Count me in! Homo Novus
Riga, Latvia
Theatre
“Count me in!” is all about sharing stories that highlight diversity, equality, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging in the seat of art festivals. In this series you will hear their stories, and see how we can all make a difference by standing up for each other.
"The situation with accessibility in Latvia is almost like gambling — you never know whether a building or an event attended by a person with a disability will be accessible or not" says their festival accessibility coordinator Lība Bērziņa.
For the fourth year, we are paying special attention not only to visibility and inclusion of diverse groups of society, but also to the accessibility of the festival for people with disabilities. We still have room to grow, but we want everyone to have the opportunity to attend the Homo Novus International Festival of Contemporary Theatre and find something that suits them.
The needs are very diverse, but we try to create content that is friendly to people with different interests and requirements. We provide descriptions of accessibility of the environment, sign language interpretation for a number of events, and we strive to promote the representation of different bodies and communities in our creative work.
We purposefully work together with minorities in our society, with young, vulnerable, underrepresented groups of society, because we believe (and every subsequent festival edition proves it!) that the artistic programme itself becomes more artistically rich and valuable when more diverse groups contribute to it, thus making the theatre a democratic forum where everyone is seen and and considered.
