Wheelchair Dancer

Late Night Thought

2013-05-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

It's been one of those feed/stream days: so much injustice, so much wrong, too much to protest, too little change. Tomorrow, I am going to get bodywork -- not so much the kind that fixes the tight, twisted and torqued, more the kind that reconnects body, mind, and soul; I can't wait. In between, however.

It's that moment of in between that has my attention.

Of late, I've noticed that I've been creating more and more of these in between spaces for myself. I've been reclaiming time. And noticing what I do in the space that I think is "empty." I don't need to fill that time by any means; I do want to be able to see meaning or intention in my daily life. I think this will help me balance the extremes at which I have been living. I've performed and/or travelled now every weekend but one since March 23rd. I'm tired; I feel as if the running will never stop. I'm so focused on getting to all the places and doing all the things that I can't actually see the living that is happening as I do so.

By explicitly naming and connecting these two experiences, I create an in between space. I make something of the time in between my last look at the internet and the first touch of my bodyworker. I will move from the injustices to a reconnecting of body, mind, and soul. These are bookends -- arbitrary ones, yes -- but bookends nonetheless. All of a sudden the time that on another day I might have called sleep and then morning -- that time becomes meaningful. I will journey from the experience of distress and overwhelmedness to welcoming a sense of peace and integration.

Disability Arts and Culture I: Doing It Properly?

2013-05-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

When a New York Times music critic is as interested in how Mr. Levine controls his wheelchair as he is in the performance the conductor created, you know there is trouble afoot. Here's the piece: it's a review of Mr. Levine's return to conducting the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.

Like Mr. Tommasini, the critic, I also want to engage the question of whether Mr. Levine did a good job as a conductor. But I see the criteria differently. I like to ask questions such as: Does Mr. Levine bring out a performance that moves you? Does the orchestra soften and yield under his baton? Does the music that emanates from the musicians take root inside you and flourish? What is his interpretation like? How does it fit with/break from tradition? Was the orchestra well-balanced? Are the musicians playing well? If I can answer yes to these and other similar questions, then I can say that he is doing a good job. I do not know how much that has to do with Mr. Levine's use of a wheelchair and how much not. It seems that the New York Times most certainly does, however. And while they know this much, they do not know how to talk about the fact of a disabled conductor.

First, there's the bad language. Mr. Levine did not enter the auditorium, he "cruised" onto the stage in his wheelchair and the audience stood to give him an ovation -- because the only ovation that matters is standing. The false dichotomies are apparent from the very beginning. Much is made of the special platform from which he conducts, how it blends with Carnegie Hall style -- because accessibility is ugly, right? And we can't have ugly at Carnegie Hall. [One might wish that such care had been taken in providing seats for disabled audience members, but perhaps that one might be being unnecessarily bitter....]

It turns out that the reviewer decides that Mr. Levine is back -- perhaps not back as Music Director (Mr. Levine's official title, as we are reminded) -- but he has returned as a conductor. The music is "serene, poised, and glowing." It's music on a par with the art Mr. Levin has created before his injuries. Fabulous. Finally. But after this three word assessment, more time is spent on Mr. Levine's medical history -- surgery, injury, shoulder, back. All this complexity, for Mr. Tommasini, makes Mr. Levine a conductor with "something to prove." Mr. Tommasini concludes that we should delay speculation on Mr. Levine's future and instead "bask in [Mr. Levine's] musical glory."

But does Mr. Levine's medical history and physical situation mean that he has to demonstrate again his value as a conductor? It's a long and complicated question, but tackling it helps us get to the core of the disability arts and culture movement. Addressing it helps us understand why and how disabled artists can take their well-earned places in the pantheon of admired art-makers. Mr. Levine's physicality may be one thing, but I believe that his skills as a conductor are not necessarily tied to the state of his body -- no matter how inseparable the NYT would have us believe the two are. Mr. Tommasini treats us to the following paragraph:

He [Mr. Levine] looked physically up to the task. He showed flexibility in his upper body, as he has described in recent interviews. He seemed comfortable waving his arms and giving emphatic cues. Mr. Levine was actually bouncing around on the chair, smiling at the musicians, sometimes singing the music audibly and looking altogether unrestrained.

Mr. Tommasini assesses Mr. Levine's ability to conduct by attempting to read his body. There's flexibility and range of motion. There's no visible presence of pain; indeed, Mr. Levine seems to be enjoying himself. This freedom is soon ended; once the piece is over, Mr. Levine is unable to turn his chair easily (to take a bow), and two musicians rise from their seats in evident concern. These two vignettes are telling: They inform us about Mr. Levine's skill, capacity as a conductor and reveal something about his comfort in his chair. More importantly, they help us see what is important to the reviewer. For Mr. Levine's success to be complete, he has to be able to erase any sign of difficulty and be able to perform as he did before.

This is something of a fallacy. What does it take to draw music out of an orchestra? Do we have to define or experience conducting as "waving" of the arms? What does it mean to conduct anyway?

I would like to begin by positing that conducting does not have to come from the arms. Mr. Levine has to be able to communicate with the orchestra, yes, but he does not have to move his arms to do so. From over fifteen years of orchestral experience at a variety of levels, I know that some of the most rewarding and scary moments come from eye contact, a raised eyebrow, a twitch of the mouth. Indeed, some of the most intimate communication between musician and conductor is invisible to the audience -- in large part because it is not created by the arm. So, why do we persist in making the arm the sign of efficient conducting?

I am tired of writing pieces that deconstruct the ignorance and ableism in the New York Times and, in general, in a wide variety of review pieces. (In a different venue, I had a nasty little series called #hownottowriteaboutdance.) I'm not getting anywhere; let me try something different.

What if Mr. Levine stopped trying to accommodate his body to the expected way of conducting, i.e., with his arms? What might he find? A sound? A bounce? A jiggle? A glance? A movement of head or chair? A twist or turn? How electrifying would it be to play under a conductor who was not in pain and was not at risk of hurting their body in an attempt to appear normal? Then, there's that moment of infelicitous chair movement. What if instead of trying to accommodate Mr. Levine's chair, the good people at Carnegie Hall made space for Mr. Levine's whole body and created room for a potential new style of conducting? Would there be new architecture? Better integration? A more powerful connection between orchestra and conductor? Communication is about the conductor -- the body and the person -- but it is also about the specifics of situation and environment. It is both societal and individual. The movement of the arms is an outward manifestation of the art, but it is not the whole or even the most significant part.

Mr. Levine is a powerful and amazing conductor. He has the presence and track record to change how we experience conducting as an art form. I make no assumptions about why he has not prioritized or presented himself as a disabled artist; it is enough that he returned to the podium in his chair. My ire is reserved for those who make it impossible for the art to rise from the body as it is, in its complete forms -- chair, assistive technologies, diverse communication patterns and styles. These are the people who stifle artistic ingenuity and progress.

Working in this whole, integrated way is what it means to be part of the disability arts and culture movement; being able to work in this way is why the movement is so necessary. "Properly" in my title does not and should not mean doing it the way it always has been done. "Properly" means doing it. With the art of body and mind, exactly as they are.

Choosing Mothering

2013-05-13T13:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (when I started this), it was Mother's Day in the US, and many of the blogs I usually read had posts by the authors honouring their mothers or mothers in general. The same was true on my facebook page. It was Mother's Day, and everyone, it seemed, was remembering, paying tribute to their mother.

