Centre Trust, talks about the unique health and disability situations they may face. Asylum seekers may not have good access to healthcare in New Zealand due to their fluctuating legal status, poverty, or language barriers. For these reasons there is a danger of untreated health conditions becoming chronic illnesses, permanent disabilities, or life threatening conditions.

4 May 2008: Disability and Health Issues for Refugees and Migrants
One in Five is in Mt Roskill Auckland at the annual International Cultural Festival sampling the sumptuous food and music, and chatting with people about disability and health issues facing refugees and migrants to New Zealand. One in Five talks to Stephanie Pollard of RMS Refugee Resettlement, who has been supporting the family of a child with muscular dystropy; Kelly Woolston of CCS Disability Action, involved in a research and referral project; and Tina a student social worker from Denmark with Refugees as Survivors New Zealand, whose Mobile Team promotes the Mental health of refugees. There is also an interview with Dr Therese Khella who worked with the Iraqi community through the The Peoples Centre Trust.
The programme includes music recorded on location with E-Pacs Lion Dance Team and Ecuadorian group Alymayu.

27 April 2008: Lu'i Ola
Manase Lua, former Project Manager Pacific, with the Disability Services Directorate, Ministry of Health, talks about a Lu'i Ola - a positive new concept for disability, in Aotearoa based Pacific Island communities. Lu'i Ola is also the name of an exciting initiative co-sponsored by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs (MPIA) and involving twelve local and regional Government agencies including: the three District Health Boards (DHB) in the Auckland region.
The aim of the project is to provide better information and disability support to Pacific Island people in the wider Auckland region, and is now moving into a national phase. Manase Lua discusses leadership, and interagency communication, to deliver culturally appropriate disability support services to Pacific Island people. He also discusses the findings of the PIASS - Pacific Information Advocacy Support Trust, research report which informed much of the Lu'i Ola project.
In Memorium: Musician and mental health educator Mahinarangi Tocker, who passed away on 15 April 2008. Listen to previous Radio New Zealand recordings with Mahinarangi.

20 April 2008: Pacific Island Perspectives on Disability
Manase Lua, former Project Manager Pacific, with the Disability Services Directorate, Ministry of Health, talks about Pacific Island attitudes to disability, from shame to the duty of care for all aiga (family) which includes family members with disabilities. He talks about the incidence of disabilities in Pacific Island communities, as well as barriers to receiving disability support services.

13 April 2008: Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau: Mokopuna perspective
Mokopuna or Client Trevor Coleman talks about how he went from being unable to do basic things like shopping, to holding down a job and assisting others. CEO Tuila Tenari talks about her cultural heritage and how it informs her work today. We discuss Maori and pakeha attitudes to intellectual disability, institutionalization, and deinstitutionalization, as well as the unique ways Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau works with adults with intellectual disabilities who have high challenging behaviors, and those designated under the Intellectual Disability Compulsory Care & Rehabilitation Act 2003. Tuila Tenari also discusses how Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau works with another challenged population, clients who can not communicate verbally.
Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau, is a kaupapa Maori organization offering tikanga based services to adults with intellectual disabilities and their whanau. Based in Otahuhu South Auckland, with a range of services throughout Aotearoa. Respite care, residential and day services, whanau support, rehabilitation.

6 April 2008: Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau - A parent's perspective
Derek Petera talks about his initial fear of having others take care of his autistic child, and his comfort in finding a kaupapa Maori organization which involved the whole whanau. CEO Tuila Tenari tells us how the organization came to be and the principles of Maori culture, which inform their work. Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau is a kaupapa Maori organization offering tikanga based services to adults with intellectual disabilities and their whanau. Based in Otahuhu South Auckland, with a range of programmes throughout Aotearoa - Respite care, residential and day services, whanau support.
Programme includes music by client Darcy Burkhardt and Support worker Lapi Mariner.

