Disability Arts History Australia

Items

• “Screen Australia launches an access coordinator training program”
  Screen Australia launched an access coordinator training program in 2023. “The Access Coordinator role is intended for people from the Deaf/Disabled and/or Neurodivergent (DDN) communities who are committed to improving disability representation and removing barriers to inclusion.” Screen Australia partnered with the following organisations for the initiative: the New Zealand Film Commission, Screen Queensland, Screen Tasmania, Screen Territory, Screenwest, VicScreen, the South Australian Film Corporation, Screen ACT, Screen NSW, and the Australian Film Television Radio School.
• "Australia Council: Australian Arts Snapshots - Disability & the Arts (2002)"
  Reads, in part "Australians who have a disability are recognised as being creators of innovative, thought provoking, high quality, and often very irreverent artistic product. They are active across all artforms in mainstream and community arts contexts"
• Rosemary Cameron
• Janet Andrews
• Anna Hruby
• “The Australian Assistance Plan (1973) encourages grassroots activism”
  Grassroots activism is said to have been encouraged by the Commonwealth with the new Australian Assistance Plan (AAP) in 1973, which allowed local communities to "prioritise their own welfare planning" and "triggered an explosion in local advocacy in a range of areas, including self-advocacy for people with disability," according to the 2021 Royal Commission.
• "Focus on Ability, Short Film Festival winners list 2021"
  Focus on Ability Short Film Festival, captured 2025 - webpage listing 2021 award winners - Includes AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL SECTION (St Matthews Catholic School (NSW) - The Monsters of the Mind; Al-Taqwa College (VIC) - Optism: A Tale of Unbreakable Friendship) AUSTRALIAN OPEN ENTRANTS (The Sunshine Troupe (QLD) – Luminosity; Alex Sideratos (NSW) - More to Me; Clay Antonio (VIC) - Life Without Mum; Tina A.Wake (NSW) - I'm Super; Ian Heydon in What's in a Name; Michael Wilkop - The Robot; Nathan Mewett & Chris Taylor - Yulubidyu - Until the End)
• “Choose Art, the Australian accessible arts directory, is launched”
  The Australian accessible arts directory Choose Art was launched in 2019. It is an initiative of Arts Access Victoria, designed for and by Deaf and disabled people. Choose Art is a Commonwealth project supported by the Cultural Ministers of each State and Territory through Arts ACT; Arts Tasmania; Create NSW; Creative Victoria; Culture and Arts WA; Arts South Australia; Arts Queensland; Department of Tourism and Culture, NT and the Federal Minister through the Department of Communications and the Arts. Arts Access Victoria has created Choose Art in partnership with Arts Access Australia, Access2Arts, Access Arts, Accessible Arts, Arts Access Darwin, Belconnen Arts Centre, DADAA and Incite Arts.
• "Deaf News QLD - Support Theatre of the Deaf - 1993"
  Reads, in part “Theatre of the Deaf (TOD), Australia's only professional Deaf theatre company and indeed Australia’s only professional Deaf arts organisation, have been invited to attend and perform at the International Convention of Deaf Arts to be held in Florence, Italy in June 1994. They need donations to help fund their trip to Florence.”
• "Australia Council - Annual Report 1989-90"
  Australia Council Annual Report 1989-90 - discusses objectives, highlights, support for artform development, main activities of Council and its Boards, and includes financial statements and lists of grants made including grants for conferences, access and touring, programs training and resource development as well as publications such as “The Arts and People with Disabilities”
• ACE Magazine
• Robert Former
• Mandy Smith
• "Interview with Veronica Pardo"
  Veronica Pardo is a disability arts ally and has been a disability advocate with previous leadership positions in organisations such as Arts Access Victoria and Multicultural Arts Victoria, Interview Summary Veronica Pardo, former Executive Director of Arts Access Victoria, discussed the evolution and impact of Disability Arts in Australia, detailing the political dimensions of the field and the importance of genuine representation and intersectionality. Pardo highlighted the importance of leadership transitions in arts organizations informed by a spirit of solidarity and mutual support, particularly citing Caroline Bowditch's role as significant in the sector. She emphasized a need for systems-level change within the arts to reflect true diversity, beyond tokenism, advocating for dismantling exclusive structures and creating new ones informed by those marginalized. Finally, Pardo stressed the importance of acknowledging the work of predecessors in Disability Arts to honour their legacy and inform current artistic and cultural practices.
