Balancing Acts: Calgary's Annual Disability Arts Festival (DAF) is a celebration of creative self-expression by people with developmental, physical, or sensory disability, mental illness, brain injury, and/or chronic illness. Balancing Acts articulates distinct explorations, representations, and declarations of disability identity, highlighting the creativity of disabled performers and offering artistic expressions that celebrate and challenge both the ethos and the perception of disability culture.

Balancing Acts also promotes the professional advancement of disabled artists and fosters an appreciative, educated audience for disability culture through the presentation of thought-provoking, innovative performances, visual arts displays, arts-based workshops, and panel discussions. The work of over 100 disabled artists is showcased over the week long festival, with a primary focus on performances of originally created work and on diversity in performance media and across disability.

Stage Left Productions is proud to present Balancing Acts7, the longest-running festival of its kind in the world.

Through Balancing Acts7, Stage Left hopes to significantly increase the presence of and appreciation for disability art and culture and, by so doing, declare the importance and necessity of this unique artistic movement in Canada.

Balancing Acts7 endeavors to significantly increase the presence of and appreciation for disability art and culture in Calgary and, by so doing, declare the importance and necessity of this unique artistic movement in Canada. The main goal of Balancing Acts7 is to therefore “declare the movement” by presenting an array of work that represents the spectrum of art created by disabled artists; by presenting visual arts exhibits throughout Calgary’s public spaces to represent more artists and to develop new audiences; by hosting panel discussions and debates on disability art and culture at local academic institutions; and by offering professional development workshops for emerging and established disabled artists.

Read more about Balancing Acts7 here.

Balancing Acts: Calgary’s Sixth Annual Disability Arts Festival
Balancing Acts: Edmonton’s First Disability Arts Festival
Balancing Acts5: Calgary's Fifth Annual Disability Arts Festival
Balancing Acts: Calgary's Fourth Annual Disability Arts Festival
Balancing Acts: Calgary's Third Annual Disability Arts Festival
A Second Look at Disability Culture: Another Disability Arts Festival
Stages: A Disability Arts Festival

Canada is now host to five continuing disability arts festivals, making us one of the greatest contributors to the global disability culture movement. Thanks to Catherine Frazee, Co-Director of the Ryerson RBC Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education, and Geoff McMurchy, Artistic Director of the Society for Disability Arts and Culture, for paving the way for what continues to be a growing ecology for Canadian disability art and culture.

Picture This Film Festival - Calgary
kickstART - Vancouver
Abilities Festival - Toronto
Madness in the Arts – Toronto
Art With Attitude – Toronto

Disability Social History Project
The Disability History Project is a community history project that welcomes public participation. People with disabilities have an exciting and rich history that should be shared with the world.

EDGE
The Education on Disability and Gender Equity website introduces students to core high school curriculum concepts using examples that educate and inform then about disability and gender. Take a look at their Culture section for comprehensive information about disability culture.

Institute on Disability Culture
Promotes pride in the history, activities, and cultural identity of individuals with disabilities throughout the world.

Ragged Edge Magazine
The on-line edition of Ragged Edge Magazine, (successor to Disability Rag) featuring news from the disability rights nation.

SILT
SILT is a multimedia installation whose center and focus is the three-screen video projection of a video art trilogy of work.

Artists

Lisa Bufano
Lisa Bufano is an interdisciplinary artist creating highly original work through the mediums of animation, media, and dance. “Movement and Illusion continue to play major roles in my current work , although I've begun to discover new approaches that are exciting and terrifying.” Bufano. Based in Boston.

Alex Bulmer
Alex teaches voice for actors, and is a produced and published playwright, performer, and producer of radio and video. Alex is the artistic director of SNIFF, a company whose mandate is to produce disability influenced art by persons who have experience living with disability. Based in Toronto.

Mat Fraser
Actor, poet, musician, writer and 'thalidomide ninja' Mat Fraser lists an impressive array of performance skills that anybody would be proud of. But Mat doesn't have just any body he is phocomelic, born with shortened, 'seal-like' arms. Based in London.

Victoria Maxwell
Victoria has over 15 years of experience in theatre and film, and 7 as a mental health worker and group facilitator. In 1992, after several psychoses, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Since then, she has become one of Canada's top speakers on the 'lived' experience of mental illness and recovery and on depression in the workplace. Her one-woman show, Crazy for Life, is touring across North America and into Europe, and is being translated into Japanese and Spanish. Based in Vancouver.

Philip Patston
Self-declared first ever disabled, gay, vegetarian comic and diversity geek! With his unique, laconic style - is one of New Zealand's most well-known and successful comedians. Philip is also an accomplished public speaker and consultant, specializing in promoting the value of diversity and building creative strategic visions for new and existing organizations. Based in Auckland.

Kyle Riva
An amateur photographer with no hands. Riva takes documentary black and white photographs and is currently working on a project about amputees. Based in Calgary.

David Roche
Inspirational humorist, motivational speaker, and performer David Roche transforms the challenges and gifts of living with a facial disfigurement into a compelling message that uplifts and delights audiences around the world. Internationally renown for his one-man show The Church of 80% Sincerity, Roche continues to create new and exciting work. Based in

Alan Shain
Actor, writer, stand-up comic, and disability activist based in Ottawa. Alan's stories have been bringing down the houses - and the barriers - across North America for over 10 years. His humour challenges many assumptions about the lives of people with disabilities and helps students see how they can accept and celebrate difference of all kinds.