30 March 2008: Assume Nothing
Assume Nothing exhibition at the New Dowse (45 Laings Rd Lower Hutt April 12 to August 31) addresses the physical in gender.
New Zealand photographer Rebecca Swan talks about her exhibition Assume Nothing, how collaboration is central to how she works with her photographic subjects and other artists. Filmmaker Kirsty MacDonald has made a film about Assume Nothing, which will be part of the upcoming exhibition and with Executive Director of the Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand, Mani Bruce Mitchell, who is one of the subjects of Assume Nothing. Mani discusses her decision to collaborate with photographers and filmmakers, to break down stigma towards intersex people. Assume Nothing is described by the New Dowse as: a journey into the intimacies, nuances and complexities of gender identity; an exploration and true celebration of the complex world of gender diversity. It includes portraits of activist Mani Bruce Mitchell, performer Carmen Rupe, politician Georgina Beyers, artist Shigeyuki Kihara.

23 March 2008: Disability and Health Services - Consumers Rights
What happens, and what to do, when consumers rights are not respected when receiving disability and health services.
Robert Martin Self-Advocacy Coordinator IDEA Services talks about how he was affected by sexual abuse in a school and an institution for people with intellectual disabilities. In the past when people had little access to making a complaint, and what would help now. Tania Thomas, a Deputy Commissioner with the Health and Disability Commissioners Office has a responsibility for people with disabilities, Maori, people in prisons, and education. She talks about consumers of health or disability services rights, and what to do if abuse or inappropriate behavior occurs in the context of disability service provision. Why making a complaint can be difficult for people with disabilities, and people with intellectual disabilities in particular.

16 March 2008: Frozen Funds Charitable Trust
Chair Mary O'Hagan and Board member Robert Martin of the Frozen Funds Charitable Trust, launch and call for projects. In the 1980’s institutions for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness administered residents benefits, and kept the interest earned on that income. This was stopped by the Director of Mental Health, and in the 1990’s the government began a process to return the interest funds to their rightful owners. Over half the funds were unable to be returned, and these became the “Frozen Funds”.
More than 20 years later a Trust has been formed to distribute the interest each year from the funds; in projects which benefit and are lead by users of mental illness and intellectual disability services.The Trust was launched in Wellington in February 2008. In the first year the Trust is seeking project proposals in advocacy, education, the creative arts, media, research or any other approach; which deal with the effects of institutionalization.

9 March 2008: Disability Advisor, Minnie Baragwanath
Meg Torwl talks with Minnie Baragwanath, Auckland City Council Strategic Disability Advisor about what her role involves, from parking permits to policy, and what it was like when she was one of the first Disability Advisors in a City Council in 2001.
Also discussed are the plans for the 2008 National Disability Advisors Conference in Auckland March 27, and what came out of the 2007 Disability and Seniors Advisors Conference in Wellington.

2 March 2008: A trip to Japan
Meg Torwl talks with Minnie Baragwanath, Auckland City Council Disability Advisor, about a recent trip to Japan she lead, with 13 young civic New Zealand leaders. They all went on a 2 week learning exchange with representatives from Japan, Sweden and the UK, focusing on issues for youth, people with disabilities, and older people.

24 February 2008: Ruamoko Marae
One in Five’s Meg Torwl visits Ruamoko Marae, at the Kelston Deaf Education Centre in Auckland. Ngati Turi, the Maori Deaf, tangata whenua of the marae, welcome, and tell the history and story of Ruamoko. With staff: Micheal Wi, Maori Tutor; Sandra Wooster, Senior Teacher of the Marae; Daniel Greenwood , Transition Teacher, and the Students of the Transition Class.
This programme has a transcript (PDF format).

17 February 2008: Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand
An interview with Mani Bruce Mitchell who is the Executive Director of the Intersex Trust Aotearoa New Zealand, consultant, educator and advocate about intersex issues. We discuss barriers faced by people, both within the medical system and within wider society; who for physical, biological, genetic, or environmental reasons do not fit neatly into a definition of female or male.
For more information, a list of useful books, and resources: IANZ.

