Sensory-Friendly Morning is a free program for all people who benefit from visiting the MCA without large crowds and other sensitive environmental elements. This includes visitors with sensory sensitivities, disabilities, autism, PTSD, dementia, and more. On these mornings, lighting at the museum is dimmed, sounds from artworks and environmental noise is kept at a minimum, and a quiet space is available to visitors for breaks. During Sensory-Friendly Mornings, preregistered individuals and their families can visit the museum to explore exhibitions at their own pace, and join a Chicago-based artist for a sensory-friendly art-making experience. The museum is closed to the general public until 11:30 am; at that time, the lights and artworks return to usual operations.
Sensory-Friendly Morning aims to be a welcoming space to experience contemporary art in a judgment-free environment.
Accessibility: sensory-friendly, ASL interpreted, captioning, low lighting, quiet room, Spanish captioning, wheelchair accessible
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/sensory-friendly-morning-6/
Please join us for a communal dialog with award-winning artist Barak adé Soleil and members of the local Black and Brown neurodiverse and disabled community who are part of adé Soleil’s newly commissioned work SHIFT.
SHIFT, a multidisciplinary project for the MCA’s Frictions series, has two components:
An installation located on the first floor of the MCA during the performance’s run, intentionally next to a spiraling staircase that goes up to the museum’s fourth floor. Barak is creating a film that will be installed and projected onto a diamond-like platform. In this dreamlike video installation, bodies both at rest and as they shift are visible onscreen at life-size and larger-than-life scale. The presence of Black neurodiverse and disabled bodies is amplified from many angles, infiltrating the architecture of the museum’s iconic public stairwell. Whereas these bodies might otherwise be violently misinterpreted as either lazy or near death, adé Soleil offers rest—and the intimacy of everyday gestures—as forms of political resistance for Black people.
A gathering on Saturday, May 6, where members of the Disability community will join adé Soleil in a “promenade” throughout the museum’s public areas; at times they will ascend the staircases and take up space to make visible and apparent the power of community presence. The use of the word promenade is intentional, drawing from its definition: “to take a leisurely public walk, ride, [wheel] or drive so as to meet or be seen by others.”
SHIFT is curated by Tara Aisha Willis, Curator of Performance & Public Practice at the MCA.
Access Information
ASL interpretation, CART captioning, and live audio description are provided. AD devices are available at the museum, and audience members may also use their personal devices to access the audio description through a URL provided on-site.
This event has relaxed viewing protocols and sensory-friendly lighting.
ASL provided.Audio description available.Haptic elements used.
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/talk-barak-ade-soleil-with-shift-performers/
Sensory-Friendly Morning is a free program for all people who benefit from visiting the MCA without large crowds and other sensitive environmental elements. This includes visitors with sensory sensitivities, disabilities, autism, PTSD, dementia, and more. On these mornings, lighting at the museum is dimmed, sounds from artworks and environmental noise is kept at a minimum, and a quiet space is available to visitors for breaks. During Sensory-Friendly Mornings, preregistered individuals and their families can visit the museum to explore exhibitions at their own pace, and join a Chicago-based artist for a sensory-friendly art-making experience. The museum is closed to the general public until 11:30 am; at that time, the lights and artworks return to usual operations.
Sensory-Friendly Morning aims to be a welcoming space to experience contemporary art in a judgment-free environment.
Accessibility: Sensory-Friendly. ASL Interpretation
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/sensory-friendly-morning-5/
LabE is a series of monthly cohort meetings addressing particular needs of disabled dance artists.
The LabE gathering on April 2nd is designed to be a safe, disability-centric space where artists can come together to share a work-in-progress, try out new ideas, workshop concepts, and experiment with new scores. Hosted by Maggie Bridger, this inclusive event is open to all artists who seek a supportive community where they can connect with peers who share similar experiences and offer and receive support, encouragement, and constructive feedback.
This gathering aims to foster community connections among Deaf, disabled, sick, neurodivergent, and Mad artists while providing a platform for artists to explore their creativity and showcase their unique perspectives.
In-progress projects will be presented by Sydney Erlikh & Deb Goodman.
If you are an artist who is interested in showcasing your art or working through new ideas, please reach out to Maggie at mbridg8@uic.edu to participate in this event.
LabE is open to all Chicago-area dance artists who self-identify as Deaf/deaf/hard of hearing, sick, mad, neurodivergent, disabled or living with a disability, and/or who have lived experience with disability or impairment. This space is particularly meant for those interested in exploring disability and impairment-informed modes of practicing dance.
