I was seen seeing Claudia martinez.
Also the translation by the University of Alberta
with a thesis
on museum accessibility for the blind and visually impaired.
She was also granted a Diploma in Advanced Studies
in Translation and Intercultural Studies at the University.
That really was really a master in terminology and translation
and a mother languages and literatures for both the Faculty
of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto Portugal.
Most of all, Fernando.
So I must have heard all but all now.
And as I was saying so many things,
she has been teaching English as a foreign language.
English linguist, fixed I mean ology
and the original translation of the School of Education
in the Polytechnic Institute of Braganza, Portugal since 2001
and hit academic interests, I guess rather eclectic,
including the EMT linguistics, terminology, physiology,
body immunology, what a woman, but especially the translation studies,
all the racial translation and studies and media accessibility.
I know this.
Is not bad one, not in those libraries in that the umbrella.
I don't think it's open it.
It must keep where they can.
They have yet as a presentation case to say that.
I think
this that's.
Why it's also nice to have these kind of things
not to make it a little bit more.
Oh yeah, that's okay.
Thank you very much. I'm sorry about this.
A bit of that. Think so?
We're going to be talking about Cesar and how a project,
an accessibility project,
can be actually used for formal and informal education contexts.
So it's a bit out of view.
Probably the presentations from the morning, but I'll do my best to
get your attention.
So I'm going to be talking
very, very tiny bit about the history of it, of media accessibility.
And I'm going to be talking about more about media accessibility
than everything itself.
Portuguese Context Access Accessible project in Braganza
and also a little bit about what what is happening in grants as well.
So as you probably know, those that are
within the the area of accessibility.
So especially in Europe, these concerns started in the late
1980s nineties.
Of course UK along with the U.S.
was was actually one of the pioneers
and it had in 1988 it had the first ad in the in the Cesar
being of ham I think it's Nottingham show if I'm not mistaken.
Germany also started working, as you know with many
in ad in the
on the TV channel in at the beginning of the nineties.
And just to give you an idea of what was happening in Portugal,
nothing in the performing arts before the new millennium,
but we did start with the SDH
by teletext In 1999, it was the first TV channel
working on this, and only in
2003 did we actually have our first experience
with EDI, with films in a very complicated context,
which I will be for someone you know.
If you're interested, I'll let you know afterwards because
it's a bit weird to say the least, in terms of Portuguese performing
arts, we do have very little things happening
before 2009, if there was anything so new has identified the first play
in Portugal with EDI from the at this in this particular era.
And just the translation of the title
is Love Reigns on the Killer Streets.
Wonderful name.
And then we had a few examples
of events and especially plays, but also concerts
and inclusion gala from 2010
until well, nowadays of course, especially these
that you are seeing here in that
I left here with of course the suspension dots.
Most of them had Giselle in his hand.
So she was also, let's say,
an incentive sizer Well, propeller, let's say for this,
it did continue.
And I'm going to show you one of this.
So this is school theater.
So I don't forget the dates, physical A followed on
another association we had.
So in 2013,
they created this wonderful website
which basically presents or publicizes
programing within theater that is accessible.
As you can see,
you have information about who they are
and so on and so forth, but you can also select the information
you want by choosing what you want to see when, where and for whom.
So very focused still on the idea
that it's for specific audiences with impairments.
So they did, let's say, Foster Lodge the steady growth
of access to accessibility in theaters in Portugal.
But the biggest issue, as always, and I think it's probably true
for most of the countries is that it has been it can be found
mainly in Portugal and in Lisbon and not the other way around.
So this website, I'm not really sure when it was
created.
I would say between 2015 and 17.
I know I did use it in 2019, so it was running then.
So it should be like two or three or four years prior to that.
An interesting thing that they also created
was that they created this thing called the Theater,
a network of theaters with accessible programing that wanted to encourage
accessible programing out of two main cities in country.
And we have a list here, Vienna.
So one so north center south and one of the islands,
which is extremely important.
So they're sponsoring let's say, the
these events out of the country, throughout the country.
I'm sorry, and I'm going to be jumping straight to Braganza,
which is not part of this network, by the way.
And I'll tell you a little bit, you know, I'll
and I wanted to focus on the fact that and I've realized
that some people also mentioned this, especially from the perspective
of minority language languages.