10 February 2008: Waitangi
A magazine style program, with Sylvia Tai reading her own story from the Book and DVD Seeking Community - He Ngakau Aata Kitea - living with a learning Disability. Which was a collaboration between People First - Nga Tangata Tuatahi, Videographer John Wheadon, and the Whitireia Publishing Course. Poetry by the late, great, Hone Tuwhare, as sung by Mahinarangi Tocker (not available in webversions).
An interview with Mahinarangi Tocker about her own experiences, and work with the Mental Health Foundation, as a Like Minds, Like Mine Project worker. In 2008 she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for her contribution to music, she reflects on this.
Plus music by US born, Canadian resident, singer songwriter Yvette Narlock.
Seeking Community DVD and Book.
People First National Office.
PO Box 9199 Marion Square.
Wellington. NZ. 0800 20 60 70

3 February 2008: Canadians, Cupid, Poets and Pranksters
A magazine style program with Canadian Filmmaker Bonnie Sherr Klein talking about what it was like returning to filmmaking, and starting to work in radio after a stroke. Humour with NZ resident pranksters Mike Gourley and Huhana Hickey.
Five short poems by Raumati based writer Julie Leibrich, from her collaboration with Christchurch composer Eric Biddington resulting in their 2006 CD Cupid and Psyche. US born Canadian resident singer songwriter Yvette Narlock.

27 January 2008: Magazine Program
Blind Heretaunga High School students Mary Fisher and Dylan Neale, talk about their experiences with web design. As part of a team which won the Secondary School Team Section of the TVNZ website challenge 2007. Poetry meditating on the word invalid, and some of the ways words to describe disabilities, are used as expressions in the English language. Jo Butler brings humour with new segments: "What really annoys me is"; and "You not to, when". Featuring the music of Eric Biddington from his new CD Rendezvous, with conductor Rupert Bond, 2 pieces with oboe, trumpet and string orchestra.

2007

23 December 2007: Secondary Sight
The technological challenges and advances, which are hindering or helping vision impaired students in their schooling.
A panel discussion with Kylee Maloney, Disability Consultant with technology company Squiz, Heretaunga High School students, Mary Fisher, and Dylan Neale, whose team won the Secondary School category of the 2007 TVNZ web challenge, Matt Dodd and Tom Mitchell, members of the Tech Crew, at Wellington College, which mentors teachers in new technology. Mary, Dylan, Kylee and Matt, were all involved recently with Secondary Sight, a Squiz inspired initiative which brought together students from Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, with relevant education and techno types to design the way of the future for blind students.

16 December 2007: Disability and Violence
Disabled people are more vulnerable to experiencing violence, and the services which might be able to assist them are not always accessible. That’s changing, partly through the work of the Disability Coalition Against Violence. A partnership between NNSVS - the National Network of Stopping Violence Services and DPA - the Disabled Person Assembly of NZ.
To talk about the issues confronting disabled people escaping violence, and the challenges for service providers, are members of the Disability Coalition against Violence: Brian Gardner, Tauiwi manager, National Network of Stopping Violence Services; Jo Butler, a service Coordinator with Preventing Violence in the Home; and Robyn Hunt, Co-chair NZ Disability Strategy Reference Group, and DPA member.

