How can we creatively grow audiences for dance and live performance audiences that include the Blind and Low Vision community?
Dancemakers Guest Curators Arts Assembly hosted an introductory workshop for dancers and embodied performance artists to familiarize themselves with the foundations of audio descriptions for dance & movement practices.
Participants practised their new found skills as a whisper guide for performances in the Summerworks Festival in August 2025.
Inspiration for this includes:
Artists
Arts Assembly
Arts Assembly is a not-for-profit, community-centric arts organization that emphasizes artistic collaboration.
Amy Amantea
Amy Amantea (she/her) is a white settler on the stolen lands of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-waututh first peoples.
Annemarie Cabri
Annemarie Cabri is a Senior Teaching Artist for the National Ballet of Canada and Canadian Opera Company, along with performing and creating opportunities for the growing Silver Swans® community as a licensee through the Royal Academy of Dance.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This workshop will teach participants how to described dance for Blind and low vision audience members (but the workshop will not be audio described).
In partnership with
For the unjustly resilient and the radically disappointed who can’t afford giving up, this lab may be for you.
In the sanitized world of the arts industry where salaries and privileges are hidden, where living wages and progress are denied, and the discourse of change is led by monied elites, this lab is a space for us to confront empty representation and what is often silenced in the presence of power and greed.
For 6 months we’ll talk about money, class and the “isms” that work for and against us. We will explore and break down how funding bodies distribute money towards low-income and precarious communities. We will analyze our relationships to class and debt. We will try to figure out what practical possibilities can emerge from our time together.
This lab is for those who:
- Identify as working class and precarious dance and/or interdisciplinary artists who do not come from generational wealth
- Seek to build economies of solidarity between working-class communities beyond the arts market
- Want to build a wider awareness of class conditions
- Wish to advocate for better labour protections and living wages with less fear
Important dates and details:
- A fee of $2000 each will be provided for up to 6 participants
- Meetings will take place twice a month
- Monday February 13, 2023 – Monday July 31, 2023
- This is an ONLINE program
- There will be a showing of our time together
We will choose the format of our sharings
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Centering compassion, curiosity and the inherent wisdom of the body.
A practical 9-hour workshop offered over 3 days by Pam Tzeng, focused on resourcing our ability to cultivate one’s inner sense of consent and attend to conflict as a generative force in our everyday lives.
Centering compassion, curiosity and the inherent wisdom of the body, Pam will share insights, models and practices for expanding our capacity to meet conflict with embodied awareness, resiliency and choice.
Pre-registration required. Participants are expected to attend all three days of the workshop.
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
What is a working agreement? Why and when are they useful? And, more importantly, how do you create one that serves the humanity and needs of all involved?
Pam Tzeng is happy to share what they do know: personal learnings, anecdotes, helpful micro-skills and a score for conversation to practice together and take home. All for the sake of highlighting the value and relational possibilities of creating working agreements in the context of dance and interdisciplinary projects and collaborations.
This offering emerges from Pam’s ongoing collaboration with Bianca Guimarães de Manuel and their research focused on developing embodied, anti-oppressive ways of making and relating through praxis.
We invite all who want to share their own annual dance cycles, including artists, collaborators, leaders, partners and audiences from diverse dance communities. What annual activity do we all need to be aware of in your dance world? By investigating our own rhythms, ceremonies and dance desires, where do we see our relationship to Dancemakers, yearly? Do you have suggestions for Dancemakers to show Reciprocity? What do you want Dancemakers to Offer that would work with your cycle?
We also invite those interested in viewing the collection of responses, to gain a partial and growing vision of Toronto’s multiple dance communities.
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Towards A Calendar of Seasonal Offerings
Ange Loft leads a cyclical research process through natural time, annual rhythms and Kanien’kehá:ka cycle of ceremonies to (re)consider how we organize our dance ecologies and yearly production activities. Can Dancemakers work with the existing energies of the land they work on and the people they work with? How, where, and what can Dancemakers offer that would honour these existing annual cycles? This is an arts-based research process led by Ange, involving gentle guided movement and gestural annotation to build personal, cultural and professional connections to Dance in Toronto.
We invite all who want to share their own annual dance cycles, including artists, collaborators, leaders, partners and audiences from diverse dance communities. What annual activity do we all need to be aware of in your dance world? By investigating our own rhythms, ceremonies and dance desires, where do we see our relationship to Dancemakers, yearly? Do you have suggestions for Dancemakers to show Reciprocity? What do you want Dancemakers to Offer that would work with your cycle?
