I am white. I have mid-length red hair in a side ponytail and bangs. I'm wearing two Barbie lower leg earrings. I have a purple top with cut-outs along the sleeves. I'm in my living room with a busy background. I would like to acknowledge that I'm a colonial settler born here on this traditional territory of the Mississaugas of the Ojibwe. Kathy Brandt will share more about this territory, Kataraqui, also known as Kingston. We want to acknowledge that moving forward with justice in mind means learning and remembering the true history of this land, restitution and creating good connections with indigenous communities who are here today. End of thought. This is Tracy speaking. I'm a white woman with short dark brown hair and bangs. I am wearing a maroon and black sweater and sitting in my living room. This time last year with Jane Kirby we were planning a summer circus show but with all the uncertainty in March we adapted our plans from movement labs and aerial rehearsals to the online Zoom room. We were lucky to be able to still offer amazing labs as a part of our process and share them more widely with artists across virtual space. Thanks to Leah Riddell who's here in this room today for the ASL for Artists Lab, Lavie Williams who's also here for her anti-oppression for Performers Lab and Alex Ballmer who shared blind imaginings with us and consulted with the artists on their pieces. As we continue our process and have continued our process over the summer we met to discuss our hopes, our access needs and the stories that we wanted to uncover. The artists then went to work on their own pieces overlapping to bring artistic elements to one another's work while exploring ways to center access. A big thanks to Josh Lyon for joining the team during the video making phase and to Shan and Elkhorn and Alexa Hickox for their video skills. Also Matt Rogulski who not only did a lot of sound recording but then also patiently taught me how to master and edit it. We're grateful for Jesse McMillan who's patiently running this live stream and to Carmel the team's ASL interpreter for being such a skilled support throughout this whole process. We're really grateful for funding from the City of Kingston and the Kingston Arts Council for their support through the OAC and support from the OAC through their recommender's grants and finally thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts who made this showing possible through the digital originals micro grants. So today we share with you those out there way out there. Thank you for joining us. The results from this first phase of development thanks so much to each of these artists for going through this journey with us. We have learned so much from each of you and we hope that these stories will continue to develop together. End of thought. Erin speaking. Please note that this show engages with intense content matter including racism, ableism, sanism, autism and abuse. Please care for yourselves. Our video is just over 90 minutes long with no intermission. There will be a brief question and answer period led by Mariah Horner after the video. Please feel free to send us feedback later as well. There have been a lot of moving parts with this work and we have been collaborating remotely. We have done the best that we can and we also know there are pieces missing. We are confident that many people can have full and powerful experiences of this work as it is and we also know that it will continue to evolve in future phases. We want to thank and honor all of the people who have done this work and live these experiences before us and all of the people we have learned from and who have shared with us, including everyone involved in this project. Thank you also to closed caption service for our captions. End of thought. Tracy speaking. Kemi King, a part of the artist team and an amazing artistic assistant, has written a spoken word piece in response to the videos created. Please enjoy this intro to the work. And thanks so much for being here. End of thought. Kemi speaking.  I wear glasses. My hair is braided back. I am wearing a sweater. Little pot earrings. And I'm going to get decently playing background as well. Unidentified illusions. Misconnections. Soul tied up. Breathing in confusion. This is not how we were meant to be. Something is wrong. Something I cannot see was this caused by me. I hid in the storm before things felt right. I passed over the war. I had to subtract days from night. They're no longer real and not mine. This is not all right. Will you hold me in between time? I miss your hands. What has happened that we cannot touch? I want to know. I want to hear how we have survived. I want to hear how you and I flow into one another. I want to hear your story to know about those who have come before me. I want to know history. I'm scared. Terrified of change. Not ready for the challenge. Not ready for the stage. I do not want to perform only as a means to conform. I want to defy. I want to be controversy. Challenge. I want to impose on you, Rebert. I am only here to confront systems that make me sad. Make me mad. Make me angry. Black woman. Because to you, my politic is bad. But I say she is rad. Radical. She is witness. Impalpable. We will be everything before I am nothing. I continue to hold multitude. I continue to restorm cloud. I continue to be uncovered. End of thought. Kathy Brant, a Mohawk grandmother with salt and pepper hair, light brown skin, and glasses. She wears a black and white patterned dress with a red shawl covered in colorful flowers, a medicine wheel pin on the collar, and various jewelry, including feather earrings. Kathy holds papers in her hands and gazes at them. Seigo sewa kueigo is going to go aga. Kathy Brant young yaks, waks nasareken yungi haga, gendage. Wakunu warado, that means welcome. And they introduce myself in my language because when we introduce ourselves in the language, we call upon the ancestors to come and join us and be with us and guide us as we go about this event. So I just said in my language I am grandmother Kathy Brant from Tainanega Mohawk Territory and I am Bear Clan and I have papers in my hand because I am a stroke survivor and so I've had to make friends with paper. So today I bring what my people, the Haudenosaunee, call the words before all else or the Thanksgiving address. I start this in my own language as I said as we notify the ancestors. So not just my ancestors but also yours. They're bringing them along with them. It is also my practice to advise that if any of you are carrying any burdens I invite you to leave them for the time being so that you may choose to pick them up later but I suggest you leave them with Creator. These are words that I have been instructed to say before any business shall come to pass where two or more have gathered. They are powerful because they remind us as we give thanks to the people first because we are the most vulnerable. Creation can get along just fine without us but without creation we would cease to exist therefore I stand humble before it. It is our main responsibility to the natural world and Creator for its integral part in how we support that web of creation and so I begin. Today we gather our minds together and offer greetings and thanks to the people. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things and we are grateful that there is still so much love in the world and now our minds are one. We gather our minds together and offer our greetings and thanks to all the things that are on the earth all the green and growing things the medicines the foods the plants trees shrubs and grasses and also to the waters and the life within the waters and our relatives the animals and now our minds are one. We gather our minds together and offer our greetings and thanks to all the things in the sky the birds who sing their beautiful songs the winds that come from all the four directions our elder brother the son our grandmother the moon and our grandfathers the thunders and the stars in the heavens and now our minds are one. We gather our minds together and offer our most choice greeting and thanks to singue at diesel the creator of all things and this is where I ask that if there is anything that I have forgotten that you give such greetings and thanks in your own way and now our minds are one. So now I move on to the land acknowledgement for this area and today I would like to acknowledge that the land that we stand on has been the site of human activity for time in memorial. It is my understanding that this is the territory that is included in with it in the dish with one spoon covenant. Wampum Belt which was an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Six Nation Confederacy and the Confederacy of the Anishinaabe and Allied Nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Glorious Lakes and to ensure that there will be food and resources for generations yet to come. I offer these words in the spirit of this gathering to acknowledge the original caretakers of this land the Algonquin Anishinaabe, my people the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy and many other First Nations who have crossed these lands for sustenance trade and survival. We also acknowledge and thank our ancestors for continuing to live in a way that ensures that we remember our agreements and responsibilities. I believe it is important to acknowledge and pay respect to ancestral