9 December 2007: Acting Up: in Rehearsal
Acting Up is a group of adults with intellectual disabilities, involved in drama and music workshops, in Wellington and Lower Hutt. Local actor, Madeline MacNamara, and musician Andreas Leper facilitate the 10 week workshop series. Acting Up participants work on art, movement, song, and improvised percussion music. Meg Torwl caught up with Acting Up in a rehearsal, at Wellingtons Arts Centre recently, and talked with Madeline MacNamara about how the workshops have been developing.
Acting Up have 2 performances in December:
Friday December 14 at 2pm:
Idea Services Alpha St Arts Space, Wellington.
Saturday December 15 at 3pm:
St James Anglican Church Hall, 71 Woburn St, Lower Hutt.
If you want to attend the performances, or get involved with Acting Up contact Madeline MacNamara: 027 380 5843. mhope@paradise.net.nz

2 December 2007: International Day of People with Disabilities!
International Day of People with Disabilities is celebrated December 3. Mike Gourley, and Huhana Hickey both attended the 7th, Disabled Persons International Conference, in Korea. We discuss current issues effecting disabled people world wide, including issues facing indigenous disabled, women with disabilities, and challenges to the implementation within countries of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Mike Gourley Is a Disability Advisor with SPARC - Sport and Recreation Council. He’s a former producer and presenter of One in Five. He’s currently the president of DPA, Disabled Persons Assembly of NZ.
Huhana Hickey is a Solicitor and Human Rights Consultant, she has degrees in law and policy from Waikato University. Her PhD thesis, is on the ‘unmet social, cultural and legal needs of Maori with disabilities’. She is Coordinator of Mana Tua a Kiri, and the Maori with Disabilities Discussion Group Te Hunga Haua Awhina Roopu.

25 November 2007: Being Deaf Part 2: Deaf and Proud
ABC - Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Producer and Presenter Kirsti Melville.
Children and adults who've grown up in the deaf community - identifying as culturally deaf - or deaf with a capital D. They are deaf, proud and many have no desire to be 'fixed' with cochlear technology. The Australian Deaf community likens itself to an ethnic community - with unique values, behaviour, history and language (Auslan).Winner of the 2006 Human Rights Award for Radio. Link to the transcript of this programme

18 November 2007: Being Deaf Part 1: Time lost
ABC - Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Producer and Presenter, Kirsti Melville.
Ninety per cent of deaf babies are born to hearing parents - people who usually know nothing about deafness and who are unprepared for the grief, tough decisions and hurdles ahead.
Without entering this world who would know, for instance, about the politics parents face over the choices they must make? That deaf children are often actively discouraged from learning Auslan - the sign language of the deaf community? That learning to speak is the new way forward? And that many deaf children are so integrated in mainstream schools they have little support in the classroom and consistently lag years behind academically? There is a growing fear we are creating a new generation of disadvantaged deaf people. Parents speak candidly of the shock of finding out their child is deaf and the bruising experiences they've since had with health professionals and education departments.
Winner of the 2006 Human Rights Award for Radio. Link to the transcript of this programme

11 November 2007: Regional Roundup!
Four regional representatives discuss health issues of concern to the hearing impaired, Deaf, Maori Deaf, and Maori disability communities. There's Wellington based, Paul Wolffram on cochlea implants; Kaipara resident Tania Simon, on Maori Deaf youth and sports; Hamilton based, Huhana Hickey with her Haua Tangata Maori centred approach to disability service provision; and Christchurch resident, Ann Charlotte on working in radio with a hearing impairment, and media portrayal of people with disabilities.

4 November 2007: Let's Learn NZ Sign Language
Wellington New Zealand Sign Language Teacher, Maureen, and hearing students, Dale, Bronwyn, Mary-Claire, and Michelle, discuss how and why they are learning New Zealand Sign Language. Lets Learn Sign Language! explores the motivations of hearing people for learning NZSL, the challenges and rewards, of Sign Language Classes and Deaf Club events. Why a need exists for qualified NZSL Interpreters and regional Training Programs. This is part 3 of a 3 part series, Part 1, Sign of the Times June 17, and Part 2 Purerehua July 29, considered the importance of New Zealand Sign Language to Pakeha and Maori Deaf communities. In April 2006 New Zealand Sign Language, the language of the Deaf Community, became New Zealand’s third official language.

It’s Spring! One in Five is celebrating the performing arts, with a five-part series on radio, theatre, music, and writing.

