Every one of the You Are The Union livestreams that we have done so far has been incredible. I am so proud of what we have accomplished with them so far and the engagement we have been getting from people who are watching them. I’m so lucky that Amir and I were able to figure out how to make these happen and I think both of us are so excited to see what we can do in the future with it.
One thing that we have focused on is bringing attention to different parts of our industry. We did that with the BLM livestream that we did. And we did it again a week ago when we had a livestream about performers with disabilities.
Even though I have an invisible disability with my hip issues, I wouldn’t call myself a performer with a disability. I don’t know much about that world and the challenges that PWDs (performers with disabilities) face. So when Amir and I discussed doing this topic for our livestream, I was excited to do it but also nervous because I didn’t want to accidentally offend someone.
Fortunately, the panelists that we got for this livestream, Anita and Christine, were amazing! While we were getting everything set up and ready, we explained that we didn’t have a lot of knowledge about this part of the industry and we apologized in advance if we said the wrong thing. They both said that they appreciated us giving them a space to have an open chat with all members on how to be better allies for PWDs because many are afraid to ask the questions that might not be the most appropriate thing to ask.
The other thing that I’m so proud of with this livestream is that we were able to make it accessible for anyone hard of hearing. We would love to have live captions for our livestreams, but right now that isn’t feasible due to the cost (but if anyone knows of pro-bono organizations that do that, please let me know!). But we reached out to some of our friends who have studied ASL and they were able to connect us to interpreters who were able to do live ASL interpreting throughout the entire thing! We knew if we wanted to do a livestream about PWDs, we couldn’t leave out an entire community of performers. We didn’t know how we were going to accomplish this, but we were so lucky to have Elizabeth and Diana be our ASL interpreters and they did an amazing job.
Whenever we have these livestreams, I don’t get to fully pay attention because I am running all the behind the scenes stuff. But I always do get to watch a little bit. And every time I watched this one, I was just in awe. The conversation was incredible, we got some really good questions from the people watching, and seeing the live ASL interpreting happening made me so happy. Amir and I had a goal to make this livestream fully accessible, and through connections we had and the generosity of several people, we were able to do just that. Sometimes I’m just amazed at what we can get done considering we are just 2 members doing a livestream.
Since I can’t always focus on the livestream completely when it happens, I always watch it after (I also have to do some editing to add cards to the beginning and end for the replays). And this one I made sure that when I watched it after, I gave it my full attention. I wanted to make sure I heard all the lessons and advice that was shared. We did this livestream to not only educate other members but to educate ourselves. And I didn’t want to miss out on that opportunity. I learned so much and I can’t wait until we can have another livestream on PWDs because I know there is so much more for me to learn.
If you have not had a chance to watch this livestream, please watch the replay. You can learn so much about how we all can help our fellow members. And helping each other succeed is so important.
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