I wish for an easy relationship with my mother; one of the kind so often offered as a model here -- the one in which mother and daughter are best friends, soulmates, one half of each other. I long for that relationship, so that I, too, can easily join the hordes #honouringmymother. At the same time, I also want to acknowledge that some of what we might conventionally call "mothering" came from my father; some came from a teacher at school. Even as I honour my mother, I want to recognize that mothering is also more extensive and complicated than we commonly mean when we say "mother."

Both the theme of my relationship with my mother and its actuality are that of battle. My mother fought for me. She fought to give birth to me, to raise me, and, as she and I got older, we fought each other. That's not the whole story, of course. She loved me. She cared for me. She did all the things that you would expect and more. She invested her hopes and dreams in me. She did everything she could, emotionally, mentally, physically, to help me succeed. She gave everything. And we fought.

I don't understand why things went so wrong. I do not know why things are still so wrong. It's been over twenty five years since I left home; I don't understand why our relationship looks nothing like the ones so many of my friends have. I don't understand why our relationship looks nothing like the ones reported, honoured, treasured ... I simply do not understand. And because I don't understand, I have no idea how to correct it (various blog posts report some of the efforts). I've tried over the years, but the smallest things like going to a nail salon, having dinner, seeing a show don't enable the connection. Nor do they help to create an opening to begin the conversations. Direct approaches do not work -- oh, boy, do they not work. So, I do the small things, and I hope that one day there will be a change. In the meantime, I can honour my mother from afar.

I'd like to also publicly acknowledge my mother in the movement. When I was lost in the medicalities of my body, this woman reached out to me and ushered me into the world of disability politics and disability arts and culture. Along the way, we went through some of the medicalities; she taught me the tips and tricks. We laughed, partied, shopped, saw theater, dance, film. We ate, talked, ate, talked, laughed and more.

I like to think of myself as a "self-made" person in the best of the American tradition. And it is true; I *am* self-made, over and over again. But the truth of the matter is also that I would not have the knowledge and skills necessary for these endeavours had it not been for all of my mothers.

Thank you.

Do Over II: Looking For Home

2013-05-05T10:54:00.002-07:00

Today is my last day in California for about six weeks; no, make that approximately nine or ten weeks. Over the next two months, my life is going to be interesting. I have performances for two different productions in two different cities. I will then be returning to the UK for approximately six weeks. All of this has inspired what I would have called as a child "panic stations." Longer term readers might remember that I hate packing; it distresses me. A lot.

I solved the tour packing by making lists and kits that I never took out of the suitcase. I would come home, wash my stuff, put it back in the case, refill any bottles and close the case. That way, I never forgot anything. Ever! It was very satisfying. I solved the bi-coastal life problem by simply having two (small) wardrobes and two sets of body and hair products. It made the commute easy: all I had to do was pack my computer, headphones, and some travel toiletries in case I got stuck. No packing and no stress.

Now, I'm dealing with a larger set of concerns. The UK! Nominally my homeland, now my former homeland, a place I haven't lived in over twenty years. I went to get my hair cut. "It has to last until July," I insisted. My sister reminds me that people in the UK do manage to get their hair cut, too. And that is part of the dilemma. Nothing is the same. I am not the same. My old brand of deodorant has probably gone -- and are you still wearing the same deodorant that you wore in your teens? I use different hair products. It's home, but it isn't home.

I notice how much I define my sense of personal home, not by geography but by my things. This makes tremendous sense to me; I live primarily in two places. I travel thousands upon thousands of air miles a year. I've got a different lifestyle planned around living in hotel rooms for touring, and I love to travel with the Wizard (yet another way of living). I am always on the move. I use my things -- my clothes, my hair products, my lotion, even a bracelet or necklace -- to create a sense of myself that can go out into the world or even, softly, inward to bed with the people I care most for. These help form the "me" that people relate to and with.

This is why packing is so important and so stressful. If I get it wrong or if I have forgotten some menial thing, I am scared that I will somehow be less complete. I can always buy a tooth brush, but using mine reminds of who I am.

So, some lists.

Wheelchair

every spare screw, back pad, foam plate
inner tubes
new tires (or should that be tyres, now?)
gaffer tape
pump
extra cushion?
tool kit

Dance

knee pads and spare knee pads
strap for adventurous moves
shoes?? (I hate wearing shoes
leg warmers
neck wraps
warm clothes
performance underwear (neutral leotards, bras, shorts -- not clear what I need)
regular underwear -- tights, bra
pants
tops or leotards (how formal are they?)
hat
plastic pants -- outdoor performance and rehearsals: it is going to rain!

Medical

medication
heating pad
ice machine
therabands
pads and balls
back brace (just in case)
beanies (if there's microwave)

Personal

no clue yet

Disability, Success and Pride: Can You Have A Publicly Embodied Life?

2013-05-04T10:40:00.002-07:00

After a recent performance, an audience member congratulated me. I was happy with my performance and with the show as a whole, so I smiled back and laughed. I was about to tell her about how much the show had meant to me. She interrupted me. She was glad that I had been given a disability; I had to be humbled somehow. I was gobsmacked (and yet, weirdly, not -- strange things happen all the time).

Her comments struck me deeply; I was in post-show vulnerable mode. This is why I hate talkbacks and "q and a" sessions; they just give people a chance to say a well-meant utterly horrible thing. It's taken a while to think about this. I'm sure she didn't actually mean that literally. Well, OK; I'm not quite sure, but I am hoping that she didn't actually mean that. For that to be true, she would have had to have read my disability as a sap that helps me pay for the sins I have committed -- specifically, disability is the counterweight to my pride, a payback for my happiness and pride in my achievements. Disability stops me. I don't quite believe she meant that, but I do think there's a real thing to be understood in her comments.

Too often, because disability is understood as a lack or failing -- as a pitiable position of weakness (if not revulsion) -- it is easy to understand disability as a punishment, humbling, or just deserts. It is virtually impossible in this Christian inflected, North American culture for people to understand disability as anything much other than a metaphor or signifier; it is not an embodied reality. It is never neutral.

This encounter resonated hard for me while I was reading a personal blog/opinion-y piece in the Huffington Post. It's one of a personal series of reflections by a disabled writer and speaker, Linda Noble Topf. Noble Topf is a motivational speaker and writer -- from the world of "you may have x, but x does not have you" thinking about the transition into disability. She writes:

Sometimes, we find our greatest lessons when we must let go of something that has particularly brought us pleasure in the past. For example, Michael and I used to enjoy dancing. We were so good on the dance floor together! It was really our joy. But there came a time when I was unable to stand without a cane, much less dance.

One night, we were at a party where people were dancing, and I nudged Michael and said, "Go ask Sheryl to dance." Now Sheryl is a great dancer. She is beautiful. She is wonderful. I had no idea how well she danced until that evening. I watched Michael and her glide and flow across the dance floor with the soulful music, just as we used to do so many years ago.

First, as a dancer -- no, to be a dancer -- you don't need to be able to stand up and dance. Other posts from Ms. Noble Topf suggest that she uses both a wheelchair and a scooter. You can dance in either or both of these. You can dance seated from a regular chair. You can dance with your eyes and dance with your tongue. This is what I know both as a professional dancer and as someone who occasionally goes to the legendary Society For Disability Studies conference dance. Dancing is not about the body parts. It is about how we express and communicate in movement. It won't look the same; it won't feel the same. It definitely is dancing.

You do not have to "stand" aside and watch your love dance with someone else. You do not have to experience the discomfort and jealousy that this might cause. Dancing disabled does not prevent your dance partner from moving as fully as possible. Dancing disabled is possible, pleasurable, amazing, and... and it does not inhibit or prevent the experience of others.

