Biennale of Inclusivity is under new management for the first time

class=”sc-29f61514-0 kHgAwW”>

Migros has been promoting the inclusive performing arts, or so-called arts of the disabled, since 2007 with the Culture Percentage network project. Since this year, IntegrART has had a top self-advocate with Inga Laas for the first time, and it’s therefore sending an important signal, as the new director said in an interview with Keystone-SDA. “IntegrART naturally takes the next logical step towards integrating people with disabilities.”

Inga Laas has a severe hearing impairment and has worked in various roles in the inclusion field for years. Switzerland is lagging behind, she says. There is a lack of interpreters, sensitivity and understanding. “You’re not prepared for the fact that bodies are different and function differently,” Laas says. “Instead, we spent years standardizing everything.”

The problems in the field of performance art, which he specializes in, are especially evident at the education level. There is a lack of access for disabled artists. “Inclusive models always require effort, that’s clear.” And they are a cost factor. “But above all, the same conditions for everyone are a human right.”

To address these realities, IntegrART launched the “Disability on Stage” module with the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). This was the cornerstone of the CAS Diversity and Inclusive Performing Arts Practice (DIPPA) at the Accademia Teatro Dimitri in Verscio.

IntegrART will collaborate with graduates of this CAS course for the first time in 2023. “Caos Cosmico Quanta Basta” is the name of an inclusive and barrier-free theatrical production that deals with space artistically. Besides three international productions, it is the only Swiss co-production on this year’s programme. The play will premiere on May 25 at the Orme Festival in Lugano.

Belgian twin brothers Guillaume and Clément Papachristou discuss the connection between being different in «Une tentative presque comme une autre», which will be staged in Lugano, Geneva, Bern and Basel. While Guillaume was born with cerebral palsy, Clément was not. In their performance, which, as press documents put it, is an “intimate duet”, they allow the audience to participate in the realities of their lives – “humorously, sensitively and shamelessly.”

In “Bailes Extraños” (to be screened in Bern, Basel and Lugano), dancer Rita Noutel in a wheelchair and dancer José Maldonado reinterpret flamenco. The duo meet a new, unknown Swiss dancer at each venue. In one improvisation, they engage in a dialogue and create “a place between movement, sound and light, and order and madness,” he continues.

Frenchman Éric Minh Cuong Castaing and his company Shonen present a language-free game with “Forme(s) des vie”. In it, a former professional boxer and a dancer, both with limited mobility, meet and reminisce about their old movement habits. The other three members of the company are making up for the loss of mobility as human prosthetics – all in a time context where people were primarily focused on speed and performance. The play will be screened in Bern and Geneva.

With the Biennale, IntegrART connects four partner festivals from around the country every two years: Wildwachsen Festival (Basel), BewegGrund.Das Festival (Bern), Out of the Box (Geneva) and Orme (Lugano). The four selected productions will be screened there over the next few weeks.

Inga Laas hopes that at some point Disability Arts will become established as an art movement and collaboration between people with and without disabilities will become commonplace. His goal as president of IntegrART is also very clear: “We want to break out of the exclusive status of inclusive festivals and engage the cultural industry in a way that is no longer used as a label, but is considered a festival natural part”.

(SDA)

Source : Blick