28 October 2007: The Young and the Mutated
A young woman explores the reaction of her friends, colleagues and self to a diagnosis of cancer in the context of existing disabilities. This is developed through writing excerpts, medical files, and social comedy. Papaya, mutated cells, jellyfish, hormones, employment agencies, humour, bullies and pet rams are involved!
Weblinks: Young Women and Cancer
Young Survival Coalition (USA)
National Conference for Young Women with Breast Cancer (Canada)
Crazy Sexy Cancer Documentary and Book
First New Zealand National Conference
For those who have experienced breast cancer
Featured Music: www.susancrowe.com/susan/ www.fruitmusic.com.au/music/index.php

21 October 2007: NZ musicians with disabilities.
In NZ Music Awards week, we feature work by local musicians with disabilities: percussion with youth band Kimi Ora Rhythm Machine; original pop with Carol Henry; Celtic music with Kylee Maloney; cocktail music with Shaun Johnson; classical music with Eric Biddington; jazz folk with Mark Laurent; and UK rap with Matt Fraser.

14 October 2007: Ten Thousandth Night
Shaun Johnson has been interested in music since he was 4, and has been playing piano at the James Cook Hotel in Wellington for 27 year. He plays some of his favourite tunes and discusses highlights of his musical career.

7 October 2007: The Beast of Pack N Stack.
Intellectual Disability Empowerment in Action offers a range of community services through IHC. In 2007 this included a drama workshop series offered by Hamilton IDEA Vocational/Day Services. Ten members of the cast introduce themselves and their characters from the play ‘The Beast of Pack N Stack’.
Participants worked with improvisational director Viv Aitken from the University of Waikato to create a drama from their own lives, experiences and dreams. The performance incorporated acting, a synchronised supermarket trolley dance, singing, and slideshows of participants' dreams. Visual and music cues assisted actors with timing.
Like any supermarket, the fictional Pack N Stack has bland shoppers, discontented workers, tyrannical managers, staff intrigues and power struggles. But there's one exception: this supermarket has a mythical beast, which only comes out at night to forage for food in the bulk bins and wreak havoc in the staff tea room.
‘The Beast of Pack n Stack’ explores whether the shoppers will find everything on their lists? Will the staff ever achieve their dreams? Who will finally catch the elusive ‘Beast of Pack n Stack?’

30 September 2007: Talking Up Disability
Living on a farm as a young child with polio, Edith Morris greatly appreciated the company of Radio New Zealand. These days she returns the favour by hosting a weekly half-hour magazine-style radio programme, Talking Up Disability, on Hamilton’s community radio station.
Edith aims to provoke and challenge those in the community who have a disability, focusing on living out of ability, not disability. Along with interviews, music and local happenings, she also hosts a website, with audio on demand, news and views, local disability resources and current events. (In Edith’s online interview from 10 July 2007, you can hear Meg Torwl talking about her plans for One in Five.)
Talking Up Disability is sponsored by the Waikato branch of the Disabled Persons Association, and Edith has been hosting the program since it started 18 months ago.

23 September 2007: Charles Tauhore, athlete
Charles Tauhore, is a dedicated worker and award winning athlete. He’s funny, charming, and blind. He talks about his work with the Royal New Zealand Foundation for the Blind in Auckland, and the sports he plays at competitive regional, national and international levels - goal ball and cricket. He loves to swim and boogie board at Raglan and Piha, and one of his goals is to learn to surf.

16 September 2007: Ann Charlotte and the Benefit Review Committee
Ann Charlotte of Christchurch talks about the rewards and challenges of her work as a community representative on a Christchurch Benefit Review Committee, for Ministry of Social Development. If you receive a benefit, from Work and Income New Zealand, for example, as many disabled people do, and a decision about your benefits is made which seems to you in error you can ask to have the decision reviewed. We talk about how the review process works, what happens at a Benefit Review Committee hearing, how Ann Charlotte deals with her own disabilities in a work context, and how she remains aware of the needs of others during a hearing.