and traditional territories and local indigenous communities. By doing so we honor our indigenous ancestors and current stewards of the land and speak to our spiritual, personal, political, and social relationship with the land and with each other. To be meaningful and respectful, a territorial acknowledgement needs to be intentional. This is the time to give thanks and consider our individual and collective role in the stewardship of Mother Earth and in the building of relationships between indigenous people and the communities and the rest of the country and Mother Earth. I encourage you all to consider the land that we stand on today and think about how you are in relationship to it. The Kingston indigenous communities continues to reflect the areas Algonquin Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee people with also significant Métis, Inou and Inuit community and First Peoples from all across Turtle Island including Mexico and Central America. It is with deep humility that we acknowledge and offer our gratitude for their contributions to this community. Having respect for all as we share this space now and walk side by side into the future. Nyaowa, thank you. Skana, peace. All my relations. Thank you. There are more than 100,000 Japanese Canadians in Canada. And about 8,000 Japanese students are studying in Canada. More and more Japanese people will immigrate to Canada in the future but there are only two cities that have Japanese districts Vancouver and Toronto. There are no Japan towns in other cities. Why? After World War II, living in the trauma of their treatment in Canada many people in the Japanese community didn't want to be visible. The communities fed out as much as possible and there was a lot of shame around being Japanese-Canadian speaking the Japanese language and doing cultural activities. Why don't we listen to their hidden voice and uncover their stories. In 1927, Hawi Saltoda was born in New Westminster, B.C. His Japanese parents ran a successful boarding house. About 22,000 Japanese-Canadian people lived in B.C. at the time. There are various kinds of prejudice and discrimination towards Japanese-Canadians such as limited choice of employment and the denial of the right to vote. But his childhood was very typical. Well, at least it was not worse than his teenage years. On December 7, 1941, when Hawi was 14 Pearl Harbor was suddenly and deliberately bombed by Japan. Overnight, the world plunged into World War. Hawi's family was labeled enemy aidings by the government and strict of their rights. Soon after, Canadian Pacific railways fired all Japanese-Canadian people and other industries followed. 1,200 boats were seized. Radials were confiscated because the government was fearful of them being used as a tool to communicate with their enemies. On January 14th, Japanese-Canadian males from 18 to 45 years were taken to camps in British Columbia's countryside. Hawi's father was forced to work on the cross-nest highway. Six weeks later, the remaining 21,000 Japanese-Canadians were told to pack a single suitcase. They were taken to camps and towns in the B.C. interior and put to work. Hawi's family was moved to an abandoned mining hotel. Their working and living conditions were harsh. Debating and laundry facilities were limited. Food conditions were bad and diarrhea was raping. With help from indigenous people, they survived in the wild. Indigenous people told them how to get safe water and eat in the wild. On January 19th, 1945, the federal government passed a law authorizing the seal of all seized property without the owner's consent. They had left behind luxuries such as beautiful dishes and kimonos when they were taken to camps. When these items were sold, they did not receive the compensation. While living in these camps, families had to fend for themselves and find ways to pay for food and basic supplies. After the war, Japanese-Canadians were forced to permanently relocate east of the Rockies or go to Japan. Hawi's family decided to relocate to Ontario, where Hawi and his parents found work as laborers on a farm near Chatham. Hawi worked hard to finish high school and was accepted to Queens. In 1932, Setsuko Nakamura was born in Hiroshima, Japan. Her father ran a food company in California and her family was quite familiar with Western culture compared to the average family in Japan at the time. Some of her siblings were born in California and enjoyed Western entertainment such as golfing and skiing. Her childhood memories were filled with happiness, but she felt fear for an impending world war. And for her too, in 1941, when she was nine years old, everything around her changed. Food and clothes were rationed. Rice was a luxury item. High heels and skirts were not allowed. Women needed to wear mumpi, labor work pants in case they had to evacuate to an air raid shelter. Nobody could sleep at night. At school, instead of learning in the classroom, everyone had to work. Setsuko was trained to read code sent from the front line. On August 6, 1945, it was a beautiful morning. She woke up and went to school. Her sister and nephew, who came from the suburbs, were going to see a doctor and to visit the beauty salon in Hiroshima. It was supposed to be a typical day at 8.15 as she gathered in a large room for her training.  She couldn't hear anything. It was a silent moment, and then her body was lifted and collapsed into the walls of the building. When she opened her eyes, it was dark and quiet. She was buried in the rubble.  God, help me, she thought. And then, mom, I'm scared. Everybody was freaking out. It was chaos. Then, somebody put her out from the rubble. What she saw outside the room was worse than a tragedy. People with lost body parts and their skin melted, very walking and cold in full water. The smell of burned bodies. Everything was silent and moved slowly, as if she was watching a silent film. Ten days later, her sister and nephew passed away. They suffered from severe burns. They couldn't eat or drink. There was no medication. Her family couldn't do anything for them. Only watch as they lay dying. And then, World War II ended on August 15th. In October, school started again. She was happy to meet her friends and study together. However, the fear of after effects began to seize her. People started suffering from diarrhea, bleeding from their gums, losing their hair, and experiencing internal bleeding. If they had any scars, they passed away. Little by little, more and more of her classmates were absent from school. Even shortly, the teacher told her that they passed away. Her uncle and aunt passed away like her classmates. Their organs were rotten, melted, and ran through to the bottom of their body. She was scared every morning, fearing that she had internal bleeding and that she would die. She lost nine family members and 351 classmates. After several months, people returned to Hiroshima and it seemed that her life would start again. However, her heart needed much longer to heal. The United States prohibited reports about how cruel the nuclear weapon was. It wasn't until seven years later that Hibakusha survivors finally started talking about their experiences. Not only to help heal their emotions, but also to learn how dangerous it is. After studying at Virginia in 1955, she married her Canadian partner in Washington DC because Canadian though banned international marriage with agents. After she moved to Toronto, the media asked her opinion about the nuclear war. She said that she didn't feel hostility as she did when she was in the U.S. But she found that Canadian ignorance was a problem. Canadian media didn't take any responsibility for the bomb. The Iranian from the Northwest Territories was used in the atomic bomb. The prime minister of those days, Mackenzie King, had clearly stated that it is fortunate that the use of the bomb should have been upon the Japanese, rather than upon the white races of Europe. Now, Setsuko Serdo is 18 years old, and she continues to dedicate much of her life to burning against the use of atomic bombs while advocating for world peace. This year, she issued an appeal to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to publicly acknowledge Canada's extensive participation in creating the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prince Takamado was born in Tokyo in 1954. He was the youngest of five with two brothers and two sisters. His childhood was filled with music and sports such as ice hockey and skiing. After graduating from Gakushuin University with a low degree, he came to Canada to study in 1978. He chose Queens because it was a smaller university and there were a few Japanese students. Maybe he was tired of being recognized as a prince. During his time in Kingston, he continued to study low, but he also learned about music and psychology. He became a big fan of the National Ballet of Canada. He loved English sculpture. He enjoyed playing tennis with his friends. He enjoyed his time in Kingston. Though he was supposed to be here for only two years, he extended his stay because he loved Canada so much. After three years at Queens University, he returned to Japan. But his life was still strongly connected to Canada. In 1983, he became a patron of the Canada Japan Society, promoting business and cultural links between Canada and Japan. While attending a Canadian embassy event, he met Hisako Tottori for the first time. A