CubaDupa is making the street festival accessible for everyone, including persons with disabilities, with its 2020 accessibility initiatives.
CubaDupa have released an audio and video tour of the festival site, catered towards festival-goers who are blind, have low vision or are deaf or hard of hearing. This resource marks a huge achievement for CubaDupa, as it is the first of its kind for a street festival in New Zealand.
The virtual tour takes listeners through the extensive festival site by describing the surroundings – from the Abel Smith street dropoff/pickup zone to the Wellington Night Market, which reaches all the way down to Wakefield street. With Cuba street and the surrounding cross streets closed to traffic for the weekend of 28 and 29 March, there will be many changes to traffic routes, footpaths and public spaces. Through this map festival-goers with accessibility requirements can plan their CubaDupa weekend with confidence. The video map is captioned and there is also a transcript available to download from the CubaDupa website.
The upcoming festival will fill the heart of Wellington with wild creativity and a diverse mix of music, visual arts and dance, with over 1500 artists performing to an audience totalling up to 100,000 people over the weekend. One of those performers is renowned dancer Lusi Faiva, who will perform ‘Taopou’, a new dance piece which was inspired by her experience at CubaDupa 2019.
Finally, CubaDupa are offering a Touch Tour specifically designed for people with low vision or blindness. This will be a sensory experience that allows participants to touch the costumes, instruments and artworks of some of our fantastic performers and visual artists. The programme will run on Sunday 29th and is free access.
Check it out the Accessible Tour Video – www.youtube.com/watch