Additional Access Information is available at https://highconceptlabs.org/news-2/labe-launches-at-experimental-station. For any other questions or requests regarding accessibility accommodations, please contact HCL’s Accessibility Coordinator, Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla (yolanda@highconceptlabs.org).
Accessibility: captioning, sensory-friendly, quiet spaces, wheelchair accessible
Sensory-Friendly Morning at the MCA is a free, sensory-friendly program for neurodiverse visitors of all ages. Preregistered individuals and their families can visit the museum before it opens to the public and explore exhibitions at their own pace. Lobby lights are less intense and a quiet space is available for breaks.
Sensory-Friendly Morning aims to be a welcoming space to experience contemporary art in a judgment-free environment.
https://mcachicago.org/Calendar/2021/01/Sensory-Friendly-Morning#about-this-event
Disney Theatrical Productions and Broadway in Chicago are proud to offer a sensory-friendly performance of Disney’s THE LION KING. With the partnership of Aspire, local nonprofit experts in disability inclusion, the show will be performed in a supportive and judgment-free environment.
This event is open to the public, but customary theater rules will be relaxed. Audience members can stand, move, talk and make noise as needed.
Accommodations include:
-House lights left on at a low level
-Trained volunteers and professionals on hand
-Sensory support encouraged and available
-Designated quiet spaces
-Lower sound levels, especially startling or loud sounds
-Open Captions available
Ticket prices start at $33 and can be purchased online at: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/07005CA3F57D44F8
Patrons may also call (312) 977-1700 (press 5)
OR
TTY: (800) 359-2525
OR
Email accessbility@broadwayinchicago.com
For groups of 10+, call Broadway in Chicago Group Sales (312) 977-1710
On September 16, 2022, Snow City Arts will host hundreds of guests from Chicago’s philanthropic, medical, corporate, and artistic communities. A ‘reception’ for all ages! Guests will enjoy a sit-down dinner with a unique art experience, where the work of hundreds of our young, aspiring artists, will be professionally exhibited. Snow City Arts will be honoring the Child Life Staff at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, Rush University Children’s Hospital & Children’s Hospital University of Illinois with the 2022 Neisser Award. This celebration will include performances, auction and special guests appearances! We hope we can count on you to make this year a truly memorable Gallery Night.
https://snowcityarts.org/gallerynight2022/
On September 16, 2022, Snow City Arts will host hundreds of guests from Chicago’s philanthropic, medical, corporate, and artistic communities. A ‘reception’ for all ages! Guests will enjoy a sit-down dinner with a unique art experience, where the work of hundreds of our young, aspiring artists, will be professionally exhibited. Snow City Arts will be honoring the Child Life Staff at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, Rush University Children’s Hospital & Children’s Hospital University of Illinois with the 2022 Neisser Award. This celebration will include performances, auction and special guests appearances! We hope we can count on you to make this year a truly memorable Gallery Night.
Wired is an immense and intimate experience that traces the fine line between “us” and “them” through aerial and contemporary dance and the metaphoric use of barbed wire. The dancers of Wired spin and soar together in this meditation in sound, light, and movement on the gendered, racial, and disability stories of barbed wire in the United States, showing how this material shapes common understandings of who belongs. Barbed wire is designed as a material for containment. It is used, time and again, to limit individual and community movements and delineate boundaries as large as a nation state and as small as a personal fence. In Wired, this fraught material comes to highlight not only danger and contradiction, but also beauty and interconnection.
To create Wired, the artists of Kinetic Light—Alice Sheppard, Laurel Lawson, Jerron Herman, and Michael Maag—and their collaborators—composers Ailís Ní Ríain and LeahAnn Mitchell and scenic designer Josephine Shokrian—defy both gravity and assumptions about what dance can be. The artists of Kinetic Light see interdependence as a political position as well as an approach to making dance from a disability aesthetic: in which disability is a powerful creative and cultural force, and the many ways of accessing the performance are the art itself.
ASL interpretation and AD are available for all shows. There is no spoken dialogue in Wired. Audio description is available through Kinetic Light’s app, Audimance. More information will be provided to ticketholders by email in advance. Orientation to and demonstration of the app will be available in the lobby prior to all shows, along with a tactile exhibit that serves as an introduction to the Wired set, props, costumes, and theatrical elements.
Wired content and artistry will remain the same for all performances. The show shares many aspects of MCA’s Relaxed Performances. Audience members are welcome to exit and reenter.
Light haze is present in certain sections. There are no strobe lighting effects. Quiet spaces and stimulation kits are available for all performances.
The show will be livestreamed on Saturday, including ASL, with one channel being audio described. Friday and Sunday’s performances will offer an alternative lighting design.