The Accessibility Project is an initiative to create more accessible live performance spaces and rehearsal settings for community members and artists who typically face barriers ─ whether physical, neurological, cultural, or economic.
Our goal is to create theatre spaces that allow all people to feel welcome, safe, and considered. We aim to create live performances where all people are able to fully experience and appreciate the programming. Our intent is to then share this knowledge freely with other live performance venues and companies throughout the province.
Our goal is to create theatre spaces that allow all people to feel welcome, safe, and considered. We aim to create live performances where all people are able to fully experience and appreciate the programming. Our intent is to then share this knowledge freely with other live performance venues and companies throughout the province.
The Accessibility Project Team
Photo by Emily Invidia [IMAGE DESCRIPTION – April, a light-skinned white woman with short auburn hair, sits in her black manual wheelchair. She wears glasses & a flowing gold satin gown. The light highlights the definition of her bare arms. Her wheelchair sits diagonal to the camera to show gold fabric draped through the spokes of her wheelchair. Her upper body faces the camera, one arm wraps around the back of her seat, gripping the frame of her backrest while the other is draped on her lap. Her legs are crossed, her bare feet show beneath the hem of her skirt. The pose accentuates the strong curves of her body. April looks directly into the camera with the mysterious hint of a smile on her lips. Columns of purple and violet light frame her against a black backdrop.]
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PROJECT COORDINATOR, APRIL HUBBARD
April Hubbard began her career as an actor before developing her skills as a director, producer, board member, accessibility advisor and arts administrator after entering the world of disability and finding there was no longer a space for her on stage. As the Chair of the Halifax Fringe Festival, she provides a platform for others excluded from mainstream performance. In 2019, April became a professional trapeze artist and acrobat when she began performing with LEGacy Circus. She cofounded disabilityX Halifax, a storytelling event created and led by people with disabilities and is currently working with Drifting Amber Collective to remove barriers to access in the arts and to support people with unseen bodies & unheard voices to claim creative control. She is an outspoken advocate whose focus is to empower people with disabilities to discover their voice and to be leaders in designing the society in which they wish to live. April proudly shows her body without hiding its differences, which serves to both challenge assumptions and to normalize the presence of people with disabilities in our everyday world. |