month later, they attended a visiting Canadian orchestra concert. Shortly after, they were married and she became Princess Takamado. They visited Canada together six times. In 1992, Queens University awarded him an honorary degree in recognition of his major contribution to the mutual understanding and appreciation of the cultures of the peoples of Japan and Canada. In 2002, while playing squash with the Canadian ambassador at the Canadian Embassy, he collapsed from ventricular fibrillation and passed away. He died at the age of 47. It was too early. Half of his life was dedicated to fostering a strong relationship between Canada and Japan. After his death, Princess Takamado took over the position of a patron of the Canada Japan Society and visited Canada again and again. His youngest daughter, former Princess Ayako, studied in British Columbia and became the patron after Princess Takamado resigned. As a commemoration of Prince Takamado, a scholarship program was established at Queens University. Every year, this scholarship provides a Japanese student with an opportunity to study at Queens for a year. It's been three years since I came to Kingston. I first came as the Prince Takamado visiting student scholar and studied theater at Queens. Because I wanted to continue to study theater, I transferred to Queens and I'm still studying theater now. When walking downtown, most people assume that I'm Chinese. I rarely hear people speaking Japanese. Rather, sometimes people talk to me in languages that I don't understand. It seemed comfortable for me at first, because in Japan, I was told that I wasn't Japanese enough, so I feel like here I could be anyone. But it was not so. I've found that there's no place to belong here. Because you're not trying enough, you'll find somewhere you belong. Join a club. People imply that's all my fault. No matter how I work hard, I'm foreigner to everyone. I am just that Japanese classmate. I've been surrounded by ignorance and hatred, regardless of whether it's visible or not, or whether it's intended or not. I decided I don't care about it anymore because I will get out of this town, sooner or later. And once I leave here, I won't come back. No need for community. This summer, I had to change my plan and stay here because of COVID-19. It's been over a year since I left Japan. Somehow, I missed Japan. This summer, I found out about an event on August 6th, in McBurney Park, where they held a Hiroshima commemoration. I went. I didn't see any Japanese people there, but everyone prayed for peace. We wrote a letter to Prime Minister Toto in support of the Setsuko Third Law's appeal. I am impressed that people commemorate and take action for Hiroshima from such a distance. And on August 15th, at Japanese war and anniversary, I made sweetone, Japanese flower dumpling soup. I couldn't help it. It was an impulse, a compulsion. Since I was a small child, my mother has made me this every year to think about those who died and survived World War II. And at this moment, I realized that I am Japanese after all. No matter where I am, if you are invisible to everyone or your voice cannot reach anyone, I want you to know that I want to hear your story. A Japanese woman with long dog hair is seen from the distance. Story 4, Chihiro Watanabe You're probably wondering where I'm from, why I look like this, why I have fluorescent body suits on and have big poofy hair.  I'll tell you.  Just like looking for a brown body suit in Kingston is really hard. However, it wasn't so hard finding a fluorescent suit. Fluorescent socks. That's the story of blackness, my story of blackness in Kingston being invisible while hyper-visible. Today in this space, in this circle, I hope to tell a story, a story of blackness which relates to the history, which relates to the present and it relates to our futures. I want to tell you a secret. I hear you have a balloon nearby. Take the balloon and hold it to your chest throughout the duration of the performance. Maybe you'll feel me, maybe you feel the drums, possibly your heartbeat, melt into that. For my performance, you will be hearing a poem being read by myself, Lavi, called Windmills of Your Mind by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. I spin, I hang upside down.   Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind, that you follow to a tunnel of its own, down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone, like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream, or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in the stream, like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face, and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.  Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that you said? Lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand? Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand? Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song? Half remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong? When you knew that it was over, you were suddenly aware that the autumn leaves were turning to the texture of our hair, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel, as the images unwind, like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind. I am still flat on the ground, eyes wide, mouth open. Eyes closed.  She translates spoken words using American Sign Language. Behind Liz is a black screen with captions of the words being spoken. This is Erin Ball speaking, content warning, institutional abuse, ableism, ableist language, sanist language. I am white. The following is based on my lived experience as a white person benefiting from living in a white supremacist society. I think it is imperative to note that the violence that black and indigenous folks experience relating to the carceral system and the medical-industrial complex is intense and ongoing. Their stories are crucial stories to remember, to learn from, and for which we should continue to seek justice. Behind Liz is a photo of a portion of a limestone brick, colonial building. There are several long and thin windows with rounded tops and an old-fashioned light fixture. Rockwood Asylum and Penrose Building. In the late 1800s, under Sir John A. McDonald's governing, imprisoned people at the Kingston Penitentiary were forced to build the Rockwood Asylum. The Rockwood was built for those perceived to have mental health differences, including wandering, showing emotion, performing actions that were deemed illegal, and promiscuity. A splice of red aerial fabric hangs from above. Inside, a figure moves. Hands press into fabric from within. Pressing hands continue. The fabric is suspended above the ground like a closed hammock or a contained prison into fabric. Sir John A. McDonald had decided that prisoners in the Kingston Penitentiary needed to be separated so women were moved to the new location and kept in horse stables for years before the building was even complete. In the background, black and white photos of the limestone Rockwood Penrose Building continue to cycle throughout the piece. In the horse stables, there was minimal contact with humans. The cells were nine feet by five feet and food was shoved in through a slit in the door. Ironically, the beds were made of straw. Red fabric hangs. Movement within. On the left side of the screen, Alexa, a deaf white actor with mid-length light brown hair, signs the following words.  The people at Rockwood wore canvas clothing with the word lunatic printed on it. Many so-called treatments were administered to those who were locked up. The treatments included sedatives, bloodletting, leaching, enemas, blistering, restraints, and shock treatment. Through my research, I found claims that some of the first experimental lobotomy surgeries were performed at the Rockwood as well as testing masturbation preventative devices. Shock treatment and restraints still occur today. People are forced to undergo horrific and traumatic procedures that wipe out their memories. I know this because it happened to me. I have been locked up many times in mental institutions and so-called correctional facilities. I was locked up on the same property where the Rockwood building is for almost a year. I have been researching for months and have found newspaper articles detailing experiences of authors' family members who were at Rockwood. But the first actual patient record that I came across of a person who had been held at the Rockwood was an account of someone who had frozen their feet. Trees and snow momentarily seen in the background. Prone to wandering and wandered off and froze their feet, it said. I also wandered off and froze my feet. Errant, white, tattoos, mid-length red hair, and lower legs that end below the knees. She is on the ground inside a net that hangs from above. Wearing a beige body suit, she looks naked. She rolls and claws continuously moving inside the net. The Rockwood closed its doors in the early 1900s and it reopened with a different name, the Penrose building, and was labeled as a residence for disabled people. Sir John A. MacDonald, though no longer governing, had a disabled daughter, which makes this whole story that much more baffling considering the building was in place because of him. The first of these institutions in Ontario where people who were identified as developmentally disabled were locked up was called the Orillia Asylum for Idiots. There was no private space