Independence Starts Here: A Festival of Disability Arts and Culture kicks off its inaugural festival on Thursday, October 18 with an opening ceremony at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater designed to showcase the unlimited talents of artists with disabilities. The evening is introduced by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, founder of VSA Arts and emceed by Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin. The program will feature performances by local songwriter/vocalist Melody Gardot, wheelchair dance duo Light Motion and blind jazz singer/musician Raul Midon.

Tickets to the ceremony are $60, and $100 (with VIP reception), and are available by calling 215-893-1999 or TTY: 215-875-7633 or by visiting the website at www.kimmelcenter.org.

"The artists showcased in this Opening Ceremony are some of the best artists, with or without disabilities, in their fields. We are very fortunate to have them with us as we launch this important new festival," explains Mimi Kenney Smith of VSA arts of Pennsylvania, the coordinator of the festival. "One of the most important goals of the festival is to demonstrate that disability has nothing to do with whether or not an artist reaches the highest level of artistic success. These artists and others in the festival are perfect examples."

Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith was the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland from 1993-98, playing a pivotal role in the peace process in that region. Smith's experiences with helping her mentally-disabled sister Rose Marie live a full life gave her an insight into the abilities of people with disabilities. In 1974 she founded VSA arts, an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to provide arts education and programming for adults and children with disabilities. Her book, Chronicles of Courage, written in collaboration with George Plimpton, was published by Random House in 1993 and details the artistic achievements of 16 artists with disabilities.

Marlee Matlin received worldwide critical acclaim for her motion picture debut in Paramount Pictures' "Children of a Lesser God," earning her the Academy Award for Best Actress and at age 21 becoming the youngest recipient of the Best Actress Oscar and one of only four actresses to receive that honor for a film debut. In addition to the Oscar, Matlin was honored by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama. Matlin has also received multiple nominations for her work on television including two Golden Globe Award nominations as Best Actress in a Dramatic Television Series, two People's Choice Awards nominations for Favorite Actress in a Drama, and four Emmy award nominations for her guest turns on CBS's "Picket Fences," ABC's "The Practice," and NBC's "Seinfeld" and "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit." Passionate about children, she has also appeared in a number of educational and children's programs. Matlin served as host of PBS's Emmy Award winning series "People in Motion," and, in 2007, was featured in the PBS documentary, "Through Deaf Eyes." She is also the author of a novel for children entitled "Deaf Child Crossing" and two sequels, "Nobody's Perfect" and "Leading Ladies" published this year. Matlin currently serves as a national celebrity spokesperson for the American Red Cross, encouraging Americans to donate blood. She has worked on behalf of closed captioning and was instrumental in getting Congress to pass federal legislation requiring all televisions manufactured in the United States be equipped with closed captioning technology.

Melody Gardot's blend of mellow blues, eclectic folk and jazz captures the expressive emotions reminiscent of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone. At the age of 19, Gardot was hit by a car while riding a bicycle. The injuries sustained mean Gardot now needs to wear dark glasses and carry a cane. Prompted by a tending physician who believed music would help her regain some of her former cognitive abilities, her first musical venture was in 2005 "Some Lessons" recorded from her bedside. Gardot has performed with such notable acts as Livingston Taylor, The Wood Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Susan Tedeschi, James Hunter, Mike Doughty, Jeffrey Gaines, David Poe, and Amy Correia, and has played in such venues as The Kimmel Center, The Kennedy Center, World Cafe Live, The Tin Angel, Club Passim, The Sellersville Theatre, The Media Theatre, The Ritz, Rockwood Music Hall, The Living Room, and The Cutting Room.

Light Motion, founded by principal dancers Charlene Curtiss and JoAnne Petroff, is a two-woman integrated dance company that is refreshingly creative, exciting and physically demanding. Emphasizing "Front End Control", the duo uses the wheelchair as an expression of movement rather than just a vehicle for mobility. It is their purpose to integrate the chair into the movement of their choreography. Charlene Curtiss received a spinal cord injury as the result of a gymnastics accident. Leaving her job as an attorney, she began her new career in 1985 as a dancer and choreographer. Her original dance techniques in "front-end chair control" have redefined dance parameters for wheelchair movement, helping disabled people discover the untapped, unexplored world of dance and artistic movement. Accompanied by her dance partner Joanne Petroff, Light Motion is instrumental in bringing integrated dance to the forefront of new trends in dance and to furthering the choreographic terminology of wheelchair dance. The two also co-founded of Whistlestop Dance, a Seattle-based performance and instructional modern dance company that has been acclaimed for their work with adult and children with special needs. Together they have taught in Artist-in-Residence programs in Washington, Hong Kong, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Writer/vocalist/guitarist Raul Midon, blind from birth, brings a rich tradition of pop inventiveness to his music, influenced by Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon and Bill Withers. Having never seen images, he uses a lively imagination to write about the experiences of the other senses - hear, touch and feel. Midon was born in Embudo, New Mexico to an Argentinean father and an African-American mother. Always a passionate music lover, he started playing drums at age 4 before shifting his focus to the guitar. After graduating from the jazz program at the University of Miami, he became an in-demand backup singer, working primarily on Latin projects for artists like Julio Iglesias, Shkira, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Jose Feliciano, and Alejandro Sanz while moonlighting as a club perform to hone his own synocpated, flamenco- and jazz-infused approach to the steel-stringed acoustic. He moved to New York to partnering with Grammy award-winning producer/arranger Arif Mardin and his multi-instrumentalist son Joe to produce two crticially acclaimed recordings. As a jazz vocal improviser and performer, Midon has worked around the world with such notable jazz legends as Paquito D'Rivera, Dave Valentin, Dave Samuels, and Claudio Roditi.

INDEPENDENCE STARTS HERE: A FESTIVAL OF DISABILITY ARTS AND CULTURE, running on October 18-November 20, celebrates classic and contemporary art influenced or informed by the experience of disability and features artists with and without disabilities. The Festival features performances of theater, music and dance; readings of poetry, plays and other literary arts; historical, cultural, and visual art exhibits; lectures; workshops; film series and other art projects. The festival also celebrates the work of leaders in the disability and cultural communities to increase accessibility in Greater Philadelphia and highlights organizations who offer accessibility on a regular basis and those who are working to create accessibility for the first time. More than forty arts organizations throughout the city will participate in the Festival, some holding events create specially for the Festival and others enhancing their ongoing activities with Festival-related events.

For more information about Independence Starts Here: A Festival of Disability Arts and Culture, please visit www.independencestartshere.org.