Join us for the 2024 Midwest Inclusive Dance Festival! All bodies, minds and experience levels welcome.

This is the inaugural event of the Midwest Inclusive Dance Festival! (MWIDF) will be an annual event bringing together people with and without disabilities for movement exploration. This year’s event will include the following:

• an online EveryBody Can Dance movement workshop on Sunday, April 7, 2024 from 1:00-2:15PM Central Time
• four in-person movement workshops with a lunchtime networking event on Saturday, April 13 from 10:00-3:30PM Central Time at 2102 W Ogden Ave, Chicago – Mayor’s Office People with Disabilities, Central West Community Center.

Participants can come and go at their convenience, and there will be free parking for the in-person event festival. We ask that any in-person participants remain masked. Registration Requested. For the in-person festival, please bring a mask, water, and lunch. 

Access Information

Come & Go at your convenience, free parking. CART, ASL, and audio-description provided. You can submit other access requests via the Google Doc registration form. For the in-person festival, please bring a mask, water, and lunch. 

Schedule for Saturday, April 13

• 10:00-10:30AM Check in
• 10:30-11:15AM Movement as Meditation with Jamila Kinney
• 11:30AM-12:15PM Workshop with Stephanie Piatkiewicz
• 12:15-1:30PM Bring-Your-Own-Lunch Networking Event
• 1:30-2:15PM Workshop with Lauren Sheely
• 2:30-3:30PM Workshop with Sarah Furnish

Midwest Inclusive Dance Fest Sponsor Information

This event is supported by the Arts and Culture Project at Access Living, an independent living center for people with disabilities;  Bodies of Work: Network of Disability Art and Culture (Department of Disability and Human Development within the College of Applied Health Sciences at University of Illinois-Chicago); Shirley Ryan Abilities Lab; and the Disability Culture Activism Lab (DCAL), a teaching lab housed under the department of art therapy and counseling at SAIC. This program received generous funding from Healing IL: funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services in partnership with the Field Foundation. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

The contents of this event were developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90RTCP0005).  NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  The contents of this event do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Additional sponsors include Deborah Goodman, MOMENTA,  and ReinventAbility.