ON DISPLAY GLOBAL

Our annual, worldwide initiative that honors the United Nations' International Day of Persons with Disabilities, on December 3rd, through local, community-led sculpture courts. It began in 2015 with two sites, New York, NY and Hobart, Australia and has since developed into a thriving and growing network of participants.

As we reflect on ODG 2024: The Year of the Individual, we will be harnessing the energy and carrying it forward into ODG 2025.
Join us December 3, 2025 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ON DISPLAY GLOBAL and the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act

You can engage with the stories through our youtube here or watch them below.

NYC Live Installations

On December 3rd, Heidi Latsky Dance has live in-person ON DISPLAY GLOBAL installations in NYC venues: NYU Tisch School of the Arts, and the United Nations General Assembly Lobby.
Ambassadors around the world will be presenting their own events as well.

Global Group Installations

Abbotsford, BC • Albuquerque, USA • Ames, USA • Amsterdam, Netherlands • Athens, Greece •Atherton, Australia • Atlanta, USA • Auckland, New Zealand • Austin, USA • Bali, Indonesia • Bangalore, India • Banner Elk, USA • Beirut, Lebanon • Bendigo, Australia • Berlin, Germany • Boston, USA •Bridgeport, USA • Brighton, England • Bronx, USA • Bronxville, USA • Brooklyn, USA • Buenos Aires, Argentina • Burlington, USA • Cedar City, USA •  Cleveland, USA • Cresskill, USA • Dacula, USA • Dayton, USA • Denver, USA • Dhaka, Bangladesh • Dunedin, New Zealand • Durham, USA • East Harlem, USA • Fort Worth, USA • Fortaleza, Brazil • Foster, USA • Frisco, USA • Fullerton, USA • Hackensack, USA • Harvard University, USA • Hastings-on-Hudson, USA • Hobart, Australia • Hong Kong, China • Hong Zhou, China • Jackson, USA • Jerusalem, Israel • Kansas City, USA • Kean University, USA • Kingston, Canada • Lima, Peru • Lincoln Center, USA • London, England • Long Island, USA • Los Angeles, USA • Madison, USA • Manchester, England • Mexico City, Mexico • Miami, USA • Milwaukee, USA • Monroe, USA • Monteroni di Lecce, Italy • Montreal, Canada • Muhlenberg College, USA • Nashville, USA • Nakivale, Uganda • New York, NY • Northbrook, USA • NY Botanical Gardens, USA • NY City Hall, USA • NY Metropolitan Hospital, USA • NYU TISCH, USA • Orange County, USA • Orlando, USA • Ottawa, Canada • Palencia, Spain • Philadelphia, USA • Pittsburgh, USA • Pleasanton, USA • Queens, USA • Rochester, USA • San Diego, USA • San Fernando, Chile • San Francisco, USA • San Pablo, USA • Santiago, Chile • São Paulo, Brazi• São Sebastião, Brazil • Scotch Plains, USA • Seattle, USA • Seminole, USA •Seongnam, South Korea • Seoul, South Korea • Shanghai, China • Sherman, USA •Skidmore College, USA • Stamford, USA • Stockholm, Sweden • Sunshine Coast, Australia • Taubate, Brazil • Tehran, Iran •Tel Aviv, Israel • Texas Christian University, USA • The High Line, USA • The Whitney Museum, USA • Times Square, USA • Toronto, Canada • Trondheim, Norway • United Nations, USA • Valley Stream, USA • Washington, D.C., USA • Wellington, New Zealand • Wesleyan University, USA • Yerevan, Armenia • Yogyakarta, Indonesia • Zagreb, Croatia

Highlighted Organizations

This year as a part of ODG we highlighted 6 disability focused organizations committed to accessibility and inclusivity.
Find out more about each organization below and ways to contribute. Next year in 2025 we will highlight 4 more. Stay tuned…

View more information about each here.

Times Square Digital Billboard and Taxi PSAs

TESTIMONIALS

“Even in virtual form, the project’s ethos of inclusiveness remains constant.”

NY Times / Read Full Article

"I wanted to create a safe space where the audience could really ‘look’ and the performers could ‘look’ back.”

The Boost / Read Full Article

"As the largest ongoing international installation of atypical bodies..."

DC Metro / Read Full Article

“With its diverse, inclusive cast, [ON DISPLAY/RESTON] is a resonant project for the current moment”

The Washington Post / Read Full Article

“Through the act of gazing upon one another, ON DISPLAY GLOBAL accesses shared humanity and connectivity.”

Dance Enthusiast / Read Full Article

“Inviting other people to watch you is an incredibly strong statement”

Maryland Today / Read Full Article

“...the event brings a restorative message of celebrating our shared humanity, vulnerabilities, and differences.”

Fjord Dance Magazine / Read Full Article

“In this installation the performers have the power to choose what they do or do not reveal, giving them control over a personal journey that cannot help but be affected by an audience.”

Dance Enthusiast / Read Full Article

“On Display/Boston is everything I want from a work of art: It is thoughtful and makes you think. It provokes reflection. It is full of spirit. It is full of beauty. It is inclusive. And it takes you deep inside yourself even as it expands the world around you.”

