ART IS NOT A MIRROR WITH WHICH TO REFLECT
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Mat Fraser
Michelle Thrush
Kazumi Tsuruoka
Chandra Melting Tallow
Alan Shain
Andy Blau
Lyle Victor Albert
Fleetwood Legay
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WELCOME TO STAGE LEFT
An Arts-based Social Justice Movement Stage Left Productions is a grassroots, Popular Theatre company of diverse artists and non-artists/ catalysts of change who create pathways to systemic equity – in and through the arts. Our teams promote equity & diversity, provide support services for still-excluded artists and community groups, and produce radical forms of Political Art: Radical: A socially-engaged way of living that... 1. Departs sharply from the usual or ordinary; 2. Attends to the root causes of systemic oppression; and 3. Relates to or affects the fundamental nature of something. Political Art: A socially-engaged form of art that... 1. Reveals deeper truths about social conditions; 2. Awakens personal and political sensitivities; and 3. Motivates passive spectators to become active spect-actors.* CURRENT PROGRAMMING Production 1. Closet Freaks: A highly original QueerCrip production; premiering at GCTC (2022/23) 2. Urban Interventions: Site-specific pop-up social justice encounters (aka anonymous street art) Advocacy & Support Services 3. CCEDA: Regional advocacy for increased cultural & systemic equity in Calgary's arts & culture sector 4. DDMAAC: National Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts support services, education, consultation and advocacy Training & Education 5. Full Spectrum: Arts equity training, education, consulting & advocacy 6. Creative Justice: Applied Theatre of the Oppressed, currently as artist-in-residence to UCalgary's ILGHO. High-Impact Activities 7. Dis/Patches: 30 years of earned Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts knowledge, from the bottom up (Dec 2022) 8. Step Right Up: A Practice-focused Disability Theatre Symposium (2022/23) COMPANY PROFILE Intercultural Identities. Interlocking Inequities. Interdisciplinary Solidarity. Federally, we operate as a National Arts Support Organization for Canada's Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts domain; but because it's the most diverse in the arts sector, we have a unique social justice focus (the prioritization of Reconciliation, decolonization, anti-racism, disability justice, anti-oppression and non-normalization in arts equity). Provincially, we operate as a Community Arts Support Organization, by cultivating multiple conduits of connection and collaboration between the arts and non-arts sectors. Municipally, we operate as an Arts Service Organization for diverse artists who seek autonomy over inclusion. We strive to fill a niche in the arts sector, by attending to the artistic, aesthetic, cultural *and* socio-political concerns of marginalized artists whose work is not upheld by established notions of what art itself is suppose to be. We instead challenge those hegemonic perceptions of artistic excellence with aesthetic innovation. We thus support socially and culturally diverse artists to disrupt colonial artistic traditions, the values they reflect and the aesthetics they've embedded in the collective Canadian psyche – through non-normativity. We're based out of Calgary but make regional, national and international impact, through vibrant networks of artists, arts workers and activists, who unite around a solidarity of shared purpose: Advancing social justice, for all protected classes of people (as per prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act). Over the past 20 years (and counting!) we've established ourselves as a major contributor to Deaf, Disability & Mad Arts, a global Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed, daring innovators of non-normative aesthetics and potent systemic-change advocates. * Our thanks to Augusto Boal, for this framing and for endorsing us as a Centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed in 2005 (Theatre of the Oppressed is a potent form of Popular Theatre). |
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
As a Calgary-based company, Stage Left respects the lands we operate on as the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (The Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai Nations), Ĩyãħé Nakoda (Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley First Nations) and Tsuuti'na Nation. We also acknowledge Calgary as the home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. This land, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, has long been called Mohkinsstsis by the Blackfoot, Wîchîspa by the Nakoda, and Guts’ists’i by Tsuut’ina.
(Refer to Why Do We Acknowledge Treaty Land?, with our thanks to The Immigrant Education Society.)
TRUTH & RECONCILIATION
Stage Left acknowledges that Canada's Treaty obligations have not been honoured and works daily to uphold good relations and advocate for the Truth & Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action.
ACCESS
We acknowledge that website accessibility requires a great deal of individualized accommodation, which we cannot satisfy. We regret that we lack the resources to provide website accessibility – especially as we are a company of artists who all live with some form of impairment. We apologize for not yet being able to secure the funding needed to bridge this digital divide.
Please take your concerns about this inequity to the Canada Council for the Arts, not us. Each year, we submit a request for the full amount of accommodation funding we need for our teams, collaborators, and public outreach (95% of whom live with some form of socially-imposed impairment). Each year, we receive less that 25% of the accommodation funding we require.
SITE VIEWING
Stage Left's websites are built for desktop platforms, as a means of increasing accessibility for our collaborators with intellectual disabilities. Design glitches will show up when viewed on portable devices. If available on your device, "request desktop site" may make the site easier to access.
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos are used with permission, from the artists and community members we've collaborated with. Individual photo credits are available on request, with our apologies to artists and photographers for prioritizing increased accessibility for some members of the public over your right to proper public acknowledgement.
As a Calgary-based company, Stage Left respects the lands we operate on as the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (The Blackfoot Confederacy, which includes the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai Nations), Ĩyãħé Nakoda (Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley First Nations) and Tsuuti'na Nation. We also acknowledge Calgary as the home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III. This land, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, has long been called Mohkinsstsis by the Blackfoot, Wîchîspa by the Nakoda, and Guts’ists’i by Tsuut’ina.
(Refer to Why Do We Acknowledge Treaty Land?, with our thanks to The Immigrant Education Society.)
TRUTH & RECONCILIATION
Stage Left acknowledges that Canada's Treaty obligations have not been honoured and works daily to uphold good relations and advocate for the Truth & Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action.
ACCESS
We acknowledge that website accessibility requires a great deal of individualized accommodation, which we cannot satisfy. We regret that we lack the resources to provide website accessibility – especially as we are a company of artists who all live with some form of impairment. We apologize for not yet being able to secure the funding needed to bridge this digital divide.
Please take your concerns about this inequity to the Canada Council for the Arts, not us. Each year, we submit a request for the full amount of accommodation funding we need for our teams, collaborators, and public outreach (95% of whom live with some form of socially-imposed impairment). Each year, we receive less that 25% of the accommodation funding we require.
SITE VIEWING
Stage Left's websites are built for desktop platforms, as a means of increasing accessibility for our collaborators with intellectual disabilities. Design glitches will show up when viewed on portable devices. If available on your device, "request desktop site" may make the site easier to access.
PHOTO CREDITS
All photos are used with permission, from the artists and community members we've collaborated with. Individual photo credits are available on request, with our apologies to artists and photographers for prioritizing increased accessibility for some members of the public over your right to proper public acknowledgement.