anymore. People usually arrived when they were young and parents were then discouraged from visiting, leaving those who were locked up abandoned. Much abuse occurred in the Penrose building, physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse, both by others who were locked up and employees. Penrose was closed in the year 2000 and the Government of Ontario offered money to those who were in the institution, though it denies all claims of abuse. Erin continues to roll, trapped in the net. In the fall of 1976 and winter of 1977, I worked as a medical lab technologist at the Kingston Psychiatric Hospital. Part of my duties were to take blood and that meant sometimes having to go over to the Penrose building where there were people that had been identified as developmentally disabled and were locked up on the wards. So we would receive a call the day before and we'd make an appointment because someone had to meet us at the door and unlock all the further doors to let us in. When I went there this one particular morning, the orderlies greeted me with wide grins and I got to the men's floor and there were men walking around totally naked and the person who needed their blood taken was totally naked and he was being held down in his bed and so it took his blood and the building also had women, floors of women that you could hear their screams and we would have to take their blood when they were held down. Erin continues to roll, trapped in the net. That was my mom, end of current thought.  My name is Teresa Upton, my sign name is I am a white woman in my 50s, I have shoulder length hair, I wear glasses and a black shirt. My name is Elizabeth Morris, my sign name is I am white with mid-length dirty blonde hair, wearing a dark top. My name is Alexa, my sign name is I am a young white woman with mid-length light brown hair and a gray top. In the United States of America, in the early 1800s, there is an island called Martha's Vineyard. Back then, trains and planes were not used to travel, most would only travel by boat. Not a lot of traveling happened and so that meant that everyone who lived on the island were all living together. This led to cousins marrying each other and resulted in a high percentage of deafness amongst the population. Everyone on the island spoke sign language, both deaf and hearing. You are not able to identify whether a person was deaf or hearing. There was one family in England with multi-generational deafness, which meant they had a number of members of the family who were deaf. Initially, when they moved to the US, they lived in Massachusetts, with some of them eventually moving to Martha's Vineyard, which caused the number of deaf people on the island to increase even more. Most people on the island were members of one of these two dominant families. The sign language used in Martha's Vineyard had an enormous influence on what we know as ASL today. In the 1800s, there was a gentleman named Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. He was training to be a minister and he decided to visit some family in Hartford, Connecticut. He saw some siblings playing outside in the yard and noticed a little girl, Alice Cogswell. He noticed she was not playing with the other kids and he went to her to chat. She didn't understand what he was saying and he realized she was deaf. He decided he would try to gesture with her and write words out in the sand with a stick. He would point to things and write out the names of those things in the sand so she could learn them. Her father, surgeon Dr. Mason Cogswell, noticed how interested Gallaudet was in teaching his daughter. The two of them decided it would be a good idea to establish a school for the deaf but did not know enough about deaf education. Gallaudet knew of a school in the UK called Braidwood Academy Oral School. It was decided that Gallaudet would travel to the UK for three years to observe and learn what he needed to set up the school in the United States. He traveled to the UK but was not impressed with what he saw because of the dominant oral education and no use of sign language. At that time wealthier families would send their deaf children away to oral schools to be educated. But Dr. Mason Cogswell did not want to send his daughter, Alice, away. He wanted her to stay home. Gallaudet met a man named Abbey Sikard who worked at the school for the deaf in Paris, France. He also met one of his deaf students, Laurent Claire. He was a teacher for the deaf and supported the use of sign language in the classroom to teach deaf children. Abbey Sikard encouraged Gallaudet to go to Paris to observe their approach and to learn how to teach deaf students in sign language. Gallaudet joined them in Paris to observe the national school for the deaf. He realized though that he could only afford to stay for two months. Thinking about LSF, Long Desinges Française, and French education, it would be impossible to learn both languages in that short time and try to figure out what to do. He decided to make an agreement with Claire who was a good teacher and deaf himself to accompany him back to America. Claire would join him to help him establish the school for the deaf in the USA. They agreed and sailed back to America. Gallaudet would teach Claire English and in return Claire would teach Gallaudet LSF. Once they arrived in America, they raised enough money to establish the school. It was called the Connecticut Asylum for Education and Instruction for Deaf and Dumb Persons in Hartford, Connecticut. The school opened in 1817. Deaf children came from Martha's Vineyard and all over the USA. As a result, MVSL was brought to the school as well as other children bringing their own home signs that they grew up using. In addition, the influence of Claire and his use of LSF. A combination of all these signed languages made what we know today as American Sign Language ASL. In 1864, American President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill into law allowing the opening of a college for deaf people to obtain their degree. That led to Edward Minor Gallaudet to establish a national college for the deaf and mute. In 1887, women were allowed to attend the college. In 1894, the name changed to Gallaudet College. In 1880, the National Association of the Deaf held a conference to discuss deaf education and deaf community needs. Deaf people from all over the US traveled to attend the conference held in Ohio. Ironically, around the same time in 1880, there was another conference being held focusing on deaf education. This conference was being held in Milan, Italy. The conference was called the Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf. And oddly, many deaf teachers did not know about the Congress even though they were talking about deaf education. Many educators, non-deaf teachers, supported oral education at that time. There was much debate and discussion about establishing more oral schools and changing existing schools for the deaf to oral schools. Thomas and Edward Gallaudet, father and son, both went to the Congress trying to convince everyone otherwise by advocating for the continued use of sign language in the schools. Unfortunately, the majority voted in favor to eliminate sign language from the schools. That caused the widespread of oralism and had a huge impact globally with negative effects on deaf education everywhere for over 100 years because of that conference. One of the strongest supporters of the oralist method was A. G. Bell, Alexander Graham Bell. At the time, he was very well known as the inventor of the telephone. His father strongly supported oralism, as did he. His mother, Eliza, was deaf and used sign language to communicate with Bell. A. G. Bell also married a deaf woman named Mabel, and they would speak to each other to communicate. A. G. Bell felt that sign language should not be used and only to communicate orally. He felt that deaf people needed to do this in order to assimilate with society. He didn't believe deaf people should socialize with other deaf people, and felt it was necessary to force them to live as a hearing person by following the oralist approach. He also didn't support the idea of deaf clubs, thinking it would cause deaf people to not socialize within the hearing world. He also didn't support the idea of deaf people marrying each other, fearing it would cause higher procreation of more deaf people. Ironically, while he was spreading the word about his theory and beliefs, he went to Martha's Vineyard. Through his research, which he did secretly, he learned that the majority of deaf people are born to hearing parents. It was the opposite of what he was preaching to the public, and he kept this information to himself in order to support his claims that deaf must marry hearing, must be oral, and that deaf people shouldn't socialize with each other. Because of what happened in Milan, ratifying that the oral method should be used to educate deaf children and not use sign language.  