Community Access to the Arts: redefining disability

CATA’S Circus Soup Comes to Town

October 20, 2005

Community Access to the Arts (CATA) will be hosting a two-week community based circus residency culminating in a Big Show performance on Friday, November 18th at 7pm at Berkshire South Regional Community Center. This is a collaborative project between the two organizations with the support of Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation. Facilitating this residency will be renowned Artistic Director, Kevin O’Keefe, creator of Circus Minimus, an organization whose mission is to develop circus based programs for schools and community organizations to help teach new skills, build self-esteem and promote teamwork in an inclusive, fun, nurturing and learning environment.

Children, teens and adult members, CATA participants, staff, and board trustees from both organizations will be joining in this residency and performance together with special guests. Admission to the performance on Friday, November 18th at 7pm at Berkshire South Regional Community Center is $10 for adults and $5 for children.

CATA Announces $5,000 Grant for Circus Residency from Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation

September 20, 2005

Community Access to the Arts (CATA) is pleased to announce that Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation has awarded a $5,000 grant to support a collaborative program between CATA and Berkshire South Regional Community Center (BSRCC).

The program titled, “Circus at the Center” is a two-week circus residency for CATA participants – individuals with diverse disabilities – and CATA staff and Board Members, community business partners, BSRCC pre-schoolers, youth and adult members, staff and Board Members. The dates of the residency at BSRCC will be November 7 through November 18, 2005 culminating with an evening community performance.

“We are very excited about this project and our growing partnership with BSRCC,” says Sandra Newman, CATA’s Founder and Executive Director, “and the impact it will have on integrating diverse community groups. Berkshire Life’s continual support of CATA’s programs and thus its mission has enabled us to move forward in numerous and meaningful ways – it is wonderful to have their support.”

Berkshire Life also recently underwrote a prior collaborative project between CATA and BSRCC, titled Healthy Arts, a series of morning programs for families with young children and individuals with developmental, physical, mental and/or emotional disabilities. The series combined entertainment from CATA’s faculty artists and swimming at Berkshire South Regional Community Center.

CATA to Be Represented at the Princeton University Art Museum

September 20, 2005

An abstract painting created by a Community Access to the Arts (CATA) participant during a two-day painting residency at CATA will be featured on Friday, September 23rd in a one-day special exhibition from 5-8pm at the highly prestigious Princeton University Art Museum. Tim Lefens who led a painting residency hosted by CATA in August has chosen this painting to be included in his show titled A.R.T. It is the first ever outside exhibition to gain access to the museum. A.R.T. stands for Artistic Realization Technology.

David Gardner, whose painting will be exhibited, is a CATA participant and artist. Tim Lefens, who worked with Gardner and other CATA participants, uses a technique that enables individuals with disabilities to create amazing large-scale paintings with trained laser guided tracking and other exacting technologies. As a part of this residency, two of CATA’s faculty artists received training in Lefens’ pioneering technique.

Prior to traveling to the Princeton University Art Museum, David’s painting was on exhibition at CATA’s Annual Art Show titled I Am A Part of Art which opened on August 20th. This show will be open through September 14th at the CATA galleries located on 40 Railroad Street, Great Barrington.

CATA Announces Theme for the 2005/2006 Program Year

September 20, 2005

Community Access to the Arts (CATA) will commence its 2005/2006 program year on September 19th with the theme Cirque Oh So CATA – a year that promises to be full of feats, humor and dazzling acts of artistry and humanity! A small sampling of workshops that will be offered include:

ARTticulations – Visual arts with assorted roustabout faculty held at the CATA studio

The Troupers/Shakespeare Players – A series of workshops led by Shakespeare & Company actors

CATA Notte – Visual arts by rotating faculty for CATA participants that work during the day

Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease – Dance with Dawn Lane

Ballyhoos & Segues – Weekly singing and drumming classes with Vikki True

Community Access to the Arts is a non-profit arts organization that seeks to lessen the stigma of difference and disability through shared experiences in the visual and performing arts. Founded by Sandra Newman in 1993 with a single, initial workshop for 12 women, CATA now offers over 1,000 workshops each year in therapeutic, healthcare, educational, eldercare, cultural and community settings for over 500 individuals with disabilities and employing 24 faculty artists.

