VSA Montana
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200 North Adams |
Alayne Dolson |
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Tel.: (406) 549-2984 |
Website: |
Organizational Profile:
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Full-time Staff: 1 |
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VSA Montana strives to create a culture where people with disabilities are fully involved with the arts as expressive artists, learners, and audience members. VSA Montana provides access to the arts for people with disabilities in more than half of Montana’s 56 counties.
Programming Partners and Other Funders:
Montana Arts Council; Montana Cultural and Aesthetic Trust; Montana Alliance for Arts Education; Opportunity Resources, Inc.; Montana State Hospital; Missoula County Public Schools; Missoula Children’s Theatre, Inc. (MCT); Custer County Art Center; Silver Foundation; Swanson Foundation; Homestead Foundation; Central Montana Community Foundation; University of Montana, Dance Education Department
Educational Programs and Artist Residencies
Custer County Art Center Partnership
VSA Montana supports arts education programs through a partnership with the Custer County Art Center (CCAC). Participants in the Holy Rosary Convalescent Center and Friendship Villa projects work in a variety of artistic media to develop creative expression and social skills. They work with staff and homeschooled children from the surrounding rural area. Arts workshops are held on a monthly basis throughout the year. Also through CCAC, children in 26 schools and 11 counties are served through inclusive artist residency programs designed to ensure that children with disabilities and at-risk populations experience learning through the arts. VSA Montana is also resuming programming at the Miles City Veteran’s Hospital in partnership with CCAC.
Additional arts programming is provided through monthly arts activities for adults at TLC Personal Care Home and for adults with disabilities from Eastern Montana Industries. Participants’ artwork is displayed at each residential facility.
Artist Residencies
The Paris Gibson Square Museum of Arts Residency in Great Falls offers arts programming for youth and adults with disabilities in a variety of media. Artwork is exhibited at the museum and celebrated with an artists’ reception. The Lewistown Artist-in-Schools Residency provides visual arts instruction to children in 23 schools in a seven-county area. Students receive anywhere from two to eight visits from the artist for one- to three-hour classes per visit.
The Mime Residency for the Hearing Impaired takes place at schools in Missoula. The program fosters skill development in the art of mime for children who are deaf and hard of hearing. Language test results indicate that student language skills show growth in sequencing skills and use of expressive language. Additional mime programs for children on the autism spectrum take place in two Missoula schools—Russell School and C. S. Porter Middle School.
The Montana State Hospital Residency in Warm Springs focuses on an annual production of a radio show of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol by 15–20 patients for the annual Christmas dinner. This year additional programming in visual arts will take place in Conrad for individuals with disability in a day treatment program, and for individuals in a homeless shelter and in day treatment in Butte.
VSA Montana is using ARRA stimulus funding to continue a Reader’s Theater Program at Rainbow House, a day treatment facility in Billings for people with mental illness. The program will run for 48 weeks, meeting twice a week to prepare scripts and learn music for performances at Rainbow House and in the community.
Harlem/Chinook/Livingston Arts Programming
People with disabilities served through New Horizons, Counterpoint, and at a convalescent care facility participate in workshops once a month to develop creativity and expand social opportunities through the arts. Participants share their work in local exhibitions at fall community fair events and during the holidays.
VSA Montana Choir
The VSA Montana Choir is an education program for youth and adults with physical, developmental, and/or emotional disabilities. The choir performs more than 10 times annually at diverse venues, from holiday parties to professional sporting events.
New Visions Dance
New Visions Dance is a program that promotes the development of creative expression through movement for adults with physical, developmental, and/or emotional disabilities. It includes a training program for university students in using movement to work with adults with disabilities.
Professional Development and Technical Assistance
VSA Montana provides Americans with Disabilities Act technical assistance to Montana’s cultural organizations upon request and works with the Montana Arts Council to ensure that people with disabilities have access to arts programs, concerts, and exhibitions. VSA Montana also provides training workshops to daycare providers through childcare resources and at annual conferences.
Last year, VSA Montana partnered with the Montana Alliance for Arts Education to provide classroom teachers with sample arts integrated lesson plans for inclusive classrooms that include tips on accessible accommodations for children with disabilities through distribution of a handbook to all teachers participating in professional development workshops in the arts at the annual MEA-MFT convention, and in workshops through the Montana Small Schools Alliance. This year the handbook has been distributed to over 250 teachers thus far.
Cultural Access and Inclusive Arts Services
Cultural Access
VSA Montana delivers presentations on cultural access and conducts site reviews for the Montana Art Gallery Directors Association, Montana Performing Arts Consortium, and Montana Association of Symphony Orchestras. VSA Montana also conducts access surveys for cultural organizations statewide. Staff assess cultural organizations’ physical and programmatic access, and provide technical assistance to support the development of policy handbooks and guidelines for improved access.
Public Awareness and Outreach
Festival of the Dead
Festival of the Dead is a multicultural event based on the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations and remembrances. In its 14th year, the festival includes a monthlong series of events, ranging from art workshops and poetry readings in public schools to the cultural activities of various ethnic groups. Approximately 500 people participate actively in this event that draws an audience of 2,000–3,000 people.
Cabaret Show
This event is a showcase for VSA Montana performing arts programs, including the choir, the dance program, and the mime programs, and features a silent auction, a reception, and the performance on the Missoula Children’s Theatre stage in Missoula. The event involves 60 performers, 25 volunteers, and community support of donated items for the silent auction. The event is recorded and shown on Missoula Public Access Television.
The Huuterite Colony Schools Photography Project
The Huuterite Colony Schools Photography Project completed two years ago, involving children from six Lewistown-area schools, and continues to be exhibited, currently traveling to Mississippi.
A second photography project with photographs by children and adults on the Autism Spectrum was exhibited at Taco Sano, a local restaurant, in November 2009. This project, funded by the Max and Betty Swanson Foundation, involved 18 children and adults from the Missoula area.
VSA Montana Choir
The VSA Montana Choir performs six to eight times during the year in Missoula and in the surrounding area. Each summer the choir performs the National Anthem at an Osprey Ball Game for a crowd of 1,600–2,200 fans.
(F) 202-429-0868