OK. Part one of the rant done. I needed to say that -- to get it out of the way. But this is not really what I want to say about Ms. Noble Topf's post. As much as I disagree with the author, her essay makes a tremendous and deeply saddening kind of sense to me. It's another expression of that ugly post-show comment. Ms. Noble Topf's essay participates in that very same tradition of defining disability as a lack of physical ability. But, and this is what interests me, she goes on to talk about what happens thereafter.

The "here and now" is of the encounter -- that moment when a microaggression happens (more on that here if you're not sure what that is). The "thereafter" is what we have to live with. Ms. Noble Topf continues:

As I confronted the fact that I had defined my identity with my accomplishments, activities that I've physically done -- dancing, painting, dressing myself, or whatever -- my previous investment in the physical doing began to melt away. And as it did, I discovered something beyond it. What I began to see was that my measure of worth did not need to be wrapped up in my actions or physical accomplishments.

I saw that there clearly is a way that we participate in life that is quite beyond that. The breakthrough I experienced that evening was: As we give up our physical attachments, we uncover our authentic, true spiritual self. And this seems to happen even for those who, like me, never thought of themselves as spiritual before.

I need to take this sentence by sentence.

I agree firmly with the horror of defining identity by job or accomplishments. It's so often socially boring to listen to someone who does this, and I try my best not to be the same. (Though, of course, I have the space of a whole blog to get this part of me out of the way.) But I see in this claim a particularly risky disability statement. For those of us with acquired disability, there is a risk of staying in the moment of transition and the moment of loss. For all of us, disabled and non; our bodies change. Some things we get back; others we don't. We cannot stay in the moment of all that we did and now cannot do. And I know people who talk about everything they were, everything they did -- and who seem stuck there. They do not/cannot move through to the new part of life easily.

Further, there is absolute value in being proud of accomplishments. Being able to dress yourself by yourself (not that that should be a publicly welcomed standard... nothing wrong with assistance, and independence ain't all it's made out to be) might represent a lot of work, a lot of rehab, a lot of effort on a given day. There is nothing wrong with recognizing it, claiming it, owning it. This is part of your physical life. It does take work to do these things. We cannot assume that these things just happen; they don't. And if you consistently pass over the physical realities of your life, you miss out on living in your embodied self. You miss out on integrating that embodiment into your identity.

That's dangerous. Because the public wishes to erase your embodied difference from social, political, and cultural spaces -- from the very public imagination -- your embodied self is under siege. Constantly. If you don't claim it, no one will. We have to love our physical doings, yes. But even more, we have to love our physical beings. And that is difficulty of Ms. Noble Topf's piece. Because of her implicit analysis of disability as lack or loss, Ms. Noble Topf's article does not allow for a positive embodied physical reality. Instead, she urges transitioning beyond the body to the spirit.

This is, of course, on par for a number of religious/spiritual traditions. No one really likes the body. As disabled people whose bodies are already subject to encounters of repulsion, abjection, horrible public policy, unwanted religious blessings, prayers for cures, .... erasure in so many ways at such high costs, can we be different? Can we practice whatever spirituality calls to us and keep our bodies? Can we hold and live publicly in our bodies? And can we take pride in our bodies, our physicalities, and our accomplishments without being accused of any number of the Christian cardinal sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, anger, envy, pride)?

We don't have to withdraw from society and life to participate fully. I cannot support that claim. No, we should place ourselves in society -- in life -- as much as we are able. It is too easy, if we withdraw. We endanger ourselves and others if we withdraw. If we take ourselves and our bodies out of the picture, someone else will prevent us from being photoshopped back in. As hard as it is, as ugly and painful as it is, will you please live a publicly embodied life?

NB: Public does not mean being outside in the world, being political, protesting, etc. It can mean talking to your friends, blogging, taking pictures, being on the phone .... Limitless.

Mandatory Elevator Conversation

2013-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

Man with a dog: Can I tell you something about this little dog?

[Eyes tear up]

MWAD: He was completely paralyzed.

WCD: Sigh

[Eyes roll]

MWAD (oblivious): He was just paralyzed. And you know? He was happy in his wheelchair? He had a little wheelchair. He would go ....

WCD (interrupting): He was happy? Funny that.

MWAD (looks at WCD questioningly; he receives no response, so he continues): He would go around in his wheelchair and he was happy, you know? And ...

[Stops, looks at WCD waiting for confirmation or for conversational prompt to continue. None is forthcoming.]

MWAD: He came back, you know? Look at him? He came back? And ...

WCD (interrupting again): Well, at least you kept him alive.

MWAD: Oh no. I wouldn't want to hurt this little guy. He came back. And now, whether he's in his wheelchair or just walking around, he's happy!

[They leave the elevator together. MWAD blocks WCD, thereby preventing her from running off and escaping this awful conversation. He sniffles at his memory.]

MWAD: You have a good day.

WCD

[Looks at the sky.]

Just When You Think

2013-05-01T13:08:00.000-07:00

I want to be writing about principles and concepts, but actually, I'm going to be writing personally. There are a number of disability anniversaries in my life: when symptoms started, when I first started to use canes, crutches, a wheelchair, when I became a mostly full time wheeler, when I became a less full time wheeler, when I started to dance, when I started blogging .... Disability has been present in my life since September, 2000 (though I don't always count it from there). So, you'd think the brain would have adjusted by now, right? You would think that the emotions would have adapted by now, right?

Since I am writing this post, you have of course guessed that "right" is more ... "wrong." Or perhaps more complicated would be better.

I was in the tub two nights ago, awash with feelings of unfairness. Of it wasn't supposed to be like this. Of this is not me. Of surprise. Distance. Sadness. And anger. It really wasn't supposed to be like this -- not for me, at any rate. It's not that I thought that I was special or different; I didn't really have an idea of what it *was* supposed to be like. My life is good; happier; better even than it was before. No, I don't subscribe to that "blessing in disguise"/silver lining shit. My life brings me more happiness now than it did then. It's fuller. Perhaps even more meaningful in a social justice/artsy kind of way. And yet. Some have said that I have it better than many -- true, by many measures, but not a terribly useful and perhaps quite unhelpful in many contexts kind of thing. So, what was this, this feeling, all of a sudden? Regret or nostalgia for a life that never was?

I've written so stridently here about the importance of change, acceptance, and moving through and with. I'm the last person I would have expected to find myself right here.

And yet.

In the colder light of day without the nourishing warm water, I wonder if these feelings are my own internalized ableism; they could be just a resurgence of the usual grieving adaptation process. I don't really feel inclined to judge. They are certainly a reminder of how the process is continuous.

It's Not About Condition Or State

2013-04-29T18:19:00.000-07:00

I've been dancing a lot; I'm tired today. I was doing a spot of unexpected performing and touring. The work is utterly rewarding. For each show, I feel that we create some magical universe; I'm changed by each performance. Every time the lights go up, I feel a deep responsibility to the upcoming work and to the people I'm dancing with on stage. This is a deeply intimate way to live.

How does disability figure here? It's everything. It's why and how I came to the stage. It's what keeps me on stage. It's what enables me to dance.

Outside this world, however, disability resonates so differently in the world. Surrounded and protected by the lights, my disabled body and self are treasured. In the real world, my very choice to use "disability" as an identifying term is questioned. In encounter after encounter, I hear people reject "disability" as a word to describe themselves, and I hear others repeatedly tell me that I am not disabled. In all these cases, the encounter is never about the state of the body. Yes, I know. It's usually about the body -- bodies are the way it manifests in these encounters for me. And bodies are the way it manifests as a dancer. So, I'm going to hang here for a second.