9 September 2007: Ashley
The troubling situation of U.S.A disabled child Ashley, whose parents had her sterilized and have hormonal treatment to stunt her growth, so that physically she will always remain a child. Disability, human rights, and bioethics experts discuss quality of life, and ethical medical issues.

2 September 2007: Shameless - the ART of Disability
Bonnie Sherr Klein talks about the provocative film she made with four other disabled artists, after a stroke interrupted her film career 17 years ago. ‘Shameless: the ART of Disability’ maps the territory where art, disability, activism and sexuality meet, and features five North American artists with disabilities: director Bonnie Sherr Klein; multi-media visual artist, curator and author Persimmon Blackbridge; dancer, KickstART Festival Director and visual artist Geoff McMurchy; writer, teacher, and human rights activist Catherine Frazee. U.S.A. based comedian, actor and writer David Roche. Each artist creates new work, and muses on what brought them to this time and place in their life, history and relationships.

26 August 2007: Huhana Hickey
Solicitor and human rights consultant Huhana Hickey discusses disability language, representation and rights from a Maori cultural perspective. She also discusses: Mana Tua a Kiri, a network for Maori women with disabilities that she is coordinating through the Maori Women’s Welfare League; the Maori with Disabilities discussion group Te Hunga Haua Awhina Roopu; Article 11 of the NZ Disability Strategy; and the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. Contact the Mana Tua a Kiri network by email.

19 August 2007: Equity-for-Illness
Melanie Trevethick of Equity-for-Illness outlines her Human Rights Commission case, claiming discrimination based on disability acquired by illness, not covered by ACC.

12 August 2007: Maria Talks Back!
Maria Anderson, a young Samoan woman with a disability, has attitude. She discusses education, friendships, job prospects, and her plans to take talkback radio by storm!

5 August 2007: ThisAbility
Facilitator Lorna Boschman and participants discuss ThisAbility, a video training program for adults with intellectual disabilities. Gerry Juzenas, vice-president of the board of directors for the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion, and self-advocate, discusses his regional and international advocacy work, particularly with survivors who were once incarcerated in institutions for the ‘mentally handicapped’.

29 July 2007: Purerehua
It's Maori Language week, and 39% of deaf people under 19 are Maori. Purerehua, the butterfly is the sign for New Zealand Sign Language. Butterflies are free, independent, and deaf. Minister of Maori Affairs and Associate Minister of Education, Parekura Horomia, and trilingual interpreter Tania Simon talk about the importance of New Zealand Sign Language to Maori youth, in accessing Tikanga Maori.

22 July 2007: When is a house not a home?
Appropriate housing continues to be inaccessible for many disabled people, according to the findings of the Housing and Disability Report, commissioned by the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa New Zealand (CHRANZ) and the Office of Disability Issues. With researcher Kay Saville-Smith from CRESA, the Centre for Research Evaluation and Social Assessment, and Jan Scown, director of the Office for Disability Issues.

15 July 2007: Functionally Diverse
Philip Patston discusses his latest work: 'Making it Easy to Do the Right Thing', a DVD offering inclusive, respectful and non-discriminatory services. We discuss his plans for Momentum09, an International Disability Arts Symposium in Auckland, and his experiences as a NZ Social Entrepreneur Fellow. And we get philosophical about his disability language theory of functional diversity.

8 July 2007: Krys Baker - Full Circle
Thirty years ago, Krys Baker, 18 and disabled, left New Zealand to travel the world. She returned from Sydney a teenage mother,and later continued her education and work as a volunteer in community organisations and a government department. She is back in Sydney as a case manager coordinating support services for people with disabilities. Musical introduction by Krys’ cousin, Hinemoana Baker: 'Blue Sky' from the album 'Puawai'.

