Making a CoMotion

Abstract:The inaugural CoMotion: A Deaf and Disability Arts Festival at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre from 20 April to 1 May 2022, curated by blind theatre artist Alex Bulmer, presented six live and four digital performances, six visual arts exhibitions, and four panels and conversations, a Q&A with Bulmer, and an “every-body-can-dance” workshop. The festival featured blind, Deaf, and neurodivergent artists, amputees, stutterers, and those with chronic pain or fatigue or with degenerative diseases. Some of the work served primarily a community-building function, some adhered to the familiar disability genres of the tragic or inspirational, but most celebrated the disability artist’s refusal of both exclusion and inclusion. The best of the festival’s offerings were not about overcoming disabilities but about joyful, if clear-eyed, engagement with the opportunities disability can offer.