Do you love theatre? Do you identify as D/disabled? Would you like professional training catered directly to you, where questions of access are a creative strength? If so, Realwheels Theatre has the perfect opportunity for you.
Realwheels Theatre creates disability-led works, such as Disability Tour Bus and Vascular Necrosis, that use disability as the landscape to explore universal issues in order to challenge expected narratives and foster community.
The Vancouver-based company has announced the intake for The Academy, a three-year, part-time, fully-subsidized performing arts training program. The program is open to anyone who identifies as living with visible or invisible D/disabilities and has an interest in “working towards acquiring the skills and knowledge necessary to sustain an entrepreneurial performance practice at a professional level,” per their website.
Adam Grant Warren, a UBC alumnus and the co-artistic director of Realwheels Theatre, detailed the intake for The Academy’s second cohort, describing the program’s intentions to strike a balance between the rigour of professional training and the realities of lived D/disability experience.
“The Academy, as it is now, is about meeting the student where they are,” said Warren. “I think that there is a tendency to believe, even from inside the community, even among our students, that they're somehow being socially compelled to tell stories about disability in which disability is the primary conflict.”
But Warren is also willing to support people who want to tell these stories — he just makes sure they know disability can be included in a work without becoming the sole focus.
“It is also really important to resist that social expectation and recognize that notions of disability will almost always colour experience. It will colour the stories you want to tell, but it doesn't have to define the stories you want to tell.”
In Canada's current ecology of theatre and performance, questions of access are often tacked on at the end of a creative process instead of meaningfully incorporated throughout.
“There is a real hustle to have [American Sign Language] interpretation like the box you have to tick,” said Warren. “[In this circumstance] the question is not whether something is really, actually, genuinely engaging to the Deaf community, or whether you have a relationship with the Deaf community. There’s no real engagement with the question of access.”
Because theatre and other live performing arts usually aim to create a shared space where audiences and performers are both present and engaged in communication, these artistic practices are especially valuable in the process of understanding others' experiences.
“When we are looking at access mediums, we are looking at them from the beginning of a project [and] we really do consider the questions of access as creative strength. [We ask], ‘What does making a show accessible add to the consideration of the show,’ and building that [question] in for us at the level of training in The Academy … is really important,” Warren said.
“As opposed to saying ‘These are the skills you need in order to have a career in performance,’ The Academy says, ‘What are you bringing? Where is your interest, and how can we help you?”
The Academy also aims to help students transition from education to professional careers by teaching entrepreneurial skills.
The program culminates in a form of sharing — through a performance, a piece of text or an installation piece — each year. Students learn how to market these works and their skills so they are more prepared to enter the performing arts industry when the time comes.
“When you get to the end of [performing arts] programs, the question is often ‘What's next?’ ‘How do we move from education … into the professional field?’” Warren said. “It's really important for us to hold that question even at the beginning of the learning.”
“I think artists are entrepreneurs, especially if you’re going to have a self-motivated career that is built on your own work and advocating for yourself and your work. You do need to know how to essentially sell it, how to pitch it, and how to articulate it. Those are entrepreneurial skills.”
That is why The Academy teaches skills that other traditional performance programs sometimes gloss over, such as grant preparation or lighting design.
"[The Academy] is hosting some demo classes for our prospective applicants … We start with light and the importance of positioning light on stage,” Warren said.
“In terms of meeting people where they are, if we have some students who experience blindness or low vision, [then lighting] is an entirely different question. But if light is not accessible to them, then we have a similar approach to notions of sound."
With multiple instructors in the space simultaneously, The Academy allows students to ask questions about topics like movement, text and sound, and there will always be someone in the room to address that perspective. The Academy has a variety of resources in the room so that students have ready access to the knowledge that they need in the space.
The Academy seeks excitement, enthusiasm and curiosity in its prospective students. The multi-stage application process, which starts through their website, allows prospective students to decide if the opportunity is right for them through interviews and demo classes.
Warren invites those who either do not wish to apply or do not get a spot in The Academy to keep engaging with the company.
“We'll find a way to engage with you, and we'll offer you whatever help and training we can. You are infinitely welcome to continue engaging with the company.”
Applications for The Academy are being accepted until March 15 at 11:59 p.m. PST.
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