Kathryn Ricketts is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education in the University of Regina as the chair of the Dance area and runs The Listening Lab, a visual and performing arts incubator that presents exhibitions and performances and explores new experimental languages in education.​ She has been working for the past 30 years in the field of dance and visual arts, presenting throughout Europe, South America, Africa and Canada. Her work in universities, schools, galleries and community centres focuses on social /political issues with dance, creative writing, and visual art as the mobilizing ‘voice.’ Her ongoing research furthers this interest into areas of literacy, embodiment and cultural studies towards inclusive education with a method she coins “Embodied Poetic Narrative.”  

Performance and Difference is a collaborative research pilot investigating the development of an accessible language for Programmers, Teachers, Social Workers and Artists working with difference in art making in general and performance in particular. It is our intention that this project will be managed under a larger research umbrella, The Listening Lab, a multi-faceted studio-based project located within the Arts Education area that aims to pursue the creation of a common language that embraces cognitive and/or physical diversity that can be shared by teachers / learners, audience / spectators and performers / creators. The primary focus of this proposal is to begin the process of enhancing and building upon curriculum design through eight workshops for teachers, students and arts programmers with the purpose of developing commonalities and action strategies within the context of diverse abilities in arts practice, social work and arts education. We intend to challenge existing stereotypes that have, in our opinion, not succeeded in actually leveling the playing field either in the classroom, social work practice or in arts programming.