Deaf Art Incubator

Name: Deaf Art Incubator
Start: 2026-07-03T19:30:00-06:00
End: 2026-07-03T21:30:00-06:00
Location: 625 11 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2R 0E1, Canada

Schedule

Fri Jul 03 2026 at 07:30 pm to 09:30 pm

UTC-06:00

Location

625 11 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2R 0E1, Canada | Calgary, AB

SAVE THE DATE:
The Deaf Arts Incubator is a Deaf-led program by Inside Out Theatre that supports the development, creation, and presentation of new work by Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled, and Deaf-identified artists. Rooted in Deaf culture, language, and lived experience, the incubator provides artists with resources, space, and mentorship to create ambitious, accessible performances that challenge dominant hearing norms. Presented at The Erratics Indie Arts Club, the incubator nurtures bold artistic voices and advances a more inclusive future for Canadian theatre.
Presenting:
Braiding Histories
by Crystal Wolfe and Ebony R. Gooden
Braiding Histories is a bilingual Deaf theatre project led by artists Crystal Wolfe and Ebony R. Gooden. This work transforms the act of braiding hair into a radical performance of storytelling, resilience, and reclamation.
The piece unfolds on a stage split into two sides, one facing left and one right. From these places, Ebony and Crystal create a massive braid together as the story unfolds, weaving scenes that embody their personal and cultural histories. Ebony’s scenes will reflect Black traditions of braiding as acts of resistance and survival such as braids used to conceal rice seeds during slavery or to map escape routes. Crystal’s scenes will honour Indigenous teachings, from the significance of braiding sweetgrass to the strength of familial memory carried strand by strand.
Suffocate II : The Night's grabbing Mara
by Matthew Courtemanche
Inspired by Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare (1782), Mara—from an old linguistic meaning of “ghost”—confronts an intertemporal universe to bring the sexist, racial, and colonial issues of the past into the present, revealing the scars experienced by racialized women. Created in American Sign Language (ASL) by and for Deaf people, the narrative is built from each performer’s knowledge, allowing them to demonstrate the alliance between reality and fiction. I, Matthew Courtemanche, seek to open a door for the Deaf community that recognizes itself in the universal issues of popular culture, such as sexual, racial, and ableist violence.