In these encounters, it's never about the body. Despite what the speaker says. It's never actually about what I can or cannot do. What someone with my "condition" should or should not be able to do. It is always -- and I do mean always -- about what the body means, and what the speaker thinks bodies can and should be able to do. That is, it is not about the facts of physicality; it's about society, culture, meaning.

I recognize that I am out of "step" with the way the majority of the world thinks about these kinds of things, but I feel strongly about advocating for a different notion of disability. One where disability is not contrasted with "ability." Where the "dis" of disability and the "can do" of ability matter not. More on that tomorrow.

Stage

2013-04-21T12:46:00.001-07:00

I'm in a moment of respite, hidden between two moments of really intense dancing and really awkward and intense travel. Today is mine. To breathe. Swim. Eat. And, with luck, sleep. In the meantime, I've been thinking about the stage and about home. This post is about the stage -- which I've come to think of as a kind of home. The home of the stage is where I feel most grounded. Most alive and most unquestionably at peace with myself and the world. The stage is the most "real" place that I live.

We tend to think of the "stage" as in many ways unreal or artificial. It's in our everyday language as we think about "staging" this, that or the other. Stage is where you present the unreal. It's set up, managed, often squirreled away from the street (notice how "street theater" is specially designated?). Stage is distinct from life; it's a place where you can present and examine the unthinkable, impermissible, and taboo. Once you are in the theater, we can talk about "breaking the fourth wall," the thing that separates performance from audience, real from staged, audience from performers and house from stage.

I've come to understand this separation as mostly being an outsider perspective -- that is, one that does not immediately take into account what to me is the most critical experience of being a performer. The stage is special; there's no doubt about that. There's something about being "called to the stage" that asks you to collect yourself and prepare for the journey that is ahead. But that journey -- the reality of performance -- is not necessarily one of artificiality. I would say that stage -- unlike the disability theater of everyday life -- the space where life, *I*, am most real. Not just surreal. Not even hyper-real. But perhaps intensely, acutely real. There is nothing about the stage that is artificial; it is the place where I understand who we are and can be as humans.

Perhaps oddly to you, the reality I want to talk about is not the reality of what I am performing for you. If I am in a role or part that has some emotional value -- love, anger, fear, sadness -- my reality is not necessarily what you see. My reality is of the experience of producing/creating what you see. In that moment, my reality is about my relationships and connections to the other dancers on stage. It is about how my body is feeling, my control over my body, the condition of the stage floor, the sweat on my body, the effort, the slipping of my costume, the ... you get the picture. This reality is so vulnerable. I am so vulnerable. The lights, the passion, the fear, the trust. This is humanity. This is an experience unlike any other.

Performing creates a high; I've written about that. And I've also talked a little about how it feels to come down from the stage. Being in this state of performance intensifies both the best and worst of our daily experience. Every movement matters so intensely: every push, every finger, every stroke of the wheel, every breath. That is the reality of the stage, and that is the reality of my home from home.

Charity and Justice

2013-04-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

These days, it's supposed to be easy. Watching Hulu? No problem, just text whatever number comes up in an ad, and boom! Before the next segment begins, you will have given to stop some poor child in Africa from dying. Or perhaps, it's a New Yorker who is starving. Or perhaps. ... Who knows who is advertising? Who knows whether they are responsible people or organizations? Who knows if this is a scam or a fraud? Where does the money go? What about the people? Persistent pictures pleading for pity dehumanize their subjects. Doesn't matter. They are "victims," not, of course, of the media's campaigns, but of their circumstances, of each other, of tragedy, disaster ....

We almost never see behind the scenes and, if you aren't looking, it's easy not to focus a sharp lens. The pitch is slick. It's a thirty second break. You don't want to have to work hard at it; charity is to be as reflexive as texting a friend about coffee. It takes more work to make the damn coffee.

Every arts organization, dance company, not-for-profit I've ever had remote contact with wants money. So do the local libraries, the theaters I've been in recently, the pool I swim in -- everyone wants money.

This is the ultimate NPR effect. If you want a resource or believe in a resource, pay for it. The liberal side of Bush's compassionate conservatism -- one where we give to compensate for the structural injustices of the world and then feel better. After all, what can go wrong if we give?

Giving is important; we should all do it. Often. But. And.

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld. (Supposedly, this is Augustine, but ...)

As we move more and more into the age of KickStarter, Indiegogo, crowd sourcing, we create a world in which we depend more and more on private giving. Perhaps that is OK for enterprise and innovation. But it's not OK for the arts, and it is not OK for not-for profits. It is not all right to assume that people will just step up if the project is good enough or worthy enough or, worse, if the people are deserving enough. By participating in these campaigns, we may fund a friend's project. Or even support a cool idea. But we make also make the whole thing worse. It's a long term-short term thing.

Bedding Out And Disability Art: Beginning A Conversation

2013-04-15T20:28:00.002-07:00

I wish I had been in the UK ... for Bedding Out. This is perhaps one of the most important pieces of disability arts and culture to emerge from the current crisis around cuts in the British social system. Let me first say that I am shocked by the state of affairs in my home country; I had always believed that the UK would have at its core a different sense of humanity. We survived Thatcherism -- I first became politically active under the Iron Lady. I thought that even though systems suck, people might do better because it is our history, culture and tradition to care for each other in these ways.

Bedding Out is a two day residency at the Salisbury Arts Centre performed or unperformed (the distinction is key) by Liz Crow. Ms. Crow has been experimenting with the public and private lives disabled people often lead; Bedding Out makes public the private life of bed and recovery that she has often needed so that she could be so public.

Useful Bedding Out links: go, read, watch. Not all of the videos shared are captioned, but the stuff coming from Liz herself is. Especially here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1mQftJh1Rc #beddingout on Twitter is also interesting. Guardian piece.

As a performer and artist, I am intrigued on many levels. I am committed to the/a politicality of disability art and culture; I don't think our work as artists has to be messaged or be about messaging. That is, I don't think we have to make statements. That destroys the art, more often than not. But I do believe that work of the disability arts and culture movement is, in part, defined by our relationship to the political and social traditions of where and how we live. Because of the world we live in and because the value the world assigns to disabled people, the moment we engage in artistic production, our work becomes political. Theoretically, it would not have to be this way. If we assigned all bodies equal value, it wouldn't be political to be a disabled dancer.

But because of the nature of our society, it is inherently political for a disabled person to be a dancer. It is inherently political for an artist to paint with a hand and with parts other than a hand. It is inherently political even for us to see disability in art -- both for us to recognize it *as* disability. Think for example of the Andrew Wyeth Christina's World: If you didn't know it was of a disabled woman, would you recognize her disability? Or -- and I heard this first from Tobin Siebers. It was an insight that changed my whole relationship to art. What happens if you look at the Greek and Roman sculpture traditions with an explicitly disabled eye?

Of course, art will come from the conditions in which we live -- many of which are imposed upon us. Of course, artists will speak through their work.

Back to Bedding Out. I'm intrigued as a dancer and performer. I'm always of two minds about contemporary performance. It's about fear of perception and of an audience's responde to my work. It's about disability prejudice and my internalize response to it. So, here's another place where political comes in. Because contemporary performance strips away the artifice and artificiality of the old stage world, it often relies on, and I hope this makes sense, performances of quotidian reality. A usual walk or step, instead of a dance walk or step. Everyday clothes instead of formal costume. Movements that aren't in a particular formalized dance lexicon.

