The Kennedy Center for Performing Arts

This is beyond exciting.  So, while I was researching various ideas related to this topic, I came upon the Kennedy Center.  Not the Space Center, but the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.  It is located in DC and is a major institution for performing arts education and creation.  What is super cool for our purposes is that they have an offshoot, the VSA, which focuses on the intersection of the arts and disability.

From their website it states: "VSA, the international organization on arts and disability, was founded more than 35 years ago by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to provide arts and education opportunities for people with disabilities and increase access to the arts for all.

With 52 international affiliates and a network of nationwide affiliates, VSA is providing arts and education programming for youth and adults with disabilities around the world.

Four principles guide VSA programs and affiliates:

• Every young person with a disability deserves access to high quality arts learning experiences.
• All artists in schools and art educators should be prepared to include students with disabilities in their instruction.
• All children, youth, and adults with disabilities should have complete access to cultural facilities and activities.
• All individuals with disabilities who aspire to careers in the arts should have the opportunity to develop appropriate skills."

What is even coooooler, is that they have an educational conference every year!  Say whaaa?!  Here is a link to the page about their conference.  "The first annual VSA Intersections: Arts and Special Education Conference took place in 2013 in Washington, DC. VSA Intersections addresses topics such as research, practice, program development, curricula, and policy and places them all at the intersection of arts education and special education. The conference works to bring together those who work towards improving the education of students with disabilities in and through the arts."

Some of the topics covered at the 2016 conference were Developing Art Museum Education for Students with SPED, Creating Accessible Theatre, Movement, Using Theatre to Talk About Bullying, Eliminating the Fear of Writing, Technology for Accessible Music Ed, and Introduction to AAC (which I would have loved to go to.  I am still trying to figure out how AAC fits into a theatre classroom).  

These are my people!  They are discussing and doing the work I want to do!  It is so awesome that this is a real thing, that I am not the only one in the world that thinks theatre and special education have a connection and can help one another.  Anyway, my hope is to go to their 2017 conference and learn as much as I possibly can.

There are other theatre based conferences (AATE has one, as does USITT) but the Kennedy Center is the most reputable one on SPED and The Arts.