"Clubs are often totally inaccessible physically, but also for people that are neurodivergent or people that are navigating in different ways," said Marcos, a California resident.
Marcos was one of dozens of people who took part in "An Evening of Access Magic" at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in July. It included a silent disco, American Sign Language song-signing and live caption performances. Community organizer Kevin Gotkin conducted some of the live captions which he referred to as "a director's cut." It offered background and context of the sounds for audience members who may be deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or who have low vision. "People may not know that the classic club song 'Show Me Love' by Robin Stone, which Beyonce just sampled in her new song. That was recorded when the singer had the flu. And so you can kind of actually hear it. And then I wonder now in COVID times, if that kind of connects us to an aesthetics of the sound," said Gotkin. Lincoln Center aimed to provide access to the arts to the widest audience possible to celebrate Disability Pride Month during July. "We really believe that the arts are central for our healing as a society and that they should be available to every single New Yorker. And you shouldn't be kept out of that equation because of a disability. So we're making sure that we're as open to all of New York as we can be," said Shanta Thake, Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center. The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra performances, also held in July, were made accessible for the first time through haptics or vibrations from wearable backpacks, wrist and ankle bracelets provided by "Music: Not Impossible." The devices can translate music to 24 different points of contact. The company said people from the deaf and hard of hearing community would typically use a balloon or other object to feel the vibrations but that didn't give the participant the full experience. "So in essence, what you get is the arrangement of the music in your body, the composition," explained Flavia Naslausky, head of business development and strategy, at Music: Not impossible. Seth Gore decided to try the backpack at the silent disco which he said helped him "to feel music through the beats." "You know, I don't buy these kind of vests. So to be able to come here and experience this and have that, whole experience is really nice. But many deaf people maybe you know, don't have that experience. It's nice to have that here," Gore said through a sign language interpreter. Lincoln Center will hold an ASL production of "Sweeney Todd" on 31st July to wrap up its month-long series of events. Although, the organization said it provides year round accessible programming to people living with disabilities and constantly strives to make arts more accessible to the general public.
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Katie VasquezEnthusiastic storyteller passionate about entertainment, travel and food. Archives
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