Arts Activities Support

Participation included forty six (46) people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, 31 people without disabilities, and 490 general audience members. Addressing each of our three goals: Goal 1--Participation: We had strong participation, increasing throughout the program period from about 40 at the first rehearsal, to the last few averaging closer to 50. People were enthusiastic about being there, evidenced by them inviting other friends to attend, suggesting songs to sing, suggesting places where we might perform next year, asking to make a CD, asking "Can I sing a solo on this song?" These were all frequent observations. And new relationships were and continue to be made. One member said, "This is the only place where I can make an actual friendship with someone with a disability, and I'm not seen as the helper, or support staff, or authority. We're just equals having fun. So we look forward to seeing each other and singing together. Goal 2--Lifting up Advocating Change Together's vision: The People's Chorus successfully spread the mission of disability equality in both our performances and our rehearsals. We educated and empowered our members and audience through the words of the songs. We also lifted up the mission of community integration by modeling it in who we are as an integrated arts group performing. For example, at a December performance, one audience member said, "I've been coming to performances at Hamline for 25 years, and this is the most powerful thing I’ve ever seen." Through our singing songs of power and liberation, as an integrated group that includes people with intellectual disabilities, the People's Chorus is displaying power and pride and "ordinary person-ness." Goal 3--Building leaders: Twenty seven (27) people with disabilities played leadership roles: 17 sang a solo or lead a call response song, 4 served as welcomers to greet members as they arrive, 14 spoke up to offer ideas for how to perform a song, how to do it better, how to make rehearsals run more smoothly. Yes, we successfully reached our intended community of adults with developmental disabilities and their allies without disabilities. IN this now our second year, we are noticing how important this singing opportunity is for the core members. They look forward to it. They look forward to singing, they look forward to seeing other members. This is truly an open and integrated arts group. We do have the challenge of getting equal participation numbers from people without disabilities. (See Project Changes, below). As for promoting community diversity: We were the first disability group to participate in Hamline's theater for social justice day, which brought a new diversity to that annual arts/theater event. We were also the first developmental disability group to perform at the Macalester Plymouth Church's Sunday service. [Note: this is the organization at whose building we meet and rehearse.] They invited us to present at their Sunday service as a relationship-building opportunity between them and us. After the service, their music director asked if we could host a joint rehearsal with their choir and ours. We were successful in making this an open accessible artistic opportunity. About 25 % of members arrive using metro mobility or city bus. 5 members use wheelchairs and were able to fully participate, as the venues of rehearsal and performance, and the methods included them fully. Indeed, two members who use motorized chairs for movement and use synthetic speech devices to "talk" actually were the song leaders for a call response song called "We Are the Ones." It is a song in a call/echo format, where the leader sings a line, everyone echoes it back, continuing back and forth. Having this type of leadership at a public singing performance is truly transformative for everyone, audience and chorus members. It's a rare opportunity to experience total and never before experienced equality and shared humanity--without the sympathy and pity so often sullying any attempt to create peer connections between people with disabilities and their friends and allies and general public. Singing and participatory art is a perfect format for helping this happen.