Keynote speeches presented by Jenny Sealey, MBE on both days of Accessible Arts’ Arts Activated National Conference are now available online.
The second Arts Activated National Conference, held at the Powerhouse Museum at the end of March 2010, bought together 350 people over two days, from across Australia and overseas.
A range of young artists with disability from across Australia and New Zealand attended the Arts Activated National Conference as presenters, performers and delegates.
An information booth and staff from the Australia Council for the Arts will be available at the Arts Activated National Conference for all delegates to drop by, have a chat and pick up relevant information about their current programs and services.
A disability service in the eastern suburbs of Sydney has registered more than half of its Day Service staff to attend the Arts Activated National Conference at the Powerhouse Museum in March 2010. Eleven staff from Miroma will attend the conference as part of their staff development and general training.News
To Be or Not To Be Excellent – Arts Activated National Conference 2010
Registrations are open and filling fast for the Arts Activated National Conference – a conference offering workshops, papers and presentations from across the nation and overseas, to provoke debate and discussion about ‘excellence’ in arts and disability.
The keynote speaker at the conference, Jenny Sealey MBE, is a high profile international voice in arts and disability. With ten years as Artistic Director of Graeae Theatre, the UK’s leading theatre company for people with disability and Artistic Advisor to Unlimited, the UK’s largest ever cultural disability program associated with London’s 2012 Olympics, Jenny’s address will set the tone for the conference theme Arts – Access - Excellence.
The conference is providing a platform for those in Australia who have also achieved highly in their art form, either as artists with disability or producers of significant arts and cultural events by or with people with disability.
Janelle Colquhoun, Brisbane based opera singer, international arts and disability speaker and founder of entertainment and production agency Salubrious Productions, will present the paper "To Be or Not To Be Excellent." Janelle poses the question,"Are we using 'disability' in our marketing and promotion as the excuse for being something less?"
Janelle will also perform at the conference. Her career as an opera singer has included full-time contracts with the Australian Opera, Opera Queensland and Opera Frankfurt. She has performed to audiences of up to 20,000 receiving standing ovations across the globe and performing with Dame Joan Sutherland in her farewell season at the Sydney Opera House and with the 2009 American Idol runner up Elliot Yamin in Montreal.
As founder of Salubrious Productions, Janelle's career has progressed and diversified to include the production of more than 900 shows, including concerts, art exhibtions, launches, pantomimes and cabarets.
Janelle has presented at conferences such as International Diabetes Federation World Congress in Paris and Montreal and has published over 100 arts, disability and health articles, drawing on her experience of being a successful practicing artist, producer and arts access advocate with personal experience of diabetes and blindness.