Dance Artists Living with
Chronic Illness - Program

Each iteration of this program supports a small group of dance artists living with chronic health conditions that are a barrier to a fulfilling and sustainable career in dance. Through online meetings, participants are invited to share their stories, strategies and challenges through a peer support structure. Program facilitators respond to the topics and desires that come up in these conversations and bring in experts, guest speakers, and workshop leaders to address areas in the participants lives and artistic practices they have identified as lacking in information or resources. In the final weeks of the program, participants are asked to work toward a document that can provide the dance community with a framework of how to better support and engage with artists working through chronic illness. Our hope is that this framework will allow choreographers, presenters and collaborators to better support dance artists dealing with disability/chronic illness, and feel confident that they can engage them in projects that will allow for accommodations while adhering to timelines, budgets and agreed upon outcomes. These documents also aim to alleviate the burden of articulating specific medical conditions/physical challenges for the artists in question, as these difficult conversations can be made unnecessary when there is enough information available to the community at large. 

Community Documents:

What is Access? - Vancouver Cohort 2024

Manifesto: Moving Against Ableism - National Cohort 2024