DAVID HENRY
Former Bill T. Jones Director of Performing and Media Arts
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA

“On Display creates a safe and creative space for us to really look at each other and our differences,”

Bendigo Advertiser, Australia / Read Full Article

“The acceptance, vulnerability and honesty I've experienced through this work bring so much more humility and compassion to my everyday life and, I hope, to those I encounter.”

Dance Magazine / Read Full Article

“ON DISPLAY/RESTON … is a commentary on the body as a spectacle and society's obsession with body image. The installation confronts the gaze and disability culture.”

Fairfax County Times / Read Full Article

“Heidi Latsky Dance of New York City transformed the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s Kogod Auditorium into a living sculpture garden featuring a diverse cast of 20 performers of various ages, races, genders and abilities.”

The Georgetowner / Read Full Article

“[T]he artists paired with performers from Heidi Latsky Dance in New York City to create wearable designs that puts emphasis on each dancer's strength and resilience.”

World Is One News / Read Full Article

“[T]he project spotlights the slow, expressive movements of each individual and addresses the concept of humans being on display, raising awareness about the experiences of seeing and being seen.”

Westword / Read Full Article

“When I see our ON DISPLAY PSA, [it’s] so different from all the commercial ads that are up in Times Square … it was taking it to a place where I never thought we could go as a modern dance company on stage.”

Backstage / Read Full Article

“Those of us who are presenting ourselves to be looked at have our eyes open, so we are staring back. We are hoping to open a dialogue.”

Albuquerque Journal / Read Full Article

From Harvard

"In my roles as a graduate student and Teaching Fellow I strive for inclusion and equity both in research and teaching. ON DISPLAY HARVARD, on multiple levels, taught me more on empathy, inclusion, and mutual understanding than any purely intellectual discourse. Furthermore, I consider the stance Harvard takes by nurturing initiatives like ON DISPLAY HARVARD essential for a flourishing, inclusive environment. In what this performance achieves and in the message it conveys, ON DISPLAY HARVARD is certainly among one of the most - in every sense of the word - vital initiatives Harvard University may consider itself fortunate to host."

“So Much! Ava and Elisabeth's guidance into deeply attentive listening to our bodies was a beautiful start. The warmup and practice with the score were distinct practices on how to be in the slowest of motion and stillness and really delve in. I found that the hour was timeless. I remember making my way - over many many minutes- to the floor to releive aches and strain. For a while, with knees actively bent, I focused on bringing my hand down, down ever so slowly, to try to reach that gravity giving floor. It was so much effort! And I felt, viscerally, what it might be like to need all my consolidated effort just to move a hand. That was an insight into disability on a level I'd not experienced before. Also, incredible beauty and poignancy. At a time of opening my gaze to cross the space, I saw a fellow dancer, leaning out with arms stretched, toward her 2 year old daughter, who was live and just out of her frozen mother's reach. That brought tears. Sharing beneath words; being able to give this stillness to a fluctuating flow of folks just wandering through; it was a journey that I want to explore again and again. I wonder what the witness folks felt?

I have participated in On Display several times, each bringing to me a different flow of feelings and energy. This year's On Display was no different. What I found wonderful was having the audience be part of my experience. Their movement speed and pauses and curiosity looking into me, into each of us; my ears hearing them, my eyes opening to see only what passed before my eyes (I would normally track their movements). For them external responses, for me internal responses ... yet connected. Different in some way, the same in the some way. Though stationary, I was part of a larger flow.”

“I have participated in On Display several times, each bringing to me a different flow of feelings and energy. This year's On Display was no different.”

“What I found wonderful was having the audience be part of my experience. Their movement speed and pauses and curiosity looking into me, into each of us; my ears hearing them, my eyes opening to see only what passed before my eyes (I would normally track their movements). For them external responses, for me internal responses ... yet connected. Different in some way, the same in another way. Though stationary, I was part of a larger flow.”

“For an hour, I felt encapsulated in a body with severe mobility restrictions, not able to speak and with very limited vision. A body that was being seen but felt invisible to me. For an hour, I listened to people walking by. I heard someone talking about me as if I were not there. But there I was, hearing everything around me without being able to speak up for myself. I could see a little bit in front of me but I could barely see what was happening around me. I was anxious not knowing where my family was until I heard their voices nearby. For an hour, I saw my kids in the distance and I was not able to reach them, hold them or hug them because my body was not able to move. I cried and yelled inside. My body was asking for help, but I was not been heard. How can they not see me? I am HERE. I am human! I was begging to be hugged or touched but people looked away because they did not know how to interact.” For an hour I experienced being immersed in the shoes of one of the persons I loved the most in the entire world and I felt anxious, frustrated, invalidated and unseen. I experienced a world I don't want her or anyone to live in. Nobody should exist in the world without being fully seen. For an hour, I observed a world where I felt being left out.  I felt visible but UNSEEN at the same time. I also felt compassion, love, and empathy from those around me who were willing to SEE me. I felt comforted by those who came to me, grabbed my hand or found my eyes in my short range of vision to connect with me. I felt loved and included by those who smiled and said hi, although I could not say it back. It took me forever to find a pose to say "I love you" with my hands and across the room I found someone who loved me back.

Dec 3rd is a day I will always celebrate.

Dec 3rd of 2023 is the day I will never forget because [it] will be the day I lived a transformative experience that will keep pushing me forward to use my art to advocate for people whose stories often go unseen and unheard.”