A lack of training opportunities, difficulty in accessing professional prospects and absence of employment opportunities within the performing arts are an undeniable reality for performers with disabilities.
Created by the GDA Foundation, the Art Without Borders programme stems from a perspective that aims to support this universe of performers in overcoming these obstacles. The goal is to stimulate and promote the personal and professional recognition of performers with disabilities, through support mechanisms for training, and employment incentives for professional artistic production organizations.
Following a process of scrutiny and advisement with various entities, specialists and artists involved in this universe, the GDA Foundation has designed an experimental programme with an evolutionary nature, aiming to decrease the barriers that exist for performers with disabilities, regarding the exercise of their professional activity. The Art Without Borders programme is structured by two complementary lines of funding – one that supports artistic training and career development, and another that supports the employment of performers.
Support for artistic training and career development
Applications are accepted when submitted by individual performers and/or by professional artistic production structures that integrate performers with disabilities in their artistic team, for the attendance of training initiatives or their equivalent, in Portugal or abroad.
Funding will also be attributed to artistic production or training structures for organizing their own training initiatives.
Support for the employment of performers
Applications are accepted when submitted by professional artistic production structures operating within national territory, and funds are granted for payment of the fees of the hired performer.
These funds aim to facilitate the functional and professional integration of performers with disabilities through processes of active integration, continuous training and empowerment. In essence, it is a programme that supports creation, training, employability, accessibility and integration into the professional universe.
With this initiative, GDA Foundation aims to exercise an assertive and strategic intervention – remaining within the cultural and artistic boundaries of the programme -, and to induce an energy that serves as a catalyst and generator of new forms of action for other entities, therefore signalling the importance of this matter for the progresses made in the domains of inclusion and social cohesion within our country.