Audience Blending by ARTS Europe
University of Wolverhampton
Cooperation Projects
England
2017

Total project grant (euros)
195,494
Programme
Creative Europe
Sub-programme
Culture
Call number
EACEA 45/2016
Project date
1 Jul 2017 - 31 Dec 2019
Number of partners in project
9
Lead organisation
Gemeenschapcentrum De Zeyp, Belgium
Partners
Teatar Tsvete, Bulgaria
Centar Za Kulturu Tresnjevka, Croatia
European Association of Service Providers for Persons With Disabilities, Belgium
Esteeton Taide Ja Kulttuuri Ry, Finland
Udruga Kazaliste, Vizualne Umjetnosti I Kultura Gluhih Dlan, Croatia
Associacao Vo'Arte, Portugal
University of Wolverhampton, UK
Europees Netwerk Culturele Centra Ivzw, Belgium
This project works on a Europe-wide problem around lack of inclusion in the arts. It does this through 3 strands of activity:
- Testing ways of cooperation between cultural centres and service providers to work together to engage a range of audiences (with(out) disabilities) in inclusive art performances.
- Encouraging deaf and hearing artists to collaborate through piloting (play: Guardians Of Dreams) a new theatre technique - Innovative Bilingual Theatre (IBT) - using integrated sign and spoken language.
- Trialing ways to adapt IBT for other different needs and media, e.g. learning difficulties.
The project provides capacity building and transnational mobility through workshops in three areas:
- For cultural and service provider organisations, to learn how to engage audiences with different needs in the arts (theatre as a trial).
- For artistic directors, to learn how to use IBT as a tool for developing inclusive theatre performances (or adapt it to other media and needs).
- For artists, to learn how to perform using IBT in collaboration between artists with different needs (e.g. hearing and deaf).
The pilot IBT performance is a play produced by 6 partner countries, and premiered and toured in each. The project concludes with a conference in Brussels, (International Deaf Week, 9/19). This will include results and feedback from the workshops and performances, and will present the guidelines and the recommendations for European policy makers.