At least, that's how it works when you are non-disabled. People are able to recognize the conscious break with tradition and still acknowledge the skill of the performance. *I* am afraid that it will look like I just push myself around the stage.

And there's the thing! There's why contemporary performance art isn't just pushing yourself around the stage. It takes work and training to sit for hours and encounter the public; Marina Abramovic had to practice. Similarly, the art in Bedding Out is less in the spectacle, the end product, but in the work it takes to be there in the performance. And here is the political and artistic point combined into one. Brilliant.

Old Roles/New Roles

2013-04-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

I think one of the most difficult things I do as a dancer is coming into someone else's role. It is not about the physicality as much as it is about the feeling. That's why I phrased it that way: "learning the part" seems too casual for what's actually happening. "Taking" the role seems too me focused, appropriative, and, even, a little aggressive. So, "coming into" is my phrase of choice.

Once you get to rehearsing, things are often tricky. There's how I feel about the role. Mostly, I feel intimidated. The parts are usually created on a given dancer, for a given dancer. I feel like I will always stand in negative relation to that dancer. Particularly if that role has been hailed critically or if the dancer has won an award for it. Second cast is no fun. Then, there's also a little bit pride that tells me I can do it so much better. Is that all there is?

In addition to you, though, there's everyone else in the company. Everyone understands that you are learning a part, but they've been doing this dance for years ..... and they are accustomed to it going like this, that, and this. And they say so. No harm intended, sometimes a little frustration creeps in, but generally it's informational. I always feel bad; I'm keeping them there, repeating this, boring them...

The process is always made difficult by how you have to learn the thing. I've learned a role from someone who danced it. That was easier, for the most part. Except for where her memory was dodgy and the part would change from rehearsal to rehearsal. And then, just when I thought I had it .... BOOM. They remember that actually something else happened and they just fudged the rest. Or ... I dunno.

I've also learned roles entirely from video. Video is hard because of the mirroring effect; you have to keep transposing everything. Then, at the critical moment, the camera focuses somewhere else or the dancer goes out of range of the lens. Whatever happened there is lost. Sometimes, someone in the company remembers. Sometimes, not. But whatever happens, you can be sure that everyone has a conflicting with everyone else opinion that they will state. And that's hard. Because even when they are right about the outcome, more often than not, they didn't see the "how." It's hard to get from "a to b" when everyone is repeatedly saying, "She just used to" "She just .." "She *used* to ..."

The other members of the company forget that you are just learning a series of random movements; you weren't there in the process with the choreographer. You didn't have the bonding experiences that they have had around it; you don't know what the emotional rationale for anything is. You are just copying; it takes a while before the role can be your own And even then, you work in the legacy of the previous dancer.

The best experience of coming into a role is actually one of disability privilege. Because so few disabled dancers can move similarly and perform similar moves (if you see what I mean), many of the roles are simply remade. The choreographer comes back in and remakes the piece for you. This is the best. The choreographer gets a second look at their work and an opportunity to revise and deepen. You get a chance to work with the choreographer and a shot at really understanding what's supposed to happen and why. You get your own role. It's massively satisfying.

Sometimes, life bites you in the butt. This weekend, I will be going back to an old role -- after the choreographer has come in and remade the piece for someone else. My version is the old, lesser version. Everyone has moved on now; the choreographer has produced version 2.0 and .... Dang. Dang. Dang.

Do Over: I

2013-04-06T22:20:00.003-07:00

You know people say that you can't go back -- either home or to your past. Mostly, that's true. Sometimes, though, the past comes calling, and you get a "do over." The return of the past is very true for me right now. In some ways, resuming blogging is a do-over, and I suspect I will be writing about the return of some old ghosts on more than one occasion: hence the Roman I.

Uppermost in my mind is the salient question of how to prevent a "do-over" from becoming a "re-do." I have to ask myself about my possible motivations, spheres of influence, desires, and hopes. I know that I want it to be better. Different. Amazing. I don't hold out hope, because most of the situation is not up to me. I don't want to go back shouting about how different I am now, but I do want to be seen for who and what I am. I would also like the changes that have happened in the intervening years to be legible. I am discovering that I am willing to work to have that be the case, but I also observe that I am not willing to work all that hard for it. It feels too much like the original battles of fighting against the tide (was that a mixed metaphor? ... probably!)

I don't have the kind of philosophy or meditative background that will help me through this in a calm and clear way. I stress about precision and doing things right. When it's perfect, I feel good; I know that I will have succeeded. As I write this, I recognize that I may only be able to go back because *I* am now right. The situation is probably unchanged; I will be as wrong in it as I ever was; I will be unable to change it. But I am now right -- not for it but in myself. As a dancer, I am secure in my focus, body, and perspectives. I can be off-balance, but I can re-cover. I can fall, and I can re-cover. I know how to do those things. As a lay person, well.... I'd say it's much more messy.

Rather than try to right all the wrongs, I am thinking about looking for a crashpad to cushion all the falls. My favourite foods, my little luxury treats -- some bath oil, my favourite dress (unnecessary, but confidence boosting) -- some flowers, and my favourite water bottle (pink!). I am reminding myself of something I wrote back in 2010:

Balance is not a moment of held stillness -- it never is -- it's a negotiation between me, my partner, the chair, the forces of gravity, the momentum, and the gods of performance. I find this conversation compelling. I find the negotiation rewarding. The sense of partnership and trust keep me focused. When all these things are in balance -- moving appropriately around each other -- then and only then can the pyrotechnical display be successful.

I hope this is as true for life as it is for the stage.

On A Roll

2013-04-02T20:44:00.002-07:00

As a wheelchair user, I frequently talk about rolling somewhere to do something. Other words I use are pushing or wheeling. Rolling is casual; it's part stroll, part walk, part cruise, all easy. No uphill, only down. I laugh sometimes when I hear non-wheelers talk about "rolling up on someone" or say that's just how they "roll." My petty literal mind smirks; because they can't roll or perhaps don't roll. Something about hobgoblins and little minds? (What the hell is a hobgoblin anyway?)

As a dancer, however, the roll is something quite specific. And much harder than you would think. I derive great pleasure from rolling on the floor without my chair; it took me a long while to learn how to do it. You start on your back in an "x" shape, allowing your spine to sink into the floor. Then, the fun begins: you thread one arm across your body and gradually the threading becomes a reach which becomes a stretch which becomes a weight shift which becomes a balance which finally overwhelms you into a roll. Now, you are on your stomach; you can start the whole thing again. Then back the other way; then lead with a leg if you can, then ... You get the picture. It takes a while before you discover some tricks -- When you are on your stomach, do you open away from the floor to start the next roll or thread your arm beneath you? How much core stability do you need before that tipping point as you turn is controlled -- thereby preventing a splat as you hit the second side? There are some questions: how do you use your head?

You can roll in what I've learned many here in the US call a somersault and I would call a forward roll or backward roll (somersaults to me should be performed entirely in the air). Again, some interesting challenges. From standing? From sitting? From kneeling? From seated fourth position? How do you manage your legs, protect your spine, and get momentum? What do you do when you get to the other side to prevent the splat of the landing? I love the feeling of speed as I yield to the floor and my body whips over me -- that would be another tip. You've got to give the floor its due, otherwise pain and bruises ensue.

Then, there's rolling in the chair. This one should be easy -- the wheels turn as the default mode of locomotion -- but I rather think the roll is less in the wheel than in the transfer of energy from the wheel to your hands and through your arms and up from the seat pan into your body. Yes, the wheels turn, but my language is quite specific: the wheels only turn. The roll is about you. This is as much true for manual chair users as it is for powerchair users. How you handle the joystick says a lot about how a viewer or dancer partner is to interpret the turning of your wheels. Rolling is about the ripple of movement through the body, even if your body appears to be still.

