Accessible Theatre is a project led by Vodafone Spain Foundation, Aptent Soulutions and the Psychiatrical Association New Life. It aims to make theaters more accessible by creating a special adapted environment for all, especially for people with visual or hearing impairments.The program started in December 2011 and ever since, more than 100 theatre plays have been adapted.
Accessible Theatre presents the first edition of the festival “I’m going to the theatre” : #yovoyalteatro
Accessible Theatre
The 4th season of the program proposes more than 70 plays, presented in theater halls all over Spain: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Malaga. The program guarantees subtitles, audio description, magnetic loop for visitors with hearing aids, and sound all around the room.
The project comes from Aptent Soluciones, a start-up from University Carlos III. They wish to provide a better way of communication for people with visual and/or hearing impairments.
Making sure that theaters become accessible to everyone means creating an open door to culture and leisure to all people who felt excluded from it until now. This has become possible thanks to new and old means of communication such as subtitles, audio descriptions, magnetic induction systems or sign languages.
Yo voy al teatro (I’m going to the theatre)
“Accessible theatre” announced the first edition of the Festival “Yo voy al teatro“, which will be celebrated in a dozen of theater halls, in Madrid, during May 2015. This is the first theatre festival dedicated to people with hearing and visual impairments as well as the elderly.
Why was this project born?
In Spain, disabled people have asked to be included in the country’s culture program for a long time. It was in order to answer to their demands that the idea of the Theatre Festival came: on this occasion, several productions were to be adapted to their needs.
In Spain, according to the survey “EDADâ€( in English – “ageâ€), conducted by the INE (National Institute of Statistics) in 2008, the disabled community counts with more than 1,064,000 hearing impaired people and 979,000 visually impaired people.
Thanks to the involvement of all participants (Vodafone Spain Foundation, el Centro de Rehabilitación Laboral Nueva Vida, la Fundació Tres Turons y Aptent Soluciones) the capital city Madrid will host the festival’s first edition.
Other two additional projects are to be launched during the Festival. First of all, a short film will be released, which will relate the experienced lived by Marisa and Salvi, two people with hearing and visual impairments and a passion for drama. Another project is the reception of accessibility elements, like subtitles or audio description, directly on your smartphone. The application “Teatro Accesible†( Accessible Theatre) is available on Android and IOS.
Video: “Teatro accessibleâ€Apps ( in Spanish)
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