Unfolding Disability Futures | Photo Credit: Justin Cooper
Maggie Bridger: Convening of Chicago's Disabled Dance Artists
October 23, 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph St.(Accessible Entrance) - 1st Floor Learning Lab & ZOOM
Inaugural convening of a new lab dedicated to the development and platforming of disabled dance artists hosted by HCL Residency Artist Maggie Bridger
Supported by the Chicago Cultural Center, and High Concept Labs and the Monira Foundation in Joint Residency at Mana Contemporary
Join other local disabled dance makers and artists to identify, discuss and begin to address the needs of our community at the inaugural convening of a new lab dedicated to the development and platforming of disabled dance artists. From 1-3pm on Sunday, October 23, we will meet to discuss the particular barriers facing sick, Deaf, mad, neurodivergent and disabled dance artists in Chicago and dream about ways to address them in community with one another. This convening will become the basis upon which a residency at the Learning Lab will be built, with potential for the space at the Learning Lab to be used by the community for rehearsals, workshops, feedback sessions, showings, social gatherings, salons, or whatever else is identified as a need over the course of our initial convening.
Where: This is a hybrid event. The in-person portion will take place at the Chicago Cultural Center's Learning Lab (First Floor, 77 E. Randolph St., Chicago, IL 60602 - Accessible Entrance). The online portion will take place via Zoom, with the zoom link sent out to all registrants in advance of the event.
Who: Open to Chicago-area dance artists who self-identify as Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, sick, mad, neurodivergent, disabled or living with a disability, and/or who have lived experience with disability or impairment. This space is particularly meant for those interested in exploring disability and impairment-informed modes of practicing dance.
Access Information: CART (in-person) and AI Captioning (virtual) are available. The Chicago Cultural Center and Learning Lab are wheelchair accessible, with the accessible entrance located on Randolph Street. Visit the Cultural Center website for directions, wayfinding information, and full building access details.
We ask that all attendees wear masks for the duration of the event, but please note that the Cultural Center is a public building and that there will likely be unmasked people in the building. Everyone in the Learning Lab for this event is required to mask. For those unable to mask or to risk being in a public space, we are offering a virtual option to join the event via Zoom. Attendees will be asked to indicate whether they prefer to attend online or in-person upon registration.
This event is intended to be relaxed, welcoming and comfortable for all in the space. We will have multiple forms of seating available, as well as a few stim tools. You are welcome to come and go, bring your own access tools, and move about the space as needed during the event.
Please refrain from wearing any scented perfume, cologne, lotion, etc. Lighting is adjustable to the needs of attendees, with the possibility to turn off any flourescent lights in the Learning Lab and use alternate lighting, though please note that we cannot control the lighting in the rest of the Cultural Center.
Contact: Please reach out to Maggie Bridger at magbridger@gmail.com with any questions about access needs or requests for access services/tools not mentioned here.
Unfolding Disability Futures | Photo Credit: Amanda Lautermilch
About the Artist
Maggie Bridger is a 2022 City of Chicago Individual Artist Program grantee, and PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Department of Disability and Human Development. She is a co-founder of the Inclusive Dance Workshop Series at Access Living, for which she and her project partner received a 2021 Chicago Area Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. She was part of the inaugural cohort of the Dancing Disability Lab at UCLA, serves on the committee to organize Chicago's integrated dance concert, CounterBalance, and was recently named one of Synapse Arts' 2021 New Works artists. Maggie is a 2022 Artist in residence at High Concept Labs.
This engagement is supported by the Arts Midwest GIG Fund, a program of Arts Midwest that is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from Illinois Arts Council Agency.