Finally, there's rolling the chair. I admit to some envy here. I want to be able to a forward and/or backward roll in my chair. I think it's absolutely incredible, but I haven't either the courage or the technique to try bringing the chair over my head. I want to; I think I would enjoy it, but frankly, I'm scared. I'd particularly love to be able to do a forward roll from a caster balance; the power and dynamism would be amazing. But I look at my middle aged body and I look at the raft of it's injuries and I just hear a voice of sense saying, "NO!" One day, perhaps, though.

Rolling the chair sideways, however. That I can do. If you've figured out how to do this on the floor and how to relate to the floor, you're actually almost there. You have to solve many of the same problems, with, of course, the extra burden of your chair strapped to your butt. You go forward onto your hands and thread through, watching your shoulder and your arm. You've got to figure out where to put your weight such that your shoulder doesn't get pushed forward at an odd angle (particularly if you have instability in that direction). As you come over, you're probably going to want to figure out where your legs are. If you aren't strapped in well enough and you've slipped forward of your frame, you are going to bash your knees. I like to grip my frame once I'm on my back and pull it over as I keep going (no point in yanking all this through the core unless you have to choreographically). I also like to plan to get my arm in a good place so that once I'm over, I'm able to push back up or just keep going and going and going.

Rolling.

Re-cover-y: II

2013-03-31T12:17:00.001-07:00

Ha! Yesterday's post was post #1,000. I missed the milestone, apparently, but it does feel like something of an achievement. This is a long post -- I tried to break it up, but the words just kept coming. Here's to post #1001.

I like to use a dictionary as a way of framing the things that we could know about a word, the things we take for granted about usage and for helping me understand the history and pieces of a word. My favourite dictionaries are reference dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary. I like the survey of usage over time and the ready availability of the etymologies. Sadly, the OED is subscription only, so I cannot repost the whole entry for you: "recovery, n.". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University Press. 31 March 2013.

Often when I look at a word, I look for senses that aren't really part of the linguistic tradition; they are kind of my word-play, a kind of personal lexicon. I tend to read dictionaries as I might a novel; I mix and match, muse and ponder. I line usages up against each other and apply them in contexts that perhaps the dictionary's lexicographers would frown upon. I also don't pay much attention to which uses are, now, purely historical. I think resonances of usage endure over time; usage is almost never obsolete. (Ducks to avoid stone-throwing of professional lexicographers.)

In my mind, recovery slips into "recovering" -- a hiding, a covering once more of a vulnerable something that has been exposed. I add the sense of vulnerability: that raw thing should be covered, protected, hidden. Recovery is the act of protecting it. I feel somewhat satisfied, certainly more than a little pleased by this play: it counters almost everything the dictionary offers about the actual usages of recovery.

Recovery can be about "regaining possession" (1), often, particularly in legal senses, with the implication that a person has a right to the thing recovered (2 a and b) -- even in obsolete usage. I stop here for a second, interested. There are a series of entries, testaments to legal uses about the regaining of a thing lost and the presumption of a right. The question of "rights" draws my attention. Given the structure of our capitalist world, "right" seems fine if what you are talking about is property, or a thing, or even a reputation. I suppose these are things that come with our legal and economic systems. I wonder, though, if that sense of entitlement bleeds over into our understanding of what recovery means when it comes to health.

What if it makes no practical sense to retain a sense of "right" or "entitlement" about our health? I certainly feel entitled to get better (completely), particularly when it comes to injuries, things like colds, viruses, stomach upsets... I even broadcast these expectations -- yes, expectations as opposed to rights -- socially: I should be better in a couple of days, etc. etc.

We have rights to medical treatment, to health care (which implies top-notch, properly funded research into our conditions), to dignity and respect in the system, to equal treatment, to appropriate therapies, to courtesy. I love the language of Article 25 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities -- the thing that the US shamefully failed to pass. But I am not sure we have a right to the outcome.

Breath.

That's logical, of course. But just writing it down and looking at it on my screen somehow feels shocking. Rights language is difficult and probably misleading here, but I think it is better than perhaps delving into the question with "deserving" or "worthy" terminology. Figuring out where we -- any of us -- lie here is an individual project: I do not know where you would position yourself or what that means when you return into the privacy of your life and begin to deal with whatever experience or diagnosis.

The next set of usages are about the "restoration" of a person to a "healthy or normal condition" (3). Gah! See it? See how already the "definition" is loaded. 4a talks about retrieving a possession that is "lost" or "stolen" and then, 4b goes right on to talk about "the regaining or restoration of one's health or mental state." Passing silently over the separation of "health" and "mental state," I just want to comment on the idea of robbery created by the juxtaposition. It's not intended, I know. But there is something there. You can be "robbed" of your health -- as if there were an agent doing the stealing and with that idea comes back all of the earlier concepts of rights, possessions, and entitlement. This is the kind of thing that makes life as a disabled person difficult.

Then, there's the way in which healthy and normal are equated; it takes work to figure out where disabled (and "healthy" or "disabled is my normal") might fit in this set of usages. We, as a society and culture, will have do that work now, given the mess NPR has made -- more on that later. I'm not linking because I'm still too raw to write and think about it. The dictionary implies no right to this restoration, but this usage is surrounded by two different legal contexts of "regaining" possession. There is something here in a bodily and material sense about being made whole. (5 takes you to a "better or higher" especially a "spiritual" state: hmm. odd.) Further, that "wholeness" reintegrates you into the usual societal condition. Once "recovered," you become ... "normal," whatever that may be.

What if that wholeness, that betterness, transfers over to how we think of ourselves? When we recover, we get back to where we started. Does disability not confound that experience? Under II (12), I find: "The possibility or means of recovering, or being restored, to a former, usual, or correct state; help or remedy. Chiefly in negative construction; now only in beyond (also past) recovery." I will let that one stand by itself for a moment. What if that normalness affects what society thinks of those of us who are disabled -- beyond "recovery?"

Correctness, wholeness, healthiness dominate the remainder of the senses. "Normality" becomes something you excavate from the "brokenness." Here's what I mean. The quotations and usage descriptions begin to center on making things better. There's a usage for reclaimed wasteland (5b), the return of a mine to working conditions (5c), an economical, financial recovery sense (5c). 8 emphasizes the usefulness of that thing that is excavated -- a "useful substance from waste material." The British use of "recovering" a disabled vehicle stands out (11). So, too, does a return to balance after a fall (13a). Other physical recoveries concern the return to a "normal position" after a bow or curtsy! (13c) or even the restoration of your oars at the beginning and end of a stroke (13d). 14c takes us to the post surgical recovery room and, skipping over several more specialized uses, my eye lingers finally on 17: the geeky usage of getting your data back after "deletion or corruption."

As tools, dictionaries walk the line between being descriptive -- telling us how words are used -- and prescriptive -- telling us how to use words. It's risky stuff. The implications for words like recovery are immense. Once you get into your head a certain set of ideas about "normal" and so-called "not-normal" dangerous stuffs can happen. On the other hand, once you get into your head a certain set of ideas about "normal" and so-called "not-normal," you might find yourself in a position to make important changes in the way we humans interact with each other. Dictionaries. Radical things. Recovery: difficult.