Cheryl Marie Wade
Cheryl Marie Wade is a poet and performer, the Queen Mother of Gnarly, an accomplished film and theater producer, and an impassioned activist. Based in the Bay Area.

Organizations/Companies

Axis Dance Company
Since 1987, AXIS Dance Company has created an exciting body of work developed by dancers with and without disabilities. They are in the forefront of paving the way for a powerful and inclusive dance form: physically integrated dance. Based in Oakland.

Cando Dance Company
The company tours throughout the UK and abroad with a new program of works every 18 months. The dancers also lead an extensive education program which include choreographic residencies, residential summer schools, specialist training for teachers, a youth program, as well as open workshops aimed at everyone who wants to experience integrated dance. In London.

Creative Spirit Arts Center
The Creative Spirit Art Centre opened in 1992 with the goal to provide art education and studio space to people with disabilities. The art centre is an environment where the disabled can create, exhibit and sell their art. Proceeds go to the centre and the artists. The sale and display of their art pays dividends for the disabled in the form of their confidence, dignity, and self-esteem. In Toronto.

Full Radius Dance
Full Radius Dance is a modern dance company that presents mature, choreographically complex works celebrating technique and physicality. Our focus is on skill and artistry ; that some of the dancers use wheelchairs is secondary. The wheelchair may lend additional movement possibilities to the choreography, but is not the focal point of the work. Founded in 1990, Full Radius Dance, originally known as Dance Force, Inc. is one of only a handful of physically-integrated dance companies in the United States.

The Glenvale Players
The Glenvale Players are a company of blind and low vision theatre artists offering a stunning contribution of dramatic innovative presentations to the Toronto Community theatre scene.

In-Definite Arts Society
The In-Definite Arts Society is a creative arts center for artists with developmental disabilities, offering studio space and instruction in a wide range of art areas. Exhibition and sale of artwork is done in the onsite gallery, in community galleries and on the website. In Calgary.

Inside Out Integrated Theatre Company
Inside Out first came into being as part of a University of Calgary Rehabilitation Studies Program. In 1996 it separated from the University and became an independent company in it's own right. Since that time it has been serving the disability community with a variety of groups, some with the opportunity to simply explore, grow, and express themselves through developmental drama and some with the opportunity to take the next step into performance. In Calgary.

International Guild of Disabled Artists and Performers
A collective of artists and performers who identify as being disabled or having a disability. Internet based.

The London Disability Arts Forum
London Disability Arts Forum (LDAF) is a disability-led organisation focused on promoting Disability Arts and the work of disabled artists. They host an annual film festival, visual arts festivals, and publish DAIL magazine (Disability Arts in London). In London, UK.

My Art Club
Hosts the site for Minds Eye - Artists for Mental Health, representing a group of about 20 artists living on the North Shore (North and West Vancouver) who are dealing with Mental Illness (issues like Schizophrenia, Bipolar, Anxiety and Depression etc.) and are presenting their artwork on this site.

Nasty Girls
Comedy, disability, and girls! The Nasty Girls were formed when some frustrated, bitter and cynical Disabled / Deaf women got together to take the piss out of anything that annoyed them. They devise, write and perform their own material and specialize in cardboard characters, overblown egos, cheap laughs and slapstick. Based in the UK.

National Institute of Arts and Disability
Provides an art program for people with developmental disabilities which promotes creative expression, independence, dignity and community integration and hosts an on-line gallery. Based in Richmond (California).

The Society for Disability Arts and Culture
The Society for Disability Arts and Culture presents and produces works by artists with disabilities and promotes artistic excellence among artists with disabilities working in a variety of disciplines. Producers of kickstART - a disability arts festival. Based in Vancouver.

Speaking of Schizophrenia (SOS) Players
SOS Players are people living with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness who perform plays that challenge the stereotype of “homicidal psychopath” and raise awareness of the realities of mental illness.

Survivors Art Foundation
Committed to empowering trauma survivors with effective expressive outlets via internet art gallery, outreach programs, national exhibitions, and publications throughout the state of New York.

The Unruly Salon
The Unruly Salon presents and promotes the work of artists with disabilities through its Salon Series. Based in Vancouver, The Unruly Salon is committed to creating dialogue that is rooted in the quote "nothing about us without us.

VSA Arts
VSA Arts is creating a society where people with disabilities can learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. Offers arts-based programs in creative writing, dance, drama, music and the visual arts. In Washington, DC.

Workman Theatre Project
Since its bold launch in 1991, the Workman Theatre Project has become known for putting a human face on mental health issues by producing professional theatre that not only focuses on mental health but is staged by a company comprised of professional actors and people who receive mental health services. In Toronto.

Artists with disabilities, festivals, and companies who consider themselves part of the disability culture movement (i.e. not agencies or service providers who are "doing art"), are invited to send us links to their web pages. To do so, please email us with "another artist/company for your directory" as the subject heading!