1 July 2007: OpenI
OpenI is a media training programme for youth with disabilities, who work in small groups with disabled and non-disabled mentors to create their own videos. Featuring project coordinator Annalee Weinberger, audio excerpts from the youth videos, and what disabled youth themselves have to say about the project. See more at the Pacific Cinematheque.

24 June 2007: The Right to Life
Two perspectives, from Jo in New Zealand and Jeff in Canada, on fighting to take experimental drugs to treat life-threatening health conditions which no longer respond to current medications: HIV and Lupus.

17 June 2007: Sign of the Times
Featuring Victoria Manning and Paul Wolffram, directors of the film 'Sign of the Times', which documents the deaf community’s struggle for language and cultural recognition and screened at the Human Rights Film Festival. This celebrates the Launch of NZ Sign Language Week. (May 7 -13) and the passing of the NZ Sign Language Act in April 2006, which made sign language New Zealand’s third official language.
Learn how to say "Kia ora" or "Come over for a barbeque" in NZ Sign Language at the NZ Sign website. Full text of Ruth Dyson's speech at NZSL Week Launch Parliament May 7 2007.
We also have a full transcript of this programme. (NB: We do not normally provide transcripts of programmes). The second part of this programme, which considers the importance of NZSL to Maori, will air on 29 July.

10 June 2007: Te Whare Tapa Wha
Elizabeth Kerekere discusses her diverse human rights activities - in whangai (foster parenting), Takataapui Kapa haka group Tiwhanawhana, as an author, and Treaty Integration Consultant - in the context of Te Whare Tapa Wha, a Maori holistic approach to health, which helps her keep everything in balance.

Media and Disability Article

2009-09-08T00:30:00.000-07:00

Women in Film and Television Vancouver. Fall Newsletter 2004

MEDIA AND DISABILITY

People with disabilities are one of Canada's largest minorities, 14.6% or 3.4 million people, yet we have little representation in media. (1) In January 2004 the CRTC passed a ruling requiring private broadcasters, to reflect positive portrayals of people with disabilities in their programming, in on air positions, and to reflect these changes in their December 2004 annual reports. For anyone moving towards this kind of integration I would recommend the report as a useful resource: CAB’s Draft Action Plan to Examine Issues Concerning the Presence, Portrayal and Participation of Persons with Disabilities in Television Programming. (2) These recent developments came only after a campaign by Don Peuramaki, and many others, to get disability back on the CRTC's agenda. Momentum towards equitable representation has been building for some time, says Don, a producer with Fireweed Media Productions, formerly of D-Net (Disability Network) a CBC TV, disability news program, which broadcast over 200 award winning programs including 70 documentaries 1990 - 97.

With the development of digital media, decreasing the cost, size, and weight of equipment, media making has become more accessible for many. People with disabilities are one of many communities, taking up cameras and telling our own stories. Barriers to full participation in media still exist, and there is a diversity of experience with technology; from no experience due to inaccessibility or poverty, to people who use technology everyday e.g. to communicate instead of speech. The cross over between adaptive and media technology, is resulting in innovative approaches to, and inventive uses of media technology.

Disability Film Festivals have occurred in the US, UK, Russia, Netherlands etc, for some years. In 2001 the Calgary SCOPE Society held the first International Disability Film Festival in Canada, Picture This, featuring films by or about people with disabilities. The Toronto Projections Film Festival, June 2004, featured films by people with disabilities. Such festivals are a great way to showcase the talent and diversity of work, within the community. However, it is important to integrate films by people with disabilities into film festivals generally, and not just in specialized or one-off screenings, to bring our work to a larger audience, and avoid "ghettoizing" films and filmmakers. We are media makers first, and people with disabilities second, which means our films may or may not deal with disability.

Why are we under represented in film and television programs, and production? Similar to visible minorities, First Nations, lesbian and gay, it comes from a history of segregation in society, marginalization, treated as "other", by the mainstream. The idea that we don't know what's good for us, can't live our own lives, is carried over into the media where we are not considered capable of formulating, telling, and producing our own stories. This kind of patronizing paternalism has led to negative, inaccurate and stereotyped media portrayals. Such as "inspiring innocent angels", "supercrips", "axe wielding psychos", "I'm disabled but I can still get the girl", storylines, and made for TV "crip of the week" movies.

