Accessibility update – The Body Is Not An Apology

 

To our valued festival goers,

Sadly, and despite best efforts by many involved in the organization and execution of the event, tonight’s The Body Is Not An Apology showcase will not feature ASL interpretation. We will instead have performed pieces being projected for the audience. We recognize this as less than ideal and a change that may significantly affect the enjoyment and participation of some audience and community members. If you have already purchased a ticket for this event and were planning to utilize the ASL interpretation, we would be happy to refund the ticket price and we offer deep apologies for this late change.

While efforts were made to arrange for this service and festival organizers and artists are deeply invested in the work of accessibility, mistakes were made in the process of executing this initiative. Verses Festival of Words and Vancouver Poetry House are committed to the task of reflection and moving forward with lessons learned from these mishaps and we have begun plans for further consultation with hopes of creating a smoother and easier means for ASL engagement for our artists, interpreters and all festival participants.

Each year we attempt to widen the scope of our anti-oppressive lens by folding in more mechanisms for accessibility. As we learn to fine tune these mechanisms and normalize their implementation within our programming we greatly appreciate your patience, support, advice and feedback.

Thank you so kindly for your understanding in this matter. We hope that you can still enjoy this event as well as the variety of programming that the festival has to offer.

As a note for future events, both of our Talk the Talk community conversations are still planned to feature ASL interpretation.

With respect,

Jillian Christmas and Pamela Bentley

Your Festival Directors