As a result, deaf teachers were fired from the schools for the deaf, as well as deaf staff. They were replaced with hearing teachers and staff to teach deaf children using the oralist approach. If deaf children tried to sign in class, they would be physically punished, abused. Children lost the use of sign language, lost their natural first language. Many students struggled to keep up learning orally, which led to language deprivation. Language deprivation leads to effects on mental health and other long-term negative effects for the rest of their lives. For many years, Gallaudet University always had a male, non-deaf individual as the president of the university. Things changed in 1988 when the university was ready to appoint a new president. The university selected a hearing woman to fill the position. The deaf community felt it was time for change. Enough is enough. They didn't want a hearing person making decisions on their education. It was time to have a deaf president now. The community revolted and held protests against the university. The movement was called Deaf President Now. During those protests, the black community loaned the famous banner from Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream. Finally, Gallaudet University realized the community was right and their desire to have a signing deaf president was important. They appointed the first deaf president at the university, I. King Jordan. He became our Gallaudet University's first deaf president in history. Deaf History in Schools The deaf school in Belleville called the Ontario School for the Deaf was established in 1870. They had sign language at the school and had vocational training for students. For example, at that time, a good number of people worked on farms tending to livestock in fields. The boys learned the skills necessary to work on the farm. The girls learned skills like sewing, cooking, and other aspects of running a household. That was vocational training. This was until 1880 when the vote in Milan banned the use of sign language in the schools. This had an effect worldwide and the Belleville School banned the use of sign language in 1923 and adopted the oral method. Deaf teachers at the school were getting laid off one by one and only hearing teachers were being hired to teach using the oral method at the school for the deaf. Students would learn academic subjects such as history, mathematics, reading, etc. with the oral approach. Without the use of sign language, students were becoming more and more delayed in their learning missing a lot of vital information. In the 1950s, the Rochester method was adopted, which is finger spelling all the words out while speaking at the same time. This caused language gaps in the students learning. In the 1980s is when I entered the school for the deaf. At that time, they started using the total communication approach in the schools. This is when you talk in sign at the same time, which is challenging because of the different structure of the languages. Many students still struggled because although better than previous methods, it still caused language deprivation. This was until the 1990s when the bilingual, bicultural approach was adopted, which means the language of instruction with sign language. Students would learn writing skills but still be able to communicate using sign language. This approach was the most successful. Students were able to learn English and sign. Teachers started to wonder about deaf students literacy level being so low compared to other students at a grade four level. They soon realized the teacher signing proficiency was low at a grade four level which impacted the students learning. In actuality, the students had the intellectual capacity but their English proficiency was low. On average, students would not achieve higher than a grade four reading level to no fault on their part. The first school for the deaf in Toronto was established in 1924, called the Clinton Street Public School. Then in 1931, the King Edward Public School established a preschool. So there were two deaf programs. Eventually, the programs moved to Sunnyview. In 1953, the Sunnyview program grew to six deaf classes. They would share resources amongst the classes but there were too many students to support. As a result, they established the MTSD, Metropolitan Toronto School for the Deaf. MTSD was paired with Davisville Junior School. Half the school was Davisville, hearing students, and the other half, Fully Deaf School, was MTSD. The new MTSD building was established in 1962. At the beginning, most of the students were oral, later changing to the Rochester method in the 70s. Eventually changing to the buy-by approach, allowing signing while learning written English, speech therapy was also included as well. In the 1980s, when they finally allowed sign language as a language of instruction in the school. In my time at school, we were permitted to sign and use it in the classroom. Before that though, I attended an oral school first. At this school, it was more oral communication, with not a lot of signing. The reason I transferred was because other kids were transferring over and I was curious about MTSD. I thought I would check it out and felt it suited me better. I was born deaf. How did my parents find out? My parents brought me home from the hospital. They would listen for crying. Babies cry when they are hungry, need to change, etc. My crying would be different. I would cry if I was hungry or scared, but they noticed something was missing. When a loud noise was made, they looked over at me and noticed that's what was missing. They brought me to a doctor to get checked. They suspected I was deaf because my reactions were different and they felt like something was missing. The doctor assured them that it was common and many babies react that way. When I was one year old, I wouldn't respond when my parents called me or to anything they were saying. My parents suspected I was deaf because of that. They brought me to see the family doctor again.  When I was two years old, my parents couldn't stand it anymore. High-pitched screaming and crying. They decided to go see the doctor again and this time I would see the audiologist to confirm that I was in fact deaf. I went through some tests and there were instructions for the machine with the buttons. I would have to look at the patterns and memorize. They assumed I followed her instructions but I would just memorize what they did so I passed all the tests. They told my parents I was hearing. My mom still felt that there was something off. By the time I was three, my mother had decided she was done with the local doctors in the area. My parents decided to fly to Toronto from New Brunswick where I lived and go to the sick kids hospital. That's when she learned that I was deaf. I eventually graduated but on my report card it said I had a grade four literacy level. When I went out in the real world I attended the vocational rehabilitation services, VRS. I was chatting with someone I knew and mentioned that I always wanted to become a nurse but people thought I couldn't. They said I would find it hard because of my literacy level. I had an interpreter there with me at the time. I knew a lot of information so I couldn't understand how that is possible. They sent me to explore other job possibilities like working in the post office etc. I didn't have an interpreter so I would have to figure things out on my own. For example, the post office, nursing, and other kinds of employment opportunities. One program had a requirement for a grade 11 literacy level, other programs only required grade 8, 9, so I read through all the material and understood it all. Afterwards I went through all of the tests and passed. Then afterwards I had to go and chat with someone. They informed me I wasn't at a grade 4 literacy level, I was actually at 11 or 12. I was told my reading level was a lot lower and they told me not to worry. What's important is that I understand the material so I asked if I was permitted to go into nursing school and they said yes and fully supported it. I started the nursing program and I worked hard. The textbooks were so expensive I couldn't afford to purchase them. I had to figure out something to do. I ended up boring the instructor's medical dictionary. I worked really hard. My friend, who I'm still friends with to this day, agreed to take notes from me during class. Back then we didn't have computers readily available to us. We had to do things the old-fashioned way. I bought carbon paper for my friend to use, you know, the kind of three layers of paper, yellow, pink, and white. My friend will take notes and after class they would give me a copy of them. We would go over the information together until I understood the information. If I didn't understand I would have to memorize the information for the tests but most of the time I understood. The teacher accepted that if we had to write an essay, I hated writing essays. I was allowed to bring in an interpreter so I could sign my answers which made sense. So I would record my answers on VHS, the technology we would use in my day. When I would write a test the teacher would check over my answers and then we would meet in person. I would clarify in ASL any answers that were unclear in writing and would pass the tests. I eventually graduated. It was cool because three teachers who knew me when I applied came up to me at my graduation. At the time they didn't want me to enroll in the program because I am deaf. They couldn't say it was because I was deaf but their concern was the communication aspect. So what I did was during college I would volunteer which helped a lot. I was able to volunteer at hospitals, nursing homes, etc. And so I set up a meeting with the three teachers from that college and with support I asked them, why did you