This text is part of the special Theater booklet
Several Quebec theatrical initiatives support the rehabilitation and integration of people living with a disability. By giving the cue on the boards, they have the chance to regain their self-esteem and forge a more independent life.
Isabelle Côté was destined for a career teaching drama in high schools. Until the day when her friend Anne-Marie Théroux, founder of the Théâtre aphasique, asked her for a hand in offering theater workshops to people with aphasia.
Mainly caused by a stroke, aphasia is an acquired communication disorder caused by damage to specific language areas in the brain. It can affect the ability to speak, to understand, but also to read and write. “Aphasia is more than a language problem, it’s a communication problem. It’s as if we no longer recognized our language,” summarizes Isabelle Côté, general and artistic director of Théâtre aphasique.
Most of the participants in Isabelle Côté and her colleagues’ workshops have already started work in speech therapy and occupational therapy. Many aphasic actors say they find the pleasure of communicating. By dint of learning texts, participants are able to communicate better with those around them and therefore feel less isolated. “Continuing their rehabilitation by doing theater is a gesture of reclaiming their lives. They give themselves new challenges and at the same time renew their self-esteem,” emphasizes Isabelle Côté.
Successful actors
The theater also brightens the lives of children with hearing disabilities in Quebec. The Sourdine Foundation has been organizing for 23 years a play featuring about fifty young people aged 4 to 17 who attend the Oralist School of Quebec for hard of hearing or deaf children. They all live with significant hearing, speech and language impairments.
This year, the room Here, now, together!, which will be presented on Wednesday, May 10 at the Capitole theater, was specially written for these young people by author, director and teacher Amélie Plaisance. The work is intended to be a humorous awareness of the omnipresence of screens in our social exchanges.
Sandra Ferguson, Executive Director of the Sourdine Foundation, also marvels at the benefits of performing in theater on self-esteem: “The process is carried out with so much pleasure and respect that young people feel they can live success and flourish despite their disability. It is moving to see their determination and their courage on the boards of a professional theater in front of more than 400 people, whereas in the past, they were excluded from such activities. »
A springboard for reintegration
The Aphasic Theater gave its first virtual workshops during the pandemic. Always popular, the meetings focus on stimulating language through reading aloud. They have enabled several participants with mild aphasia to return to the job market or to school. The exercises give them the chance to start speaking aloud again and regain the emotion and natural intonation of their voice.
In the same way that aphasic people seek to reconnect with others, the children who pass the door of the Oralist School are not there to remain on the margins of society. “89% of the young people who have come to us have returned to regular school or are in the process of graduating”, estimates Sandra Ferguson, according to whom we can save the lives of these young people. “Theater allows them to see that it is possible, despite their disability, to dream big and experience success, not just failure,” she says.
Also for spectators
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.