Hart School Opens The Box

Rob Mooy – Kingston This Week

H’art students and instructors enjoy some line-dancing as they warm up in The Box a new fully-accessible performing arts studio for people with disabilities at H’art School. “This expansion nearly doubles the size of our facility,” Katherine Porter, executive director of H’art School. “This investment means we can at last hold all of our programming – including dance and our new theatre, music and media arts programs – under one roof. It means we can serve more students, invite the wider community to participate after-hours and on weekends and set standards for the next generation of arts educators. We can also host our own performances in a fully-accessible space.”

H’art School took on this effort after struggling to find available, affordable and accessible public venues adequate for artists with disabilities attending its Able Artists forum in 2011.

Steve de Guise, operator of KINCORE Holdings Limited, offered rent relief for the next five years. This offer represented an in-kind donation of nearly $500,000.

Professional theatre director Kathryn MacKay, composer David Archibald and dance educator Melissa Mahady Wilton now lead regular classes in The Box thanks to the support of the Ministry of Health Promotion’s Healthy Communities Fund.