The 2025 DIScover Conference organized by The Disability Collective

On October 9 and 10, 2025, The Disability Collective held the DIScover Conference, a two-day leadership event bringing together arts professionals, accessibility advocates, and community members to focus on advancing accessibility and disability inclusion in the arts.

Poster for The Disability Collective’s DIScover 2025 leadership conference on accessibility and disability inclusion in the arts. Held October 9 and 10 at Native Earth’s Aki Studio. Accessibility supports include ASL, open captions, and masking. Sponsored by Toronto Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, TD Ready Commitment, HELD Agency, Body Confidence Canada, and Creative Arts Financial.

It was a fantastic event, coordinated and moderated by Emily Maxwell, Nathan Satore, Ali Hand and members of The Disability Collective team. All the arts trade were represented including funding, administration, communication, castings, community gatherings, and more. Discussions about buildings and stages accessibility, relaxed performances, ASL performances, identity, interpretations, inclusion, collaborations, and artistic practices filled the Daniel Spectrum building in Toronto. Each presentation and panel brought artists of the disability and Deaf community to discuss these important topics together. If the conference is too rich to be summarized in one single article, here are a few highlights. I wish I could have been present in every single room!

Opening remarks: Emily Maxwell

Emily Maxwell, a white woman with curly red hair, wearing a pink top, a black skirt with white dots, and a black vest. She speaks at a stand in a microphone installed in front of her. Behind her is a projected slide showing the poster of the DisCover conference, saying Disrupt, DisMantle, DisCover.
Emily Maxwell gives the opening remarks.

This conference took many years to prepare. Emily Maxwell, the Artistic Director and Founder of The Disability Collective, told us about what led them to create this very needed conference in the disabled artistic community. From captions to sign language interpretation, a quiet room and a mask mandate, everything was thought to make the audience members and speakers feel at ease during these two days.

She also introduced the keynote speaker, Dr. Jill Andrew, the first queer Black person elected to a provincial legislature in Canada, serving for 7 years as a Canadian politician who represented Toronto-St. Paul’s in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 2018 until 2025 as a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (NDP), and who spoke about Body Awareness Day.

Presentation: Nothing About Us Without Us: Partnering with Deaf Led Theatre Companies, by Gaitrie Persaud-Killing

Gaitrie Persaud-Killings on the left, wearing black pants and a black tops, waves at someone. On the right, an interpreter is ready to work with her. A screen shows a slide giving the title of her presentation, Nothing About Us Without Us, Partnering with Deaf Led Theatre Companies.
Gaitrie Persaud-Killings ready to give her presentation, “Nothing About Us Without Us: Partnering with Deaf Led Theatre Companies.”

Gaitrie Persaud-Killing is an actor and theatre-maker whose work bridges the Deaf and hearing communities through the power of performance. She wears many hats: ASL coach and performer, actress on multiple TV shows, founder of Phoenix the Fire, theatre and film hub dedicated to supporting Deaf artists. ArtsAbly works with her as an ASL Music performer. Her presentation focused on the fact that Deaf performers are the less represented group in the disability and Deaf community in Canada. She mentioned dedicated lines in budgets, and the recently improved Canada Council for the Arts platform to request funds for ASL interpreters and projects integrating Deaf performers (the CAA also gave a presentation of their new funds related to disability support later in the conference). Gaitrie introduced Chris Dodd, author of the play “Deafy.” The audience members had a conversation about the presence of Deaf authors in theatre.

Panel: Casting Disabled Artists

A panel of five participants, five actors with disabilities, sitting on chairs in front of the audience.
During the panel “Casting Disabled Artists,” moderator David Connolly asks questions to panellists Alexia Vassos, George Alevizos, Prince Amponsah and Yousef Kadoura.

David Connolly, the Artistic Director for Drayton Entertainment and the first amputee to have performed on Broadway, moderated a panel composed of four disabled actors: Yousef Kadoura, a Lebanese Canadian actor, writer and producer, and a right leg below knee amputee, co-founded the performance collective Other HeArts; George Alevizos, a professional actor living in Toronto, was one of the first graduates in a wheelchair of any professional training program in the country; Alexia Vassos, whose name readers of this website already know since she also works with ArtsAbly, is an actor and writer based in the Greater Toronto Area, and a disability advocate very much involved in the disability arts community; Prince Amponsah, a bilateral arms amputee with burns to nearly 70% of his body, is Toronto based actor. The four actors shared they experience of castings, and the best practices to make them authentic and equitable.

