Unlimited Access is a European-wide programme designed to support best practice in the commissioning, creation, dissemination and programming of performing arts by deaf and disabled artists.
In partnership the Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance, Onassis Cultural Centre (Greece) and Vo’Arte (Portugal), and co-funded by the European Union Culture Programme, the British Council has developed a programme inspired by the Unlimited Festival of Deaf and disabled artists which formed part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012.
Unlimited Access will:
- support best practice across Europe in the commissioning, creation, and dissemination of performing arts by deaf and disabled artists
- increase and improve transnational mobility of deaf and disabled artists in Europe, and will support the presentation of excellent and ground-breaking performance
- challenge the ways deaf and disabled artists are viewed within wider European arts sectors, and will support artists to challenge and develop their own practice and the wider art form
- enhance audience engagement and appreciation of disability arts
- develop cultural leadership opportunities for deaf and disabled artists across Europe.
Unlimited Access project partners
The Croatian Institute for Movement and Dance is a not for profit organisation instrumental in pioneering and enhancing infrastructural support for independent contemporary dance and mime in Croatia. The Institute has produced and promoted several generations of Croatian dance artists contributing substantially to raising awareness for contemporary dance in Croatia as well as forging partnerships for international cultural exchange and collaboration, ensuring an increasing presence of the new generation of Croatian dance makers on international markets.
The Institute’s longest-standing project is Dance Week Festival, an annual international festival which since its inception over 30 years ago, has presented over 500 internationally acclaimed artists and companies. Dance Week Festival has made a strong contribution to positioning contemporary dance and its emerging expressions firmly on the Croatian cultural scene.
The Onassis Cultural Centre is Athens’ new cultural space hosting events and actions across the whole spectrum of the arts from theatre, dance, music and the visual arts to the written word. Their emphasis is on contemporary cultural expression, supporting Greek artists, cultivating international collaborations and educating children and people of all ages through life-long learning. Through artistic excellence across different art forms, the OCC aims to reach out to new audiences, inspiring new approaches and new perspectives.
Vo ‘Arte Association was born of the desire to produce, reveal and enhance contemporary creation, based on an assertion of artistic expression, developing national and international projects that support interchange and trans-disciplinary creation. Vo’Arte promotes creative dialogue and cultural decentralising, strengthening relations between communities and cultures, as well as enlarging and developing new audiences.
Vo’Arte recently launched InArte – International Meetings of Inclusion through the Arts – a series of seminars, performances, talks and workshops to examine and explore new ways of working and interacting with disabled people through contact with different forms of artistic expression. InArte not only positions the arts as a tool to combat social exclusion but also a means of embracing difference as part of the creative process.