DaDaFest, which aims to inspire, develop and celebrate talent and excellence in disability and deaf arts, has announced the line-up for its 30th anniversary festival.

The Liverpool-based organisation celebrates disability and deaf arts from all over the world through comedy, film, music, dance and visual arts.

Its anniversary will be marked with a new “thinking and ideas” strand, looking to forge the link between disability arts, social justice and human rights. This year’s speakers will include Sir Peter Bazalgette, chair of Arts Council England; and Dr Chris Smit of Calvin College.

Ruth Gould, DaDaFest artistic director said:

“With 30 years’ experience working in disability and deaf arts, we continue to pioneer and bring about social change through championing disabled and deaf artists from across the world. We have provided new platforms and developed both disabled and non-disabled audiences.”

“We want to use this knowledge and experience to inform the national debate on the position of disabled people and the need for continuing social change. The recent cuts in public spending have hit disabled people particularly hard, and while DaDaFest is all about celebrating the talents and achievement of our artists, we continue to actively highlight the need for social inclusion and justice.”

An exhibition entitled Art of The Lived Experiment has been commissioned to illustrate this change. It was created by DaDaFest in collaboration with the Bluecoat, curated by Aaron Williams. It will include 9 new commissions, 6 reworks and 28 artists from around the world, with a range of artistic formats including sculpture, film, installation, painting, prints and performance works.

For more information on this year’s programme, visit www.dadafest.co.uk/the-festival/programme/

Source Prolific North

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