Panel: Cross-Disability Collaboration

A panel of four artists working in cross-disability collaborations. A sign language interpreter interprets on the left.
During the panel “Cross-Disability Collaboration,” moderator Emily Maxwell asks questions to panellists Sage Lovell, Carly Neis and Kelly MacDonald.

Emily Maxwell moderated a panel which brought together Deaf, disabled, neurodivergent, and Mad artists to share stories, challenges, and successes in cross-disability work: Sage Lovell is a Deaf, queer, disabled and neurodivergent artist, poet, educator, and entrepreneur; Carly Neis is a disabled actor, playwright, producer, and arts advocate with Cerebral Palsy, and a graduate of MacEwan University’s Arts and Cultural Management program; Kelly MacDonald is a blind actor, best known for his worked with AMI (Accessible Media Inc.) for nearly twenty-five years. The panel shared their lived experiences and their strategies for cross-collaborative projects in the community.

Workshop: Creative Accessibility in Performing Arts, by Maxime Beauregard and Erin Ball

Maxime Beauregard and Erin Ball sit at a table in front of their computers. A screen shows their presentation, the slide says Future and lists what future shows they want to accomplish. A sign language interpreter signs on the left.
Maxime Beauregard and Erin Ball presenting “Creative Accessibility in Performance Arts.”

Aerial dancers Erin Ball and Maxime Beauregard are InterComplementary Journeys. Maxime is an autistic+ human, Erin is a double below knee amputee. They are both white, Queer, neuro non-conforming, and Disabled artists who seek to shift barriers in performance art. They are the creators of a course on Accessibility/Disability in Movement Practices. Both Erin and Maxime work as performers, coaches, choreographers, producers, accessibility consultants, and workshop facilitators. During the conference, they led us through their past and current projects, with the Deaf community for the integration of signs and visual representation to lyrics and movements, and with VibraFusion Lab converting movements and heart beats into vibration. Audience members were offered to relax, to move, and to think of our bodies in space.

Workshop: Better Backstages: Accessibility Hacks, by Meghan Sivani-Merrigan

Meghan Sivani-Merrigan, a white woman with glasses and black hair wearing a white t-shirt and light grey pants, standing in front of a stand. On her left, a table with blue clipboards and tape measures.
Meghan Sivani-Merrigan ready to lead her mini-workshop “Better Backstages.”

Meghan Sivani-Merrigan is the founder of Halifax-based Apex Arts Access and creator of the Better Backstages Accessibility Toolkit, providing a framework to help assess the accessibility of artistic venues. During this workshop, we used the toolkit in the first floor of the Daniel Spectrum building, where the conference took place. We were assigned specific tasks to assess doors, corridors, lights, washrooms, stages, sound, and overall accessibility. This exercise is always interesting to do since assessors realize the number of elements that are taken into consideration in accessibility.

Exhibition: 20 Years Later: The (In)Accessibility of Ontario

On a black background the logo of The Disability Collective in white, and a text in pink and white saying: 20 years later, the (in)accessibility of Ontario, a photography exhibition showcasing the shortcomings of the accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA). 20 years later and the text (in) are written in pink, the rest is in white.
“20 Years Later, the (in)accessibility of Ontario” photo exhibition

The photography exhibition titled “20 Years Later: The (In)Accessibility of Ontario”, presented by The Disability Collective, showcases the shortcomings of the Accessibility for Ontarios with Disabilities Act (AODA). It opened in Daniel Spectrum on October 9 and will be displayed until October 26. Under AODA, Ontario pledged to become fully accessible by January 1, 2025, but failed. This exhibition shows the state of accessibility crisis for people with disabilities in Ontario seen by Canadian photographers and artists.

More information about the exhibition on The Disability Collective website.

Congratulations to all the team members of The Disability Collective for their success in the organization of this conference. All activities and conversations were rich in ideas for collaboration within the community and tools for the Canadian artistic scene to become more accessible. We are all looking forward to the next edition in 2026.

Diane Kolin, for ArtsAbly.