But the fact is that I work in Braganza
Braganza is in this orange thing, and it's more or less like here.
So we usually say we're closer to Spain than anything else, basically,
which is very good.
On the one hand, of course, it's also the head of the district
of this whole orange thing.
But you must realize that it's in lines and socially peripheral.
And for us to understand how certain projects
and events can happen in this area, we must understand the macro context.
Basically, we have around 80 plus museum
like things and one theater in the city itself.
So the whole district is gold.
But I guess it's more or less
overlapping the regions months, let's not go there.
So judgment means behind the hills,
but the city itself
has about 35,000 inhabitants,
more or less 20 museum like things and one seat there.
So you can see that only one theater in this whole thing, which is.
But again, so what's the history of this in Braga,
in this in one peripheral city, we had the first live I.D.
in the Sea of Sur in 2019.
It was lovely square the strong once
it was actually a production of our school.
It was an hour and a half play that was pre-prepared by three
or four prescribers, myself included,
along with two other students, master students of mine.
And we did it throughout the attendance of the rehearsals.
As usual, the equipment was quite an ordeal.
It's a complete story apart, but
we managed to have a bit old fashioned, but still worked.
And fortunately at the time we had an issue which nowadays
we sort of overcome.
We only had two blank people, but we had a bunch of
people that, you know, without supposedly
without disabilities that helped us and gave us a lot of feedback,
which was extremely important within this project.
So still in Braganza,
we are now working on an accessibility kind of large scale
project, accessibility project for the City Council
with funding from the European,
from the European Social Fund.
And I'm going to explain
a little bit also for us to get to the main point.
So we are working with five cultural venues,
four of them museum like institutions, and in here
this one is a theater where we have been working
lately.
So their main aim is accessibility for all, specifically
with the production of resources for people with impairments.
We have five sorry, seven actions so you can see them here.
I'm going to focus only on this one.
So far we've worked on eight shows from September September
20, 22 to March 2023.
The interesting thing is that we managed to have a kind of myriads
of different types of events, which was very good, especially
the fact that we had a lot of music and that was very exciting.
I must say some of them with lyrics, others without us.
We also had two very interesting types of shows
because they were mixed dance music and also play dance,
and we also only had two to plays, one of which we're going to be doing
next week in all of them, which I'll explain a bit
about the time in a second in all of them, we offered live
audio description, subtitling and Portuguese sign language.
So this is the team, parts of it.
So in here in the middle you can see who was which is a musician
with a career, I don't know, 40 years or something
actually was one of the of the nice people we work with.
So we have four junior researchers,
all of them here on the on the on the photo.
We have two Portuguese sign language interpreters.
These ladies, this is the person in charge
of the subtitling and another one also supporting me.
So all of us work together in these shows,
two of them, the boys in here, they have prior knowledge
of audio description and I am sorry I put it in Portuguese.
SDH Sorry about that.
And but no prior experience in the films,
whereas the other two girls
that did our doing the interpreting
did not have any experience whatsoever in the theater.
Me and I've got more experience in terms of research in a museum ad,
but I've also been working in four films and the performing arts.
So methodology.
How did we
work around this thing, this project, the kind of ambitious thing?
So we did a joint selection of the shows that were to be made
accessible along with the theater coordinators.
Our director and myself director was extremely open
minded, which was for me, well, surprise, surprise.
What happened was that slowly his openness started to fade away
and you had very unpleasant situations which has have become
an obstacle to the whole enjoyment of ourselves as a team.
Because I would say that most of us want to do something
that we actually do enjoy, and it's very fun
to be working to see it there,
but we don't have a comfortable atmosphere.
Things are going to be tricky.
I can give you an example.
In our very first term show, it was a classic classical music show.
We had a huge discussion with the artistic director of the concert.
I mean, half an hour where I was basically,
I'm sorry about this gossip thing.
It's not supposed to be here, but I was basically insulted throughout.
And especially what annoys me still is that we are almost finishing
the eight shows and last week we heard exactly the same thing.
It is not important to have mediation for arts or performing
arts included because art in itself is accessible to everyone
and having mediation is a hindrance to enjoyment.
So and you can see,
let's say, the impact this
has on our own motivation, which has been spoken a lot today.