We also invite those interested in viewing the collection of responses, to gain a partial and growing vision of Toronto’s multiple dance communities.
Artists
Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence
The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence brings diverse artists and artistic methods into parts of society where more imagination is needed.
Ange Loft
Ange Loft (Kanien’kehá:ka, from Kahnawà:ke, QC, Canada; lives in Toronto, ON, Canada) is an interdisciplinary performing artist.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
This session offers a deep dive into creating accessible-affirming experiences within movement-based practices.
This session offers a deep dive into creating accessible-affirming experiences within movement-based practices. kumari giles and Ravyn Wngz share their experiences of running the Right To Dance program from 2011-2021 and what they have learned on their journeys.
Artists
Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence
The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence brings diverse artists and artistic methods into parts of society where more imagination is needed.
Ravyn Wngz
Ravyn Wngz “The Black Widow of Burlesque” is an Afro-Indigenous, 2Spirit, Queer and Transcendent multidisciplinary art maker, curator and empowerment storyteller.
kumari giles
kumari giles (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist, producer, logistics nerd and culinary magician raised in Tkaronto.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
The Black Widow, offers methods drawn from her burlesque and artist-activist practices to root and give life to the abolitionist in you.
The Black Widow’s methodology helps participants inhabit and embody their professional and/or policy intentions in a personally sustainable way. Tap into your social location, power, boundaries, and overlooked and/or underappreciated knowledge(s) to liberate yourself and others.
Artists
Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence
The Laboratory for Artistic Intelligence brings diverse artists and artistic methods into parts of society where more imagination is needed.
Ravyn Wngz
Ravyn Wngz “The Black Widow of Burlesque” is an Afro-Indigenous, 2Spirit, Queer and Transcendent multidisciplinary art maker, curator and empowerment storyteller.
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
Exploring the personal and expansive intersections of race, madness, and choreography through the framework of reenactment.
Same As Sister completed a 4-day choreographic intensive, Reimagining Madness through Reenactment, part of Workman Arts’ 2024 Winter Course Catalogue.
The intensive was co-facilitated by interdisciplinary performance collective, Same As Sister (S.A.S.)/Briana Brown-Tipley + Hilary Brown-Istrefi and disability arts advisor, Rachel da Silveira Gorman to explore the personal and expansive intersections of race, madness, and choreography through the framework of reenactment.
Participants learnt material from S.A.S.’s larger body of work covering these themes, in addition to crafting their own movement phrases inspired by sources including popular television and cinema.
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
self checkout is based on a collaborative structure that enables participants to feel a collective belonging
self checkout intensive is for queer performing artists between 14-20 years old interested in committing to a series of creative workshops at George Chuvalo Neighbourhood Centre on the weekend of July 5-6 2025! These workshops offer an inviting mix of movement games, dance, sharing circles, writing, crafts, and more. All levels are welcome—come explore, connect, and develop your artistic voice! An intimate showing will take place at the end of the weekend !
The intensive is open to anyone who identifies as part of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and their allies and has been created to be a safer space for young people to explore their artistic curiosities.
Lead facilitators, Lamont (they/them) and Rowan Dorian (he/they), are dedicated to cultivating a space where community can grow, queer joy is celebrated, and creative expression in youth is sparked through the performing arts. Rooted in a shared belief in the transformative power of self-expression, they hold faith that this work helps strengthen and uplift the queer community !
self checkout is based on a collaborative structure that enables participants to feel a collective belonging and will include delicious snacks daily! Please wear comfortable clothes to move in !
Registration is FREE !
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
An intro lesson in Dabke: a levantine folk dance practised by communities in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan & Syria.
Join Ahmed and Wisam from Zaytouna Dabke as they teach an intro lesson in Dabke: a levantine folk dance practiced by communities in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan & Syria. The lesson will be followed by a short conversation about the history of Dabke and Palestinian Cultural Identity.
Inspiration includes:
Artists
acCessibilIty
Is the venue wheelchair accessible?
Yes, the venue is wheelchair accessible including ramps into the building, elevators and wheelchair accessible washrooms.
Will the event be ASL Interpreted?
All live events will offer ASL interpretation (upon request). Please contact us to request ASL Interpretation.
Will the event be described for Blind and low vision audiences?
This performance does not include audio description.