SESSION 3
AUDIENCES WITH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES
Friday 16 July, 11.30am - 1.30pm - Online
Access Coventry is a series of online training sessions targeted at professional artists and the small-scale independent arts sector based in Coventry and Warwickshire.
These training sessions are aimed at equipping artists with knowledge and practical strategies to provide for different audiences with different access needs.
This fourth session in our series focuses on D/deaf / Deaf / deaf and hard of hearing audiences.
Keynote speakers include:
Ben Pettitt-Wade – Hijinx Theatre
​
Hijinx is one of the UK’s leading theatre companies with an international reputation for excellence. Learning disabled and/or autistic artists are at the heart of their work which constantly challenges perceptions of what theatre can be and how it should be made.
​
Ben Pettitt-Wade is the artistic director of Hijinx Theatre and will share his experience of making work accessible to learning disabled and/or autistic artists and audiences.
Participants From - Open Theatre
​
Open Theatre work exclusively with young people with learning difficulties across the West Midlands and beyond to advance full and fair access for this still marginalised group of people and to create a more diverse, multi-faceted and coordinated cultural offer within the region.
​
We will be joined by participants and artists of the organisation who will share with us the barriers they face when engaging with culture and what we might be able to do to break these barriers down.
Our speakers will be sharing their knowledge and experiences of common barriers audiences from lower economic backgrounds may encounter and how they are working towards overcoming these. At the end of the session, you will gain an understanding of good practice and identify some simple steps to take to make your events more accessible.
Each training session is designed to help you up-skill and increase your understanding of the experiences or access needs of audiences. To get the most out of this course we encourage you to attend as many of the events as you can.
Access Coventry is the first step of many on our citywide journey of creating a manifesto aimed at making Coventry a more accessible place to experience culture.