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Wed., February 22 at 6:00 pm
- ASL Interpretation
- Real-time Captioning
Location
Schedule and Tickets
Register online to receive instructions to access the event. If you would like any modifications to aid your participation in this activity, please indicate requests in the registration form or contact Sam at sam@mrac.org or 651-523-6388.
About the Show
Feb. 22, 2023
What does it mean to identify as "disabled"? What about "person with a disability/disabilities"? How does it feel when others ascribe that label to you? What would it mean to claim it?
This Arts & Disability Forum: Disability as Identity features three local artists, Atlas O. Phoenix, Jamie Kalakaru-Mava, and Taja Will, in a virtual discussion exploring how being disabled informs their art, spaces, community, and care.
Th hour-long virtual event is appropriate for arts groups seeking to be more accessible, arts groups serving and/or made up of people with disabilities, and individual artists with disabilities who want to learn strategies from peers to embrace and uplift their own identities.
Panelists are:
Jamie Kalakaru-Mava (she/her) traded the warm beaches of California for the snowy lakes of Minnesota. She found art, community, and more - but it took months for what she found to thaw out completely. By day she works with LISC Twin Cities, supporting creative placemaking and accessibility within the Twin Cities cultural districts. By night she’s a visual artist and writer. Her creative work can be seen in murals throughout the Twin Cities and her written work has been featured in Pollen, Star Tribune, and Minnesota Women’s Press. Her two books, It’s Never Going To Work (2018) and Butterflies and Tall Bikes (2021) are narrative nonfictions featuring Minnesota’s creative communities. Jamie is a 2023 Loft Literary Center Mirrors & Windows Fellow.
Atlas O. Phoenix (they/them/theirs) is an award-winning director, writer, producer and editor who creates films that are personal, powerful and uninhibited. They were an actor and performer for Dykes Do Drag (2017-20) and The Naked I series (2018/2020). They also cohost the trans and nonbinary talk show and podcast, Genderful, with Gender Meowster (available on YouTube and anywhere you listen to podcasts).
Taja Will (they/them) is a non-binary, chronically ill, queer, Latinx (Chilean) adoptee. They are a performer, choreographer, somatic therapist, consultant and Healing Justice practitioner based in Mni Sota Makoce, on the ancestral lands of the Dakota and Anishinaabe. Taja’s approach integrates improvisation, somatic modalities, text and vocals in contemporary performance. Their aesthetic is one of spontaneity, bold choice making, sonic and kinetic partnership and the ability to move in relationship to risk and intimacy. Will’s artistic work explores visceral connections to current socio-cultural realities through a blend of ritual, dense multi-layered worldbuilding and everyday magic.
More Information about Arts and Disability Forum: Disability as Identity