Re-cover-y: I

2013-03-30T23:40:00.004-07:00

I love thinking and writing about words -- often as they pertain to what we think of as disability and mainstream culture. I think that we unconsciously allow words to shape our realities. I also believe that usage of and our individual playings with a word -- often despite what it actually "means" -- influence how we are in the world and that affects how others live and work in the spaces we create with our words. (OK -- that's a kind of reduced explanation and it would make any linguist cringe, but you know what I mean, right?)

As I return from the most recent shows, I am thinking about recovery. It's going to be a 2 part job, because otherwise this post is just going to be too long. I hate long posts as much as I hate those that cut off midway through requiring you to go to the site to read the full post.

From a disability perspective, I recognize that recovery is a complicated word. I first started thinking about this years ago when I met someone who had been recently injured. We talked a lot, of course, but I remember most clearly the hurt and surprise in their voice as they said, "You don't come back from this. You don't recover from this." At the time, I remember that I didn't know how to respond; I don't remember what I said. I do remember that I thought that this is perhaps the definition of disability -- you don't recover. Now, however, after over thirteen years with a very different body and a very different spirit, I also have different thoughts.

If you think of recovery as getting back to where you were before, it is true; you don't recover. You almost never can. But it is also true that most people do not stay in the same place; we find ways to keep living and moving through and in the world. The blogosphere is filled with mini-autobiographies tracking how people re-enter -- I won't say recover -- their lives and their selves. This blog is one of them. Continuing. Going on. Is that recovery?

In my personal story, I have only rarely used recovery as a word to describe how I have changed in thirteen years. In part, that's because I sort of think recovery should be a linear thing. You know? It happens, you find yourself dealing with the immediate aftermaths, and then begins the journey beyond (not out ... beyond). My experience has been of ups and downs. Sometimes, it seemed that the ups would never supercede the downs. My changes have been clawed back, tooth and nail. It seems wrong to call them recovery. Recovery seems more stable, more permanent. If I admit that I have seen it, I am sure that it will vanish.

What do we call those changes that come from everyday living? And how do we designate those that come from specific work, from targetting your impairment? What if you train, learn coping mechanisms, strengthen, adapt, compensate, renew, build ...? Are so many things here are not up for grabs? Is the change that is the outcome of all that work recovery? You might see healing, but you may not see or experience a cure. You can certainly regain function and perhaps you would call that process one of recovering function. What if you build capacity that you did not have before? That I would call discovery as much as recovery.

Recovery, then. What is recovery? Why do we think about it as we do? Part II soonish. Perhaps even tomorrow

Access Grouch For The Day

2013-03-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's perhaps obvious to us who live and work in community and who think about access every day, but ...

People! Just because you have ramps doesn't mean you are accessible! You are certainly not accessible when your building has the ramps behind padlocked gates -- to keep out the "crazies" who will "rob you blind." That disgusting language is verbatim per the building staff! Making distinctions about impairments here seems futile. Let's just look at the statement for what it means on the face of it.

(The double irony of it is that this building and its people are supposed to welcome everyone -- that's what the institution and people are supposed to do!)

You aren't accessible when the entrance door to the space (once you've gone up the ramps) has 4 bolts and a wooden cross barrier across it and when you *keep* it that way -- even though you know there's a disabled person in the space. You aren't accessible when you sigh because you now have to help that disabled person exit and enter and exit and ...., well, yes! enter.

And, really, it doesn't make me feel safe when I point out the fire hazard, and you say, "Don't worry. We have a plan. All the staff will come to this entrance and help." Will they? Really?

Awareness, access and attitude are linked.

Post Performance Blues

2013-03-27T19:06:00.001-07:00

The lead up to the show is one thing; I have written about my pre-show routines and rituals in a number of places: (here, here, and here).

Even when we were touring and putting out shows like little robots, I needed my routines and rituals. I don't believe that they actually bring or deny luck and success, of course. But I do believe that I need them because they are how I know I am ready. Without them, I think I would have stage fright. With them, I might be nervous, but I am the good kind of nervous: alert, ready, all senses awakened, keyed up, prepared -- fight or flight is ready to dance! I even enjoy the moment when cold clammy hands (two seconds before entering) turn over to hot, sweaty hands, accompanied by rivulets of sweat running all over my body.

After the show, though; well, that's a different thing.

In the immediate moments after a show, I find that I am high. High on performance endorphins, high on adrenaline, high on emotion, high on stress hormones, happy, overjoyed, excited. But these are only part of the picture, I feel fragile, overexposed, and vulnerable. There's a moment: we're backstage changing. Getting our clothes on, taking the makeup off. And then, we are ourselves again, and we come forward. Come out. Meet the people who came to the show. Sometimes, I want to hear how it went: how good it was. No, specifically, I want to hear how good *I* was. Sometimes, though, I just want to escape. Hide.

The transition from performer to person is hard. One minute you are this incredible thing doing this amazing thing connected to these other unbelievable beings, then you are you. Plain, ordinary you. Bump. Reality bites. Hard. With sharp, sharp teeth. Wizard says that these things can make me grumpy.

I seem to be unable to eat during show runs; my stomach closes up, so I have a particular show diet that I follow: things that have energy but don't piss my stomach off. I've learned not to drink; the alcohol does not help me regulate the tidal wave of emotions. Now, I can certainly understand how rock stars and all get into the kinds of messes that they do. Performing takes everything; coming back to earth and then doing it all again .... with the kind of rapidity that they have to do it? I don't think I could. If there's a party, I try to make one drink last the whole evening. I know should not let it all hang out if there's another show the next night. (The last night is, of course, a different story).

I am not able to sleep easily; I bounce around until I crash. Thankfully, dancer call is not usually until 5 or 6. Unfortunately, while we are touring, we often have workshops -- some of which can happen as early as 10!

And then, suddenly, the show is over.

Self care. Even if there's no acute injury, there are things whose complaints have been subdued by adrenaline and the "I have to" of it all. And once it stops, well, .... The body makes its feelings known: outrage, pain, grumpiness, soreness, strained, pulled, twisted, torqued, tired, underfed, underhydrated, pissed off. Then, there's the chemistry. All those endorphins, adrenalines, stress chemicals have basically been allowed free reign; now, they disappear. BOOM! Another crash. More complaints from the body -- where's my ....? And then, the feelings.

And the feelings have a point. You were connected, deeply, with everyone. The trust and love it takes to make a show. The interpersonal commitments and connections. And suddenly, it's over. Some people you will see again; others, you won't. And yet you are linked forever. It's sad. It's painful. I have to grieve and mourn a little. I feel lost. And I really *have* lost something. Those feelings wash over me. I have to experience them, acknowledge them, and let them pass.

I am back at home in California. High in the hills. At peace. The deer have made their evening pass; the clouds are lifting. I am blowing my nose and coughing. I've picked up a cold. Somehow, combatting this feels expressly easier than acknowledging the passing of this show. Wizard has been making endless cups of tea -- the espresso machine is on: he siphons off hot water. I'm surrounded by kleenex.

I'm getting there. I'm getting there.

You Don't Need Feet To Dance: A Review

2013-03-24T20:37:00.002-07:00

Some disclaimers. I was asked to review this by the film's marketing peoples. I have met Sidiki once, perhaps twice; we've talked briefly.

First. Go SEE IT! If you live in NYC, go see it. It closes Thursday. Quad Cinema 34 West 13th Street. Sign up for updates in case it comes your way! (That's if you don't live in NYC).

Second. Get involved in a conversation about this film. I say that because I believe that the filmmakers need to hear from you -- there's much to respond to and a lot to have an opinion about -- and because I believe that we should be talking about this film.

