Social Inclusion
Group “Let’s…” has a long history of working with vulnerable groups. Initially, these were psychological support programs for organizations working with minority populations. Later, the projects expanded into the field of artistic and activist work, which led to the creation of two programs — Body Frame and Right to Art.
Body Frame emerged from a search for an answer to the question of whether people with disabilities can be equal participants in artistic and creative processes, and how perceptions of people with disabilities would change if we encountered them in an unexpected context. With that goal in mind, we aimed to encourage collaboration between people with disabilities and choreographers and contemporary dance performers.
In inclusive contemporary dance workshops (conducted between 2008 and 2015), about six hundred and eighty people participated. All workshops were free of charge for participants and included both people with and without disabilities (deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, blind and visually impaired individuals, wheelchair users, and youth with developmental difficulties). The workshop presentations were seen by over a thousand people. The project was covered by over one hundred newspaper articles and television reports.
In addition to working in theater, we also operated in the school context. High school students do not often get the opportunity to meet and collaborate with peers with disabilities. We wanted to create opportunities for young people in primary and secondary schools to gain awareness of what is important to keep in mind when working with children and youth with disabilities. Therefore, several inclusive dance workshops were organized in elementary and high schools between 2011 and 2016.
As part of this program, three inclusive dance productions were realized — The Curve for Gauss, Reset, Hegel and a Long List of Deceptions (you can read more about them in the Archive section). All performances within this program were held in physically accessible spaces, with audio narration provided for blind and visually impaired individuals, and Serbian sign language interpretation for deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals.
As part of this program, we collaborated with various artists from Serbia and abroad — Giselle Mason (USA), Sanja Krsmanović Tasić (SRB), Boris Čakširan (SRB), Candoco Dance Company (UK), Karen Peterson (USA), Danica Arapović (SRB), as well as with numerous organizations from Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Greece, and Romania.
After the Body Frame program opened space for greater inclusion of people with disabilities in the field of contemporary dance, the Right to Art program extended that opportunity to other social groups (people facing mental health challenges, veterans of the 1991–1999 wars, LGBTQ+ individuals) and enabled their interaction with future professionals (students of the “Lujo Davičo” ballet school in Belgrade and students of social science faculties). In addition to inclusion, this program facilitates shared experience among members of multiple marginalized groups. Still, the most important goal of the program is to highlight and advocate for the right of marginalized groups to formal artistic education and full participation in the artistic life of the community.
Within this program, the following were realized:
- Kratki filmovi Pogled i Skup,
- Pozorišne produkcije Tanatos i Afanisis ili o presvlačenju,
- Video dokumentovani intervjui sa predstavnicima umetničkih fakulteta u Beogradu o mogućnostima inkluzivnog formalnog obrazovanja.