iDance colloquium | Providing access to culture and the arts

Talks | Upper Stage

12:00-12:45 | iDance_Providing access to contemporary dance education for people with disabilities

Panel Discussion:
Myrto Lavda, Head of Educational Programmes at the Onassis Stegi-Athens
Dora Vougiouka, Networking & Outreach Coordinator at the Onassis Stegi-Athens
Eirini Kourouvani, Dancer
Maria Koliopoulou, Choreographer/Dancer
Konstantina Barkouli, Dancer
Smaragda Vagia, Dancer

12:45-13:30 | The role of the artist and the institution

Speakers:
Carmen Papalia, artist and disability activist (USA/Canada)
Georgia Krantz, Independent Accessibility Trainer and Consultant (USA)

Talk: “How to Close Your Eyes" | Carmen Papalia

In 2010, Vancouver-based social practice artist Carmen Papalia started resisting support options that promoted ablest concepts of normalcy and self-identified as a “non-visual learner”. The choice was in line with an effort to distance himself from marginalizing language like “blind” and “visually impaired” and helped Papalia realize the position that he occupied as a liberatory space. In this survey of Papalia’s socially-engaged work over the last ten years, the artist will illustrate the various ways that he has employed organizing strategies and improvisation to establish a space for himself within a field that has privileged visual experience for centuries.

Talk: “Collaborations with disabled artists/scholars” | Georgia Krantz

As an art educator, art historian, trainer and consultant, Georgia Krantz has worked for over a decade to create more accessible museum experiences for people with disabilities. In her educational programs, she stresses the importance of visitor interaction as a means to level the participatory field of engagement, empower visitors with awareness of their own abilities and diversify the resources and knowledge base for close looking, discussion and interpretation.This idea of collaboration extends to the central role of artists in Georgia’s teaching and programming. Many artists consider themselves to be educators and it is this tie between art as a practice and art practice as an educational tool that Georgia seeks to explore. In this talk, she will present three different examples of collaborations that she undertook in order to expand the discourse around art and education.
The talk of Georgia Krantz happens with the support of the Us Embassy in Athens.

13:30-14:15 | Empower future leaders

Speakers:
Kate Marsh, disabled artist/researcher (UK)
Janice Parker, artist/choreographer (UK)

Talk: “Dance Artists as Agents of Change” | Kate Marsh

As part of this presentation, Kate will present an ‘insider’ perspective relating to the film produced within the project Resilience and Inclusion: Dance Artists as Agents of Change. The creation of this film enabled her to adopt an artist-researcher position during filming. This unique role meant that she could ask questions and attempt to explore them through practice with her peers. She will present her experience as both a disabled dancer and choreographer and researcher on a project which at its core seeks to uncover the ‘realities’ of dance practice for disabled artist. In addition, she will offer a reflection on the benefits of intensive practical research in gaining a valuable insight into the ‘real’ experience of disabled artists in practice.

Talk: “On Whose Terms” | Janice Parker

Choreographer, advocate and artist Janice Parker will talk from her perspective of working in the field of disability dance for the past 40 years. She will challenge the current dominant hierarchies in dance aesthetics, forms and processes, access and training, give examples of different pathways and possibilities, look at what it means for disabled people to be leaders in dance, and ask each of us to consider what action we can take to embrace diversity, do it differently and present possibilities for the future.

14:15-15:00 | Networking & lunch

Following the keynote presentations, there will be three workshops open to artists, researchers, social activists, cultural professionals, students and the general public:

WORKSHOPS | 15:00-17:00

Workshop 1

“Open Access: A Demonstration”
Carmen Papalia, artist and disability activist

In English, with parallel translation into Greek. Greek sign language services will be provided if there is interest from deaf & hard of hearing participants.

In 2015 – as a reaction to the failures that he experienced as a recipient of institutional disability support services – Vancouver-based artist and disability activist Carmen Papalia produced a new, relational model for accessibility called Open Access.
Consisting of five tenets that describe a relational practice concerning the agreement to support others, Open Access establishes a space for considerations of agency and power across social, cultural, and political boundaries. In this participatory workshop about organizing for accessibility and mutual aid, Papalia will introduce participants to the Open Access framework. Since first proposing it in 2015, Papalia has employed Open Access as: a private agreement for support, a visibility campaign for social accessibility, and a methodology for assessing the conditions of institutional access and publicness.

Workshop 2

Dance workshop for people with and without disabilities

Maria Koliopoulou (choreographer/dancer), Andreas Kolisoglou (dancer), Eirini Kourouvani (dancer)
In Greek. Greek sign language services will be provided if there is interest from deaf & hard of hearing participants.

The European iDance programme aims to provide access to contemporary dance education for people with disabilities by offering dance workshops for mixed groups of people with and without prior engagement in dance. In this workshop, participants with different type of disabilities or not will have the opportunity to try some of the techniques used in the inclusive dance workshops organised annually by Onassis Stegi and experience how we can all access culture through dance.
This workshop is open to people who haven’t experienced a similar inclusive dance workshop at the Onassis Stegi (open to new participants).

Workshop 3

Training and working in dance as a disabled artist

Kate Marsh (disabled artist/researcher) & Janice Parker (artist/choreographer)
In English, with parallel translation into Greek. Greek sign language services will be provided if there is interest from deaf & hard of hearing participants.

A dance and movement workshop for anyone of any level of experience, disabled, non-disabled, professional and first-time dancer. We will work from each person’s individual movement vocabulary to explore and develop possibilities and potential around ways of moving and liberating vocabulary in the body. The workshop will be both improvisational and guided with opportunities to work individually and as a group, learning from each other as well as focusing on and from oneself.
In this workshop priority will be given to people who have participated in similar inclusive dance workshops at the Onassis Stegi.