dismiss me years ago? And they said well it's because of the communication problem and I told them that I volunteered at all these different places and nursing homes and hospitals and gained a lot of experience. I made a deal with them to give me a one month trial to see if I could manage and if I could to permit me to enter the program full-time. The three of them deliberated and decided to give me a chance. I worked hard. I wanted to prove to them that I could do it. I got through the month and they allowed me to enroll in the program full-time. I went through the program boring their medical dictionary as I mentioned before I couldn't afford them. On graduation day when the three of them came up to me carrying a box and called the interpreter over and they said, you know thank you you taught me so much and I've learned so much about deaf people from you. And it was a pleasure getting to know you. We also realized that there is no difference between deaf and hearing students and really there are different ways to communicate that is the key. This gift is from the three of us to you and I was just completely shocked and very touched and the gift that they gave me was a medical dictionary. It was beautiful and all three of them signed it and this beautiful gesture just meant so much to me and I still have it to this day. I was born in England. When I was an infant my mom took a look at me and she thought something's off because they would call my name and I wouldn't look over and they thought maybe I was deaf. I have an older brother who is hard of hearing so my parents already had experience with this. They brought me to the doctor's office and my parents told them they suspected their daughter is deaf just like her older brother. The doctor went behind me and clapped their hands and I would look over and the doctor said she's fine she's hearing. My parents trusted what the doctor said to them. We then moved to Japan. At that time I was having some stomach problems so we went to see the doctor and they asked how much medication have you given her and my parents told them the number and that was enough for my age. They did a full checkup and they tested my hearing and they confirmed that I was in fact deaf. My parents were not surprised really because they kind of suspected all this time despite what the doctor said but to have that confirmation they still had a little bit of shock. We moved back to England and then to the States and at that time my mom was looking for a school for my sister my hearing older sister. She started chatting with the principal and they looked over and asked my mom if I was deaf noticing my behavior further explaining that I had an older brother who is hard of hearing. The principal explained there is another school which has a deaf program within a mainstream school and suggested it may be good for me to go to that school. My mom put me in that school with the deaf program. They didn't realize that the teacher signed and would speak and sign at the same time. This is called C-S-E-E signed exact English. When I arrived home I would sign and talk at the same time. I was starting to develop my language. My mother contacted the teacher and asked them to teach her sign language so she could communicate with her daughter. During our time in Ohio my mother had her fourth child. My oldest brother is hard of hearing. My oldest sister is hearing. I was the third born and I'm deaf. When my younger brother was born they found out he was also deaf and has autism. When I was eight or nine we moved to Ontario Canada because of my father's job. I went to the school for the deaf in Belleville now called Sir James Whitney when I was eight years old. All the staff the teachers were hearing but over time they started hiring more and more deaf teachers and deaf EAs and I saw they're just like me. It was great to see deaf role models out in the community and I was able to better understand my deaf identity. I think that's very important for deaf children to have deaf adult role models. I attended a mainstream high school and I was the only deaf student there. This was a high school in Kingston, Ontario. They hired an interpreter and this first interpreter was not skilled only knowing a little bit of sign language. They weren't certified or even qualified to work in that school setting. I couldn't understand them when they signed and I had to put up with it for three years and it was an issue. I ended up falling really behind in my studies compared to my peers because I couldn't understand what was happening in the classroom. Finally they hired a qualified interpreter in my final two years of high school and this person was a CODA, COTA, Child of Deaf Adults and so sign language was a natural language. They knew about the deaf community, deaf culture and signed fluently. She did her job well and I thrived when she was working there. My grade started improving right away and that says a lot. Accessibility is important for deaf education and any education for deaf people. I decided after high school to go to Gallaudet University and I had such great memories there. I felt like it was like the Wizard of Oz, so different than the world with all the hearing people and people talking. When I walked into Gallaudet it was like I followed the yellow brick road. I ended up in this wonderful land where everyone could communicate in the same language that it was a world that I felt at home and where I belonged. I studied two majors elementary education and theater education and I graduated with a BA and I felt very honored. When I left Gallaudet University it was back to the real world where everyone was hearing and there weren't a lot of deaf folks and it was very depressing. The hearing world is not accessible to deaf people and you were not around a lot of other deaf folks. There are some fortunate people who maybe go to the school for the deaf or they encounter other deaf people but it doesn't happen all of the time and it does have a huge impact and it had a huge impact on me. That's when I decided to get involved in deaf theater. I was involved in two theater groups, Quest for Arts in Washington DC with both hearing and deaf actors and the National Theater of the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut which also had both hearing and deaf actors. Here in Canada we don't have a National Deaf Theater Company. There used to be one back in the day but not anymore. In Kingston three of us started a theater group called Deaf Spirit Theater with a fourth person who is our stage manager and video editor. We've been established since 2015 and since then we've added three more people to our group, two male actors and an assistant stage manager. Deaf Spirit Theater is just growing. We need that kind of interaction working off each other's energy using sign language. We also want to become role models. We want to be role models for deaf youth to educate parents of deaf children. We want to show deaf kids what they can do and demonstrate what inclusive theater looks like. Our performances are in ASL with interpretations and sometimes captions as well. For my graduate studies I went to OCAD University and I studied inclusive design in theater spaces. I feel that I wanted to help live theater become more inclusive to deaf and hard of hearing people. That program was perfect because my thesis focused on creating accessible live theater space for deaf, hard of hearing and their friends and families. And in 2017 I graduated with my master's degree in inclusive design. I was born deaf but my parents didn't realize it right away. We moved to Montreal for a little while, just one year. My parents noticed I wasn't responding to noises and they suspected that I was deaf. My mother brought me to the doctor and they confirmed that I was deaf. They looked for resources for what to do, how to make things accessible for me and how to teach their child. So they decided that I would do both, learn to sign and also go through speech therapy. Before I reached seven years old I was very laid back learning speech therapy and I didn't really think about language. But by not having limits put on me my communication was opened up to whatever method best suited me. For me I think that I didn't feel that there were barriers because they were very open minded. Everyone was open to learning how to communicate with me. And I realized that I could sign, sure I knew a little bit of sign before I was seven, but I didn't really understand fully that it was another language. I was able to both learn sign language and speech. I really had the experience both worlds. MTSD was a great experience having ASL storytelling and ASL theater. There was a lot of ASL in the curriculum at that time. So we would go to speech therapy, have access in our classroom and there were a lot of resources available to us. Our age group was fortunate to access both resources. I was still able to do speech therapy and sign language. My parents weren't forced to put me in speech therapy. It was an option, but it was not a requirement. I would go to speech therapy once a week. I'd miss class and go for speech therapy and then go back to class. MTSD and the other school, Davis School, would integrate the hearing and deaf students for some classes. For example, we would have our gym class together with both deaf and hearing. It was kind of like our rehearsal for functioning in the