You Don't Need Feet To Dance is a documentary about Sidiki Conde. Who is Mr. Conde? I'm not adding taglines, epithets, descriptors deliberately; the urge to describe is part of what I think leads us astray with this film. I stress that point because I have found reading and understanding this film to be extraordinarily difficult.

As an experience, You Don't Need Feet is beautiful, the music is extraordinary, and the dance is fabulous. The narrative is not linear; it's meditative and accordingly slow. Indeed, our ninety minute nonchalant journey across Mr. Conde's past and into his present is deceptively easy. But that doesn't make it a simple film.

The title sets you up for a piece that features a lot of dancing, discusses disability and dance, perhaps introduces you to the world of disability and dance. The title also suggests that this will be a disability inspiration flick. You know the kind: Disabled person overcomes the challenges of being (usually) physically-challenged to go on to be an inspiration to those both near and far. Obstacles fall at the first glance, challenges melt away, tears flow freely, and everyone feels good at the end.

You Don't Need Feet wants to be that film so much. It sets up in silence. Mr. Conde wakes up (in silence, alone), gets out of bed, gets to the bathroom, and takes a shower. We all get a good look at his body and its difference. We watch how he moves -- a variety of responses are possible, of course, but the cinematography wants you to get a sense of the obstacles of his life. Then, he tells his disability story, Suddenly, the camera angle obliges him to look up to meet it, thereby alerting us to the ensuing inspirational thing.

We're off.

We watch Mr. Conde come down the stairs on his hands, assemble his chair and go out into the world. Before long, his imam tells us Conde's an inspiration. An occupational therapist from a school where he is employed repeats the idea, focusing on his motivational effect on his students at the "special" and "inclusive" school. Said OT is "blown away" by this person with a disability ... and a stream of the usual cliches follow. Mr. Conde's art and artistry do not register for the OT. As therapy, however, they make the children sweat and move which is good for them! And because Mr. Conde has an impairment (he and several other people spend a lot of time rejecting the idea that he is disabled -- more on that later), he is a role model: because he can do it, they can. Even when they are bored or tired or ....

We are treated to some usual scenes: bus lift, subway hazards, subway failed elevators. A moment of staged disbelief at an inaccessible venue. I say staged, because you don't arrange to hold and film a workshop at someone's house and invite a powerchair user and a manual chair user and not notice that your place is inaccessible. (Do you?) Later, we get some of the usual commentary. Mr. Conde isn't disabled; he has a "leg problem." He can do everything any normal person can do. The sentiment is reiterated by several of the film's personages, including Mr. Conde himself. There's a lot of stress and pride on the fact that he needs no help.

Yet despite all this, the film does not work as an inspiration flick. And that's where things get interesting.

For the inspiration genre to work its magic, things have to come out right. Your disabled person has to rise above adversity and triumph. This simply does not happen, and the failure of events to "work" creates a huge tension in the film. Suddenly, the silences and lacunae become more interesting than much of the highlighted content. Indeed, as the film meandered over its ninety minutes, I became increasingly aware of how the contradictions and underdevelopments pointed to, but never fully revealed a massively interesting narrative.

For a film about a dancer, we rarely get to see Mr. Conde move. The most extensive sequence is towards the end of the film and it looks to be from a clip of a performance many years past. Why is that? We see Mr. Conde travelling up and down stairs on his hands; we know that he dances on his hands; we see a powerchair in the corner of the entryway to his building (where he keeps his stuff), because, well, it isn't easy to haul yourself up all those stairs and get your wheelchair up there, too. And the incentive to do that more than once a day has got to be tiny versus the incentive to preserve your body and your mobility. Is he in pain? Are his shoulders a mess?

Mr. Conde is an amazing dancer -- virtuosic -- I/we have much to learn from him. To me, the absence of dance raises some very large questions. I can guess at some of the answers, but because the film does not go there we cannot either. For me to indulge would be speculation, but my goodness the questions linger. And opportunities are missed. If you have watched any dance films, particularly the recent ones, you will know about dance, pain and physical suffering. What happens when disability is in the mix? What is disability-related, what is dance-related? How do you trade your dance and disability bodies? What choices has Mr. Conde made; how have they worked?

Questions loom especially large in the immigration thread. America loves a good old immigration story; most stand out for their inspirational qualities. But this one does not work out.

Mr. Conde's story hints at the question of how immigration works when you aren't particularly high profile, wealthy or desirable to a corporation, but the details of the story are hidden. We know that his music and dance bring him to the US and that he meets his second wife here (she is not shown in the film, and her absence is another one of those holes). We don't hear about how that transition happens. Instead, the stories of the contrasts between his life in the States and his life in Guinea dominate. We learn a little of the hardship, a little of the children who died, a little of his mother and of the pain of being separated at the moment when she died. We hear of longing and loss, but the film does not go deeper; these threads are only tendrils.

The American immigration narrative likes to emphasize success -- usually financial success. At the time of the shoot, Mr. Conde is struggling to make ends meet. He is months behind on his rent; he's busking to make money (which is how he survived when he started out). He's lost his band; he couldn't pay them. Times are hard; no one is hiring -- despite the fact he is ready to work and can do anything. His regular teaching gigs seem to have faded; I can't tell whether this is a permanent circumstance or an issue of timing: the film seems to have been shot in the summer when the schools would have been on break. The website seems to suggest some of his teaching work is in the past.

Mr. Conde seems to feel a deep (perhaps from personal experience? -- it's not clear) connection with various people from the streets and compares America's homelessness to the shared sense of communal responsibility which he states prevents much homelessness back in Guinea. Mr. Conde utters the critical line about not wanting to be a millionaire, but the film again will not allow him or us to explore this further. Does he reject the American immigrant myth? Is this a philosophical or religious slant on life? How do these things go together?

Similarly, I wanted so much more of Mr. Conde's music. There's a lot of silence and/or pedestrian noise. We hear the music of instruction, but I wanted to hear so much more of Mr. Conde's work. The absence is striking. Mr. Conde explains in a one-off that the film drops immediately: it is hard to get everyone together, for the time necessary to really practice and in the work. That raised another set of questions: Why is that? Who would support this work? What happens to artists as they transition from their homelands to new countries and struggle to make it?

So underdeveloped is the film that we barely get to see Mr. Conde's friends and inner circles. He is surrounded by people, but their characters are not expanded. This lack of development makes it easy to miss what I think of as the key scene in the film: No one shows up to a party and celebration that Mr. Conde and his friends have been planning for three months. Why not?

This is the key moment because it reveals the importance of all those unanswered questions. The film is a documentary about Mr. Conde's life, yes. But it does not focus on his dancing or his music -- no matter what the filmmakers call it. The meat, the actual narrative of this film concerns transmissions and miscommunications.

Specifically.

How is it that this talented artist is struggling in New York? Why is it that New York has not been able to see and hold on to his talents and gifts? Why is he living in a place that by dint of the stress it places on his body hinders (will come to hinder) his ability to be an artist? Given the important connection of physicality, dance and manhood in Mr. Conde's culture, what does it mean to claim or embrace disability as more than a physical reality? What does a disabled reality mean in New York versus in Guinea? Could accessing New York's disability world support Mr. Conde's artistry? What happens to culture, tradition, identity and personhood when it is too difficult to get together and play? What happens when your family life is split across two worlds? How do you handle and live the emotions of loss and longing? What role can faith play in your life? When the seminal cultural myths of your new country don't work for you, what do you do? What does it mean to be teaching West African dance and music culture to mainly white people (one of whom says you are on "African