Konstantina Barkouli

Konstantina Barkouli was born in Athens in 1994. In 2003 she was accepted to the conservatory of the Greek National School of Dance. In 2015 she graduated with honours from the professional department of the Greek National School of Dance. In March 2014 she danced at the New York City Centre as a member of the Hellenic Dance Company with the Martha Graham 2 Company. As a dancer she has collaborated with the Hellenic Dance Company, the Yelp Dance Company, Stella Spirou (“Omnira”-Masdanza Festival Canary islands), Haris Kousios, Stathis Doganis (performing arts platform MĒTA), and Anastasia Valsamaki (“Sync” - Aerowaves Festival 2017, Athens Festival 2017). She participated in the Athens Biennale with the play “Two Steps Further Down” (Yelp Dance Co.). Since 2015 she teaches dance and has designed movement for plays for children.

Maria Koliopoulou

Maria Koliopoulou is an independent choreographer, performer and dance teacher living and working in Athens. She earned a scholarship to the Laban Centre fοr Movement and Dance and studied Fine Arts at Vacalo School of Arts & Design. She is a founding member of Prosxima Dance Company in which she choreographs and performs. Since 1996 she has presented her work in Greece and abroad. While working for over ten years in primary and secondary education, she has been teaching movement skills to dancers, actors, artists, performers, people with disabilities and people who simply love dancing. She runs movement workshops for babies & toddlers, choreographic workshops for amateurs and professionals and community dance seminars – among others at the International Kalamata Dance Festival, the State School of Dance and at the Onassis Cultural Centre-Athens.

Andeas Kolisoglou

Andreas Kolisoglou is a psychologist and a very experienced artist-dancer-actor-choreographer since 2002. In 2005, in collaboration with the Municipality of Petroupolis , he created a class named 'dance theater expression' which includes people with mental retardation. In 2010, in cooperation with the association 'Anthropos Elpida Politismos' he created a class named 'expressive movement’, addressed to people with intellectual disabilities. Since 2013 in cooperation with Onassis Cultural Center, he is the co-leader at turnovers of dancing workshops that are based on the art of dance for people with and without physical disabilities. His scientific research in 2014 is focused on the embodiment of Greek professional dancers with physical disabilities.

Eirini Kourouvani

Eirini Kourouvani was born in a small village in the Prefecture of Ileia with a rare disability called arthrogryposis. She has graduated from the department of Political Science of the Athens School of Law, Economics and Political Science. She works in the public sector. In 1992 she was awarded by the Academy of Athens for the positive way she deals with life despite the difficulties caused by her disability. She has taken part in 4 world championships for 4 different sports; athletics, para dance sport, power lifting and sailing. She has danced with the Wrong Move Dance Co. and has taken part in the underwater dance show Drops of Breath. She danced at the Athens Festival in 2007 and the Kalamata Dance Festival in 2016. For the past 4 years she has been collaborating with the Onassis Cultural Centre for the program unlimited access/i-dance as a dance educator.

Georgia Krantz

Georgia Krantz is an art historian, art educator, and independent accessibility trainer and consultant. The bulk of her professional career has been spent in New York City where she is an adjunct professor at New York University, works with museums and other cultural institutions to develop accommodations for people with disabilities, and specializes in art education for people who are blind or have low vision. She has worked at many cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

Kate Marsh

Kate Marsh is a disabled artist researcher, she has performed with Candoco Dance company and as a guest artist for Graeae Theatre Company. In 2016 she completed her doctoral research into dance, disability and leadership. She is currently working as an associate producer with Metal Culture and as a Post-Doctoral research assistant at C-DaRE at Coventry University (U.K). Kate is currently working with dance artist Welly O’Brien on a collaborative performance practice.

Carmen Papalia

Born in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territory in 1981, Carmen Papalia is an artist and disability activist that uses organizing strategies and improvisation to navigate his access to public space, the art institution, and visual culture. His socially-engaged practice is an expression of his choice to resist support options that promote ablest concepts of normalcy. Papalia’s walks, workshops, and interventions have been featured at: The Solomon R. Guggenheim museum, New York; the Tate Liverpool, Liverpool; the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; the Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana; and Gallery Gachet, Vancouver; among others. Papalia holds a Bachelor of Arts from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and a Master of Fine Arts with a focus in Art & Social Practice from Portland State University.

Janice Parker

Janice Parker is an award-winning artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is artistic director of Janice Parker Projects, a deliberately small artist-led company that works across art-forms locally, nationally and internationally. The company collaborates with a diversity of people, places, organizations and contexts to support the development of new forms of dance in new spaces and places, nurture and train the future generation of dance artists and to question and develop expectations and experiences of who can dance and what dance can be. Janice teaches, choreographs, lectures and advocates for diversity in dance. www.janiceparker.co.uk

Smaragda Vagia

Smaragda Vagia graduated from the Physiotherapy Department of the Athens University of Applied Sciences and works as a physiotherapist at the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation of the General Hospital of Athens G. Gennimatas. Her first contact with movement was at her school's department of acrobatics and rhythmic gymnastics. The period between 1995 and 2000 she took amateur ballet and Graham technique classes at the “Rallou Manou” Professional Dance School. Due to her increasing difficulty in seeing she had to stop ballet and take up less demanding dance classes. She has been a regular member of the traditional dances group of The Lighthouse for the Blind of Greece, while since 2014 she participates in the mixed group for blind and fully sighted people of the Onassis Cultural Centre's programmes Unlimited Access and iDance.