hearing world and I was able to socialize with hearing kids. From grade seven and grade eight, my teachers wanted us to have better resources, better access I guess. So they decided to take our class to a different school. So we had MTSD and we went down the road, walking over to Hudson School and we were involved in a science class, mathematics and a history class, I believe, with hearing students. It was mainstream basically, but all of the deaf students attended together, so we had each other to communicate with. We also had an interpreter there. It was really helpful for us to be able to learn how to socialize and communicate and see what the hearing world looks like in the afternoon. We would have classes with only the deaf students, so we headed back to MTSD for those classes. We would actually have our social events together, like school dances and field trips. Another good experience with MTSD was the sporting events. We would compete against the Belleville School for the Deaf, E.C. Drury and Milton and Robards in London, Ontario, and that was where one time we played handball and several different tournaments. It was great. Everyone was deaf there, learning about the deaf community and deaf culture, and you could communicate with everyone. A lot of deaf awareness. We would go to Milton to play hockey and I think we went to Belleville for volleyball at one time. It was a great opportunity to socialize in the deaf community. I was fortunate that I was able to have my class that I went to school with. I wasn't lonely. We had each other and went through everything together. It was just a great experience. We had a big group when we graduated and the next class was fairly big as well, but the class sizes eventually started getting smaller and smaller every year. The programs eventually moved to Fairwood and they closed down my school in 2012. After MTSD, I went to another school that had a deaf program with a mainstream class. I had some classes with just other deaf students and some classes integrated with hearing kids. They also had interpreters there. It was fully accessible and I had a great experience in high school. When I went to OCAD University, there were no other deaf students. There could have been in other programs, but I was the only deaf student in my class. I just focused on my studies. A great place to go if you want to be in an environment with a deaf community is RIT, Rochester Institute of Technology. I have one friend who attended RIT to be in a deaf community environment. They have great events and a lot of deaf students go and it's a great experience visiting the campus. When I visited, I was able to meet a whole bunch of different people from different states internationally as well and I learned a lot about deaf culture. Those were positive years during my time at OCAD University. I was at a hearing college, sure, but I was able to experience RIT as well. It helps that I live in a city. I have a lot of friends here and once I was done my classes, I could go and hang out with my deaf friends, so it wasn't always lonely. Sometimes I do feel lonely, but I do make friends and I have some really close friends. Three close friends, one who is now becoming my roommate. When I graduated from OCAD, I went to York University for my master's and they have some deaf classes and ASL classes there, so there were more deaf students there. I met a few friends and it was cool, but it was different because I worked from home most of the time. I wasn't required to go to campus for my courses. After one year, it wasn't really enough time to really get to know anyone too well, but I still have my friends in my community and my focus on making films. So, you know, that! Are we the barriers towards deafness? No, it's society. We need to break down barriers. Like that example that Teresa spoke about, they almost didn't let her into the nursing program. All she wanted to do was learn how to become a nurse. Why were they posing barriers for her? But then she was the one who had to prove them wrong and they finally let those barriers down and she succeeded. So really, who creates the barriers? Is it us or is it you or is it society? Is it people? Is it the system? So think about it. I was fortunate that I didn't have a lot of barriers because they didn't give me a lot of barriers. They allowed me to learn and gain experience. They provided interpreters. They gave me access. They gave me note-takers. They gave me what I needed. That's how it should be. Provide us with accessibility. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Inspired by Joan Kuiak's time in Kingston.  She proceeds to perform acrobatic movements on the rope and handstands around town. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Development was foolish and you knew that even then. Power and property were the culprits. Organizing the strategy tested when they sent you to Kingston.  Educated by the shipyard women on Lower Union Street. You believed that together the people couldn't be beat. Fighting for the tenants. Fighting for the youth. Fighting for the future. You fought for the truth. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change. Like a storm cloud bringing change.  Rocking city hall With your controversial feminist views You made this place more livable When you fought to change the rules Anything that's worth anything Is worth fighting for And we need to know what it took If we want anything more Like a storm cloud bringing change Let it blow Let it thunder Let it rain The woman hangs by one arm A sunburst behind her This piece was inspired by Joan Kujek Who was an organizer in Kingston In the late 1960s Joan was a founding member of ATAC Association for Tenants Action Kingston Which fought for tenants' rights Rent control and better housing And which had significant public support As part of that work Joan was elected to city council Where she was the only female alderman She quit after a motion calling for rent control Was voted down and facing protest Council was forcibly adjourned Joan's work did contribute to the passing Of the Landlord and Tenant Act in Ontario Which secured some basic rights for tenants Joan is a lifelong organizer Who has continued to be involved in many movements And is well known as the co-founder Of Mining Watch Canada Today, Kingston continues to face a housing crisis In 2018, the vacancy rate was just 0.6% The lowest in Ontario In 2020, a tent city in Belle Park Was forcibly evicted, leaving many Without shelter or community This video was shot in locations Highlighting some of those responsible For today's housing crisis When I spoke to Joan, she told me That we need to understand our histories And remember that even the smallest victories Were fought for by someone This video is dedicated to all those Fighting for better affordable housing Past, present, and future So my name is Jessica Rivera-Balsham I am here standing In front of a traditional Drum from Mexico This is called La Alpanueva So it's hand-carved Out of a beautiful pine tree That's specifically found in Chihuahua, Mexico And it has a beautiful mule skin On it and a woven sachet Of sorts around it as well And it has, you know, it's very tall Up to my hip length And there's the thunderbolt Lightning carves that are within And I'm standing here With a traditional dress From Oaxaca, Mexico And a beaded necklace That has some medicines inside It's brightly colored And I also have a sachet That my cousin gifted from me Again, from Mexico I have semi-dark skin I have lots of freckles I have long-ish, long hair That's kind of brown And I'm happy to be here So my name is Jessica Rivera-Balsham I'm very grateful to be here To be a part of this collaborative project This piece is In honoring, this is A song that I tend to share When being a part of the visual For our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman Girls and Two-Spirit people And for this song It's very much in connection To loss of individuals Loved ones that have passed away About the grieving process And the loss of different transitions in life And similarly to these days As the impact of COVID-19 And all the lives that have been lost as well It's honoring all of those around the world That have been impacted and lives lost So this is in connection to All of our ancestors In connection to all people around the world And honoring all those that have gone before us Jessica Mundy Credits Alex Bomer Access Consultant Alexandra Hickox Storyteller and ASL interpretation For Chihiro Watanabe Aaron Ball Jessica Rivera-Balsham Videography for Deaf Spirit Theatre piece And video editing Carmel Cachero ASL interpretation during the labs Translation and captions for Deaf Spirit Theatre's piece Chihiro Watanabe Storyteller Videography for her piece David Parker Sound Technician for Jane Kirby's piece Elizabeth Morris Storyteller and ASL interpretation For Aaron Ball Aaron Ball Aerial Artist Aerial Hoop Coach Access Director Voice of Elizabeth Morris And co-producer Jill Gillena Photography for Aaron Ball's piece Jane Kirby Aerial Artist and Hand Balancer Poem and Spoken Word Assistant Producer Josh Lyon Videography and captions Kathleen Ruck Penrose Interview in Aaron Ball's piece Kathy Brandt Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address Kemi King Artistic Assistant And Voice for Teresa Upton Lavi Williams Aerial Hoop Artist And Spoken Poem Lyrics by Alan Bergman