Access Advisory
Throughout the year, Luminato’s Access Advisory meets regularly to consult on all the projects that are part of the 2024 Luminato Festival, as well as providing training sessions to Luminato staff and team members.
Hope-Adina Adler
Hope-Adina Adler (they/them) is a Two Spirit multi-disciplinary artist. They are an Inuit and Métis person as well as Jewish. You can typically find them either at a burlesque show or protest, or both at the same time. They are a disability advocate, especially for ostomates and other disabilities, and the intersections of identity within those communities.
Natasha “Courage” Bacchus
Natasha “Courage” Bacchus is a very active multidisciplinary artist and former three times gold medalist Deaf Olympian Sprinter. Her theatre, TV, and Film performances include Shaw Host Talk (2014), ‘The Black Drum’ with Soulpepper Theatre (2019) in Toronto and France, ‘The Two Natasha’s’ (2020) comedy performed in art festivals, ‘21 Black Futures’ produced by Obsidian Theatre and CBC Arts, (2021), mini-TV series ‘The Coroner’ season four on Netflix (2022). She has participated in cabaret events including the 2019 ASL Deaf Drag Performance at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto, Ontario.
Her areas of expertise include interdisciplinary visual arts, art accessibility consultation for Deaf LGBTQ/racialized/marginalized Indigenous, Black, People of Colour, sign language translation for theatre, interpretation and promotional vlogs, panelist and presenter for workshops, emerging art curator, and activist for Indigenous and Black Deaf art community to expand Indigenous and Black Deaf artists representation. Courage has participated as an art collaborator with numerous theatre and film productions focusing on breaking down barriers for Indigenous and Black Deaf Artists in Canada.
She has participated in Leelee Oluwatoyosi Eko Davis and Donna Michelle Bernard's method of social justice community. Natasha was one of the winners of Canada Top 100 Black Women to Watch by the Canada International Black Women Event (CIBWE) 2019.
She continues her journey of self-discovery in her art.
Art Gunter
Arthur Gunter (he/him) is a profoundly deaf former Hamilton, Ontario native who after extensive travels, now resides in Toronto. A graduate of Humber College’s AAS Rehabilitation program, Art is a Rehabilitation Worker/Counselor helping people with disabilities to improve their job opportunities and living skills. He is an active community member, advocating for employment and Disability Rights. He has a vibrant interest in the arts and culture community and hopes to increase awareness of people with disabilities, including the Deaf/Hard of Hearing, so more can enjoy the experiences of arts and culture in society. He believes strongly in equality and human rights laws. He is also a freelance Hospitality trainer, which involves working with people with disabilities for employment in the Hospitality Industry.
Jack Hawk
Jack Hawk (he/him) is an arts worker, emerging curator, consultant, and astrologer, whose practices of activism, arts work, and divination are rooted in decolonial disruption, disability justice, and queer liberation. Currently, Jack is the outreach coordinator at Tangled Art + Disability, where he curates the vitrine exhibition space and has led several large-scale projects to connect and support artists and arts practitioners. He is also a leading consultant in relaxed performance, counting the Stratford Festival, Grand Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times, and Tarragon Theatre among his many clients.
Sean Lee
Sean Lee (he/they) is an artist and curator exploring the assertion of disability art as the last avant-garde. His methodology explores crip cultural practices as a means to resist normative idealities. Orienting towards a “crip horizon”, Sean’s practice explores the transformative possibilities of access aesthetics as an embodied politic that can desire the ways disability disrupts.
Sean is currently the Director of Programming at Tangled Art + Disability. He holds a B.A. in Arts Management and Studio from UTSC. Sean is also an independent curator, lecturer, and advisor, adding his insights and perspectives to conversations across Canada, the US, and internationally. He has taught “Accessibility in Curating: A Framework” at NODE Curatorial Studies Online and the Hidden Project with Goethe Institut Shanghai. Sean serves on the board of the Toronto Arts Council and CARFAC Ontario, is Chair of TAC’s Visual and Media Arts Committee, and is a member of the External Advisory Panel supporting the City of Toronto in the development of its next ten-year culture plan, the Action Plan for Toronto’s Culture Sector.
Christine Malec
Christine Malec (she/her) is an arts and culture consultant within the blind community and co-host of the podcast Talk Description to Me. She offers culture and music programs to blind adults through the CNIB Foundation, and hosts a monthly segment on Accessible Media Incorporated, Kelly and Ramya, called Curious Minds. She is a musician who loves sharing music in public spaces, and who plays regularly in the Toronto subway system. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
www.patreon.com/christinemalec
Gaitrie Persaud-Killings
A Tkaronto-based actor, Gaitrie is a theatre maker who develops facial expressions and body languages to bring Deaf and hearing actors to work together on the stage in physical theatre styles. Gaitrie continually seeks to challenge herself through new techniques and learning from her mentors who specialize in physical theatre styles.
She is the founder of Phoenix the Fire, a theatre & film hub that supports Deaf artists to discover their talents and to provide ASL theatre & film interpretation service. She has been strongly active in the Tkaronto theatre community for almost 13 years.
Over the years, her solo performances and collaborations have toured nationally and internationally. Gaitrie has been involved in the Nickelodeon Jr. show Blue's Clues & You (as the Deaf librarian Camila) and CBC kid’s show Silly Paws (as Simmi). She is also a news anchor with Sign1 News powered by CNN.
Heidi Persaud
Heidi Persaud (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and arts administrator. She is of Guyanese heritage, currently living in Tkaronto. Her work plays on themes of Mysticism and Hidden Disabilities.
Her passions include training and mentoring the next generation of arts administrators, learning and collaborating with Mad, Deaf, and Disabled communities, relationship building with access workers, and finding ways to improve the user experience at the Tangled Art + Disability gallery. When she is not hyper-focused on the arts, she is learning restorative gardening practices, herbalism, and trying to develop meaningful ways to co-exist in nature.
Brennan Roy
Brennan Roy is a multiply disabled, queer and trans multidisciplinary artist, and community worker, focused in the overlaps of dance, circus, disability consulting, and mobility technology. They are interested in how individuals in these fields construct bodyminds, what influences them, and how to dream beyond.
They question who has access to the ability to build and/or resist within and around systems, as well as how technology is used and distributed to build bodyminds, particularly given oppressive structures and systems of current society.
Brennan has been with the Access Advisory since 2021. They have also trained with companies including Full Radius Dance, Kaeja D’Dance and REAson D’Etre Dance Productions.
Theodore Walker Robinson
Theodore Walker Robinson (Hon. B.A., M.A., M.A.) (they/them) is a Black, low-vision, hard-of-hearing, nonbinary broadcaster, singer, textile artist, and nonprofit executive. Theodore was born to parents of Maroon Jamaican and Afro-Chinese Trinidadian descent who settled in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in the early 1970s. They are a creative consultant based in Toronto and a recent Executive Director of Lakeshore Arts in South Etobicoke. As a consultant, Theodore focuses on providing recommendations to arts and culture agencies on accessibility for people with disabilities based on lived experience and strategic Human Resources practices. They are a regular host on the Luminato Festival Toronto’s Radio LUMI and an ambassador for Brampton Arts Organization. As a singer, Theodore explores transgender voices in Jazz music. Their textile art practice explores West African heritage fabrics and Blind/Low Vision methodologies and pedagogical practice.