• "Dance Me To My Song - IMDB"
  Dance me to my song' Internet Movie Database (IMDB) entry - reads, in part "A woman with cerebral palsy communicates with the world via her computer with a voice box. Her caretaker is a short-tempered woman who begrudges the woman the care she needs"
• "Focus on Ability, Short Film Festival winners list 2020"
  Focus on Ability Short Film Festival, captured 2025 - webpage listing 2020 award winners - includes IAUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND SCHOOL SECTION (Yarraville Special Developmental School (VIC) - ' I Am (Also) Robot'; Al-Taqwa College (VIC) - Ammar's Wonderful World of Dyslexia; Anxiety Holds Me Captive - Taylah Bell), AUSTRALIAN OPEN ENTRANTS (Zoe Fraser - A Gift; The Brilliant Production Team – Brilliant; Isaac Doman - I'm Still Me; Sebastian Youssef - My Brother Sam; Vanessa Star - One Size Fits All; Zoe Fraser - A Gift; Jared Hargreaves - The Girl; Sally Newman - Heart Strings)
• “Australia Council - Artists with Disability Program 2014”
  The website reads “The Artists with Disability Program provides funding for Australian artists with disability (including Deaf artists) to create, develop, present, produce, exhibit and/or tour their work”
• “Australia Council - People with a disability - attendance at cultural events 2008"
  Australia Council - People with a disability - attendance at cultural events 2008 - reads, in part "A 2003 survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that over 40 per cent of people with a disability went to the cinema. According to the 2003 Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, one in five people in Australia reported that they had a disability which restricted their everyday activities and which had lasted, or was expected to last, for at least six months."
• "Bree Hadley, Eddie Paterson, Madeleine Little, Kath Duncan (2024) How Disability Performance Travels in Australia: The Reality Under the Rhetoric. In Czymoch, Christiane, Maguire Rossier, Kate, & Schmidt, Yvonne (Eds.) How Does Disability Performance Travel?: Access, Art, and Internationalization. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, pp. 62-76.”
  "The last three decades has witnessed the development of a distinct narrative about how disability performance has become a much celebrated component of the Australian theatre landscape. A central aspect of this narrative is the critical importance of festivals, events, and other industry initiatives that allow disabled performers to travel - both conceptually and corporeally - to meet and be mentored by other artists, and to present their work to new and more mainstream audiences, in new spaces and places, around the country, and around the world. In this chapter, we draw on historical data, collected as part of an AusStage ARC LIEF project designed to database information about disability drama, theatre, performance, and dance over the past 100 years, as well as the Last Avant Garde ARC Linkage project on disability performance in Australia, to unpack areas where the reality seems to challenge some of the dominant rhetoric."
• Australian Performing Arts Market (APAM)
• "History of Queensland Theatre of the Deaf"
  History of Queensland Theatre of The Deaf. Queensland Deaf Society Superintendent Leslie Abnett’s proposal for a Queensland Theatre of the Deaf in 1974, initiated via arrangement with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust to have the National Theatre Trust perform in Brisbane and for a workshop at La Boite Theatre in 1974. Formation Founding Committee (Kerry Prior, Mary Gibbs, John O’Donnell, Leslie Abnett as Office Bearers, Lloyd Nickson as Artistic Director, Keith Puddlefoot as Technical Director, and N. Bricknell, R. Hilsdon, K. Donnell, M. Bergman, P. Arnold, A. Lynch, D. Villis as Committee Members). Company Aims, Workshops at the Queensland School for the Deaf, rehearsals for a core adult group and a junior group at the new D.M. Chadwick Hall at the Queensland Deaf Society at Newmarket in Brisbane – production history including changes in Artistic Director (from Llyod Nickson in 1975, to Nickky Bricknell in 1977, to Ken Donnell in 1979). Company technique, stated as “Our Technique is a combination of Visual Language, Sign-Mime (visual vernacular), Mime and the Spoken Word – a blending of hearing actors and conventional acting ideals with imaginative mime, expression and manual language of the Deaf.”
• "Arts Project Australia - ENews - 20120525"
  Arts Project Australia - ENews - 20120525
• "Arts Project Australia - Annual Report 1995"
• "Arts Project Australia - Annual Report 1992"
  Arts Project Australia - Annual Report 1992 - includes Aims and Objectives, President's Report, Director's Report, Scenes from the Studio Workshop, Financial Reports, Acknowledgements and Thanks, images of artists
• "Arts Project Australia - Australiana Exhibition 2017 - Email Invitation - Promotional Flyer"
  Arts Project Australia - Australiana Exhibition 2017 - Email Invitation - Promotional Flyer - reads, in part "AUSTRALIANA is a collection of functional art products devoted to monumental Australian icons, landscapes and pop-culture legends which are exclusively available from the National Gallery of Victoria from 3 February 2017, and will be later revealed at Arts Project Australia on 4 February 2017. rhe collection will be further presented at Third Drawer Down on 17 March 2017. "