And Marilyn Bergman Matt Rogalski Sound Recording Natasha Courage Backus ASL interpretation for Lavi Williams Shan Alcorn Videography for Jane Kirby's piece Tracy Guptel Fabric Artist Sound Director of the Co-laboratory Voice of Alexandra Hickox Co-producer Teresa Upton Storyteller and ASL interpretation For Jane Kirby and Kathy Brandt Jessica Rivera-Belscham Storyteller Vocals and Percussion Many thanks to all of our sponsors Kingston Arts Council The City of Kingston Canada Council for the Arts Ontario Arts Council Tangled Arts Nightwood Theatre and Theatre Kingston With thanks to Joan Kujek Cyrus Marcus Ware Jesse McMillan Mariah Horner Sue Basely Molly Maske Leah Riddell Becky Gold and all of our lab participants This has been a co-production of Anarch Theatre Kingston Circus Arts and Circus Kingston Collective Thanks to Deaf Spirit Theatre Undivided Production Allin.ca Low-lit Area Arts This is a learning process and we are doing our best but we may have made mistakes Please let us know if we said anything hurtful If you are an artist involved in the show I now invite you to turn on your video if you're comfortable to do so for our question and answer period If you're an invited guest in the Zoom call that is not an artist involved we ask that you keep your video off until our feedback session starts around 7.55 So hello folks My name is Mariah Horner My pronouns are she and her I'm a white woman with brown hair with clear-framed glasses with a light purple sweater that says abolition is creative in small white text on the front I'm joining you here from my apartment in so-called Kingston, Ontario Thank you for coming to this session It is a live streamed question and answer period with the artists present So grateful to share this space with all of you So thank you and welcome to the artists that are present Thank you so much for your beautiful work This offering to us here on this Wednesday So before we start let's take a moment a breath or a soft pause just to gather in this weird internet space together whatever that means So if you're watching the live stream I invite you to join us in just taking a breath together before we start Thank you So we have a few questions that we're going to unpack here together If you're joining us on the live stream please feel free to leave some other comments and questions in the chat and we'll be sure to check back I remind the artists that are present in the Q&A to introduce yourself before you speak and give a description and then say end of thought when you're finished So I'll start with my first question to the artists that are present in the room which is what new things about your piece did you learn through the access offerings I want to know what gift did the centering of access give to you as an artist So I invite any artists to answer this question in the way that feels good to them Feel free to unmute yourself or sign your thoughts Oh, Courage Hello Courage, thank you Hi there I just wanted to say thank you for allowing me to be involved in this event. I feel very honored for being the ASL voice for LAVI as a black artist and identify it's it's very nice to see everyone of the artists showed their beautiful self and it was so accessible it was wonderful to have sign language captioning along with the spoken language it was just wonderful so thank you Thank you so much Courage, thank you Any other artists that's present in the room did you want to speak to the question about what things did you learn about your piece through the access offerings Sure My name is Jane speaking I'm a white woman with long blonde hair I'm wearing glasses and I'm probably a little bit blurry, bad lighting in here I think one of the things that it offered me was I am a circus artist so I normally work in a visual medium but I really wanted to think about how to do something that was accessible auditorily and so I wrote a poem which is a totally new medium for me so that was exciting and interesting and fun to do so it really pushed me outside of my comfort zone which was great Thank you Jane I point now to Elizabeth Hi everyone this is Liz speaking through an interpreter because the video is so visual and adding the audio description for the community who are blind or low vision and having the caption in English and also ASL just I really enjoyed it it's so rare to see all those different modalities and having that accessibility to have the ASL with captions typically people tend to pick one or the other you have to decide and it's just an option so end of thought Thank you so much Elizabeth I open an invitation to any other artist that's in the room that like to speak to this thought as well so I'm going to move on to our next question thank you all again so my next question is about I'm curious about what does telling untold stories do to the stories to you as an artist and to the audience so I'm going to post this question also in the chat so what does telling untold stories to the stories themselves or to you as an artist or to the audience and I invite any of the artists that haven't engaged with us yet if you'd like to speak to or sign to this thank you end of thought Courage Lavie's poem just reminds me to connect with that feeling as a black person and looking back at our ancestors and trying to decolonize our history Lavie's poem just helped me connect to my black history and the values that I hold as a black person and my identity so it's really made me think a lot I've been very very reflective in terms of what Lavie presented and through her poetry and the journey that I'm going on so it just reminded me that I need to connect to that and what it means to be a black person and how my ancestors from Africa and who I am today Thank you so much Courage I invite any other artists that's in the room to connect on this topic Hi, Alex has a contribution I'll go after Alex Sounds good so if I could get a host to unmute Alex that would be very Am I unmuted? You're unmuted Alex Thank you so much for joining us Oh no it's a pleasure It's a great question I well I have felt the privilege of being taken into spaces that I would have not entered before through the stories you know it just it really reminds me of the power of storytelling but I think for me what becomes so moving is when it's the personal story in the context of the historical story and every time the pieces brought that artists voice into the frame of the history the history became real so I think that's for me is what is so powerful about the work you know we can I could look up and all of the stories have made me want to research and understand more of the history but it's actually it's the personal it's the personal voices it's the artist voices within the context of the history and that's what these untold stories I think have brought forward for me so thank you end of thought Thank you so much Alex thank you I'm so happy to be in the space with you Me too Sorry I didn't catch which other artist speak I'd invite you to also hold some space Oh Lavi hello Lavi Hi thank you I just saw Alex name pop up and I thought I would give her some space to make her contribution My name is Lavi Williams I am a black woman I use the pronouns she and her and I'm wearing a black turtleneck sweater with the headphones on and I have an orange painting of three faces in the background to before I answer the question I just wanted to say thank you to courage not only for you know signing as part of my piece and supporting that work but also for her words or their words recently that really really touched me I would say because it feels like you were really able to tap into the spirit of what I was trying to convey and so sometimes with at least for me with art and with self-expression what is in your head doesn't necessarily always translate in many different ways whether that's written through movement through you know collaging putting different pieces together and so it's really neat and amazing to hear that reflection from somebody else's perspective and really mirroring where I was trying where I was coming from and where I'm trying to go and so I think a really big part of telling untold stories for the audience, for the artists as well is expending the realm of possibilities for everyone involved and there is so much that is covered up very non-covered but it really is covered up by mainstream society and it's covered up by the status quo and we're kind of forced and conditioned not to think about it too much when in actuality this is where we need to be spending our time and our energy in our day-to-day lives as well as as well as in other aspects of how we live together and the thought. Thank you so much Lavi, that feels like a really perfect moment to say goodbye to all of the folks that are joining us on a live stream so this is going to be the end of the live stream portion I'm going to offer another big thank you big big round of applause to all of the artists that were involved in the show and like Lavi just said go out and do the work of this show in your daily lives in as many ways that you can so thank you all so much for joining us through the live stream if you are an artist or a guest here in the zoom call I invite you to stay we're going to continue on this discussion together but this is the end of the live stream so thank you so much everybody for joining us happy Wednesday big big gratitude from me here Mo thank you