Barriers to media makers with disabilities integration into media training programs and the industry are: structural, (e.g. lack of wheelchair access); funding (e.g. for sign language interpreters, note takers, adaptive technologies); services, (e.g. lack of accessible transit, appropriate tutors); attitudinal, (e.g. "those poor helpless/stupid/dependant cripples/blind/deaf"); fear based (e.g. "you're different/we don't know how to work with people with disabilities/what if it's really complicated/what if we do the wrong thing); time, (e.g. lack of flexible work hours,). Many more media makers with disabilities, are making their own media in their own time, in the more cooperative, arts, new media, independent: filmmaking, music and theater communities, than in the highly competitive and deadline driven movie and TV industries.

The majority of people with disabilities live below the poverty line, because of disability benefit rates, employment discrimination, part time and/or low paid jobs. "The most inescapable reality for women with disabilities is poverty. In Canada 74% of women with disabilities are unemployed."(3). Few of us are going to be able to afford to go to film school in the absence of designated scholarships, we are learning media through access studios, skill sharing, internships, self teaching.

People with disabilities are 9.9% of the working population aged 15-64. Reported rates of disability increase with age; 15 - 24, 4%; 25 - 44, 7%; 45 - 64, 16.3%. (4)
Within the film and television industry people with disabilities are engaged at the following rates. (5)

Employer % of Persons with Disabilities
CBC-Radio Canada 1.9%
Large private broadcasters 1.6%
Small private broadcasters 0.3%
Film and television production – employee identified 0.5%
National Film Board of Canada 1.5%
New Media – paid employees 1.8%
New media freelancers 4.6%
Teaching staff of screen-based programs, 0.7% - 2.0%.
Students in screen-based media programs, 0.4% - 1.4% ."

It is important to not over generalize, but closely analyze these stats in terms of how women, Aboriginal, and people of color are likely to be represented within them. Which means women with disabilities as teaching staff of screen-based programs, could be as low as 0.6%, and visible minority women with disabilities, 0.03%. Female media students with disabilities may be only 0.5%, and Aboriginal women with disabilities, 0.05% of film students. Clearly we have a long way to go to achieve representation at anything like our real presence in society. (7)

Media makers with disabilities are making our own films, lobbying for fair representation, funding, TV programs, training and mentorship programs. A recent local initiative is ACCESS NFB, which in the first 2 months has made contact with over 50 media makers with disabilities in the BC/Yukon area. The NFB will be holding a meeting with these media practitioners October 27th, which may result in a future screening and networking industry event. Increasing integration into all levels of the industry can only enrich the community of media producers and consumers, by bringing a diversity of experience, styles, innovations and stories to the larger community.

Meg Torwl is a filmmaker completing post-production on her feature documentary "Towards the day…we are all free", about women refugees in Canada from nine nations, and recently was Project Coordinator with ACCESS NFB, an outreach project to media makers with disabilities.

1. 4. Stats Canada. Participation and Activity Limitation Survey: A profile of disability in Canada 2001
2. 5. The CRTC ruling, Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2004-2, clause 52.
CAB Action Plan www.cab-acr.ca
3. DAWN Ontario. Fact Sheet on Women and Disability
5. 6. 7. Frame Work: Employment in Canadian Screen-Based Media - A National Profile. Women in Film and Television Toronto Report. 2004. www.wift.com/

Resources: (reference to 100's of films made by people with disabilities)
(Canada) www.picturethisfestival.org and www.abilitiesartsfestival.org/
(US) (UK) www.gosprout.org/film/ and disabilityfilm.org.uk/
www.disabilityworld.org/ - lists disability art/film fests worldwide