So what we did as a team was to collaborate with the sorry
collaboratively, prepare the shows,
aiming for three moments and whenever we could
have also a zero,
so to speak, moment, which would be a stage tactile visits
not always possible, but we tried to that we had an introduction.
So we kind of, let's say
for those that are familiar with other description
in the performing arts, we have usually an audio introduction
and we kind of spread that idea to the other
two mediation modes, which means for subtitling Plus,
also for the interpreting in Portuguese sign language.
So we had to set a synopsis, a bio of
the group
artist, whatever the description of actors and stage, we have also had
the three train through translation whenever that was possible.
Sorry.
And also the finishing words, which was a kind of thing.
The new shows
something interesting.
This kind of happened naturally for all of us,
especially myself and my my interpreters
was that we were always communicating with communities of practice.
So this is a very, let's say with this name is a very kind of
brand new idea, but it is has been on for decades,
which is always talking to more experienced people about this.
Our presence lets in terms of atmosphere.
Our presence in the theater was not always welcome.
It was very slow.
But nowadays we're very well welcomed by the technical team.
I think because of internal lack of communication.
However, the atmosphere with, let's say the person
in charge of the sea is there is, to say the least, uncomfortable
besides this aspect that do have
take a toll on our motivation.
We also had two other moments besides well, is this,
which was a questionnaire handed out at the end of the event
through a QR code and then also a team's reflection after the show.
And none of this ever happened with the director of the theater
or the municipality in itself.
This is just to show you the
let's say in here, for example,
as you can see, I ask you notice
the sides of the stage, so you can see that's
the projection of the subtitles are here and our interpreters are here.
But even the position where they are right now is not an intentional.
So the fact that they are being done out of the stage
kind of lets
you know what is the position of the direction of the theater
towards this accessibility.
Myself and the person in charge of subtitling
are completely out of everyone's focus and thank God, but nonetheless,
well, at least were kind of sheltered.
So we use this or titling software which is freeware
and also we have a wonderful equipments
which is this beautiful saying, Oh my God, it's 5 minutes right.
Here, a.
Little bit less.
Okay, But I'm going to the final thoughts
because this is just to give you the context, which I think perhaps
I don't think it was too much, but nonetheless, for you to understand
more or less our context, my final thoughts
are very positive on one hand, because this is a great opportunity
to be actually put on the map of the accessible performing
arts in Portugal.
However, as a school tutor,
that wonderful association I told you about refused.
I'm underlining this refuse to publicize our events,
claiming I did not have the scientific
competence skills
to conduct such a project
the CSR director
never had nor asked for a follow up discussion of anything.
I'm actually anxious to see what he's going to do next week.
When we finish the municipality of grievances at all.
It's not at all interested in the project sustainability,
because the question is you start offering all of this,
you create audiences that want to go to the theater and suddenly
you remove it all.
What's the impact on the inhabitants of Braganza?
How you destroying their expectations
towards the future and so on and so forth?
Why I'm why am I so obsessed about what I got?
I'm not even from regions.
I'm from Porto, second largest city in the in the world
sorry in Portugal, but it is for me.
But that's a different thing. Sorry,
just automatic thing.
Why not? Only because of what I told you.
Peripheral inland and so on.
But in 2022, the national network of Portuguese
theaters and Sydney theaters, which was kind of mixed.
We had talked about 81 venues
and the National Statistics Institute
Institute's talks about 3073
sorry, in 20 22,000, two months that are interesting.
I showed you only has two sisters, the one in Braganza
and in Villarreal.
So but I can see itself and the district one the whole region
to two in 5000
and 544 kilometer square kilometers.
Whereas the more than
with more than less of this you know, kilometers, square kilometers,
First District has over 20 theaters.
Not even sure about the numbers.
So my question, my kind of evaluation of the whole thing
is that opportunities are countless for everyone.
Beat the city,
not to mention the country, of course,
but also the inhabitants of the city itself.
The strengths I do consider besides the despite
what I told you, that a team does have a sound scientific coordination,
if I've got doubts, I've got loads of people I can ask.
Think good communities of practice.
We have very we have excellent technical conditions,
at least in terms of us and professional equipment.
We have tons of enthusiasm and willingness to do more.
