What is IntegrART?

The network project IntegrART of Migros Cultural Percentage is supporting the inclusive performing arts since 2007.

Disabled and nondisabled artists are pioneers when it comes to rethinking familiar forms of expression and so expand the spectrum of possibilities both for the cultural sector as well as for audiences – the societal utopia of lived inclusion becomes a reality on stage.

Every two years IntegrART connects inclusive festivals and theatres from all parts of Switzerland, presents in collaboration with them national and international dance and theatre productions and organises discursive formats. With this biennial Migros Cultural Percentage commits itself to the self-determined involvement of disabled people in arts and culture, as a basis of equal representation and social justice.

IntegrART Formats

The cultural landscape is changing, due to global social and political events. This makes it particularly important to take a moment in order to examine structures and working processes. Institutions tend to base their structures on a narrow norm. People who do not conform to this norm are not included, and exclusions are  (re)produced constantly. What work is needed in order to sustainably establish new models and to take intersectional aspects into account?

Theatres show productions by and with disabled artists more frequently than they did ten years ago. This development is of course to be welcomed. However, disabled artists who have complete creative authority over their work remain a rarity in Switzerland. The artistic leadership of inclusive projects often lies with non-disabled people. Disabled people also do not hold positions of institutional artistic leadership in  Switzerland. The only way to achieve these goals is by reinventing our structures,  allowing for co-creative modes of working and new  patterns to emerge that make change possible.

Disabled artists are already working on models that rethink structures and are not based on a norm disabled people need to adapt to. With a programme of presentations, workshops and discussions, the conference invites attendees to listen, ask questions and to create a different reality.

From May 24th to June 4th 2023 IntegrART presents selected stage productions by and with disabled and nondisabled artists. The three international productions, as well as the Co-production will be shown at the IntegrART partner festivals in Lugano, Berne, Basel and Geneva.