Last year, CATA was chosen by the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) to be a Creative Teaching Partner. The MCC Teaching Partners Program connects schools, cultural groups and social service organizations with outstanding artists. To be chosen, an organization must have considerable experience working in schools, and the organization’s artists must show an ongoing commitment to professional development that enhances both their artistic and pedagogical skills.

CATA Presents For Heaven’s Sake – An Independent Movement Event Choreographed and Directed by Dawn Lane

September 7, 2005

Celebrating 25 years of choreographic artistry, Dawn Lane, renowned choreographer, dancer, educator and program director for Community Access to the Arts (CATA) marks this special occasion with a new production, For Heaven’s Sake, premiering at the Berkshire Theater Festival’s Unicorn Theater on October 28th, 29th and 30th.

During this 25-year period, Lane has produced over thirty works including Labels Not Included, Shebang and The Round Pegs Square Whole Project. For Heaven’s Sake continues her journey with a look at the commonality of death and dying. With a backdrop of video projections from the Stockbridge cemetery filmed by John Whalan of Black Ice Entertainment, Lane and her dancers provide poignant and by turns humorous peeks at just some of the routes taken to that one common destination. Depicting as the piece develops heaven as an open, inclusive place, one that neatly suggests that dying is sad only for those who are still living.

Says Lane, “With all that is misunderstood, all that is shameful today in the world, I want to make a statement about the common ground, about what unites us in an unknown place… to consider the present as practice for the future, to ponder that after catastrophes, illnesses or accidents come light, trust, humor, sharing and acceptance… my intentions are positive and optimistic, neither morbid nor religious. I want to peel back preconceived notions around what many of us fear most.”

The cast includes Lorimer Burns, Jane Goodrich, Dawn Lane, Bettina Montano, Susannah Millonzi and members of Community Access to the Arts’ Moving Company. Performances – October 28th and 29th at 8pm and October 30th at 2pm; General seating – $20. For tickets and information please call the Unicorn Theatre on 413-298-5536 ext. 33.

CATA Presents Annual Art Show I Am A Part of A.R.T.

July 6, 2005

Community Access to the Arts (CATA) welcomes Artist Tim Lefens for a painting residency with CATA participants with severe disabilities. Lefens’ stay will culminate in CATA’s annual art show — I Am a Part of A.R.T. — August 20th at the CATA Gallery, 40 Railroad Street, Great Barrington, from 5-7pm and featuring a talk with Lefens at 6:30pm.

Lefens’ non-profit organization — Artistic Realization Technologies (A.R.T.) — has pioneered the use of lasers to help people with disabilities create amazing large-scale paintings. Trained studio facilitators, Lefens refers to as trackers, will execute the visions of CATA participants with laser-guided tracking and other exacting technologies. According to Lefens, clients indicate precise selections concerning tools, materials and placement of these materials, and trackers follow these directions with absolute fidelity.

Lefens will work with four CATA participants with developmental disabilities that are non-ambulatory and require wheelchairs for mobility; two of them have visual deficits that severely compromise their field of vision. All of the participants have limited use of their upper extremities, making holding a paintbrush in a traditional way either very difficult or impossible. Deborah Caiola, Director of Berkshire County ARC’s Center for Development – a day program in which three of these individuals participate — explains that this population “requires an adaptive approach for success.” Caiola, in anticipation of Lefen’s residency, stated: “Creative, outside the ordinary, adaptive art…what could be better?”

The paintings created during Lefens’ residency will be displayed during CATA’s annual art show — I Am A Part of A.R.T — along with a selection of other work from the 2004-2005 program year completed under the direction of CATA Faculty Artists Cynthia Atwood, Susie Hardcastle, Pat Hogan, Leslie Klein, Marlene Marshall, Caitlin Nash, Senta Reis, Gabrielle Senza, Janice Shields & Michael Wolski.

Artistic Realization Technologies has been featured on CNN, CBS Evening News, in The New York Times, and in American Artist magazine.