We don't do more because they are not allowing us
to witnesses difficulties in bringing deaf people to the theater.
Now a lot because we don't even know who
they are, where they are, what they actually know.
Some of them are deaf, don't know Portuguese sign language,
some of them don't don't even master Portuguese in itself.
So it's a very complicated issue.
And I would say this is a kind of adapted SWOT analysis.
As you can see for us, the threats are the artists.
Some artists anyway, narrow mindedness the directors squared
sorry about this blunt words and also the municipality's indifference.
I think you all know this.
They want projects and they don't care about anything else.
This is my last one
as higher education professional.
Tell me this is excellent in many very various aspects,
but specifically because I can use my former students when I mean former.
They haven't yet
finished the master's, but they've done all the courses.
They have some prior knowledge of all of these modalities
and they can use them.
I can use their knowledge, I can enhance and foster
new skills for them.
So it's a context of both formal and informal.
And I also have a context where I took two recent graduates
with no experience in this area
and I'm
trying to give them
a comfortable environment, hopefully, but also giving them a formal
and also informal context for them to improve their their
their skills.
And also it's a wonderfully close
field trip for my first year students because I don't have to take them
to Portugal for them to actually see an accessible event
in the theater, right?
I can have it right in my city where they live and teach and that's it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Claudia.
That was that was great.
That was beautiful and sad at the same time.
Not that interesting, that's for sure.
Do we have any questions in the room?
You're shy or tired or hungry, Anka?
No, I do have more than a question.
It's a comment that it's so silly and not sad to see that
nowadays we do have to fight
these situations.
Not that I'm afraid that people don't know yet
that one day we are going to be old and sorry,
but we are going to have some kind of disability
and we will be happy
if we still can access to this kind of performance.
And so, well, let's let's talk about my culture
in general, thanks to
tasks.
Works as what you do know, but people don't think about that
because the thing I don't know that we are going to be
like that forever or like that you're immortal or they just don't
care about other people, situations or realities. No,
I'm sorry about that.
Just I did not talk about the results of the questionnaires
because we've been amassing a lot of data
which I haven't been able to to look at into detail.
But most of the people that actually answer the questionnaire,
those that go to the few
other theater and see those things and stuff
and give themselves to the trouble of actually answering it,
they give us a lot of sports.
I love it.
I don't understand anything.
For example, of course you sign language, but I love it.
Please keep it on.
But it's not really only the narrow mindedness of the people,
because I think everyone has to be educated to actually
accept this sort of thing.
But the problem is that when the higher,
you know, the top dogs, they when they when they're not interested
because they don't see the purpose
outside of this specific project, it is, as you say, very sad.
We're doomed.
But we have to enjoy what we have and the last show
next week.
I have just a few just a
little question.
When when preparing the script
now the audio description script
before the life event, did you or do you normally have access?
Because in Catalonia it's a little bit tricky
sometimes to have access, for example, to the setting,
to the to the opportunity to to talk to the actors and actors.
Is there to even be able to to to touch sometimes the opinion on the
on the event no customs I mean things that I think that all always help.
Yes and no most of the times
because four of them were music so they were totally life
or do descriptions at least a through audio description,
we did have access to the synopsis.
You know we search for information about the the artists
but out of all of those and those that we actually could
be involved directly and you know discuss things know
only two shows allowed us to have access to the video
that enabled me to actually do the scripts beforehand.
In one of them, which was actually a children's play, I had to prepare
the audio description in the morning so I could give it live at 3 p.m.
so it was my well,
just for you to see how things are so badly organized
because the willingness to actually open up the theater to
this sort of thing is not within the hearts of the person in charge.
I think that's that's
is if he was willing, it would do everything.
I'm sure we would have access to other things,
but also something else I didn't see actually,
I think it's said that I forgot to put in the presentation
is that I was in charge of the contacts with the artists,
whereas I think it should be theater in charge of that.
Well, at least what they call the educational services or something.
So why should I be in charge of that?
I have to educate them. Of course I do.
But it's not my job, right?
I'm providing a service, right?
I should be receiving the material not to do it.
So all of this kind of shows you how the situation is uncomfortable.
I hope there's not a lot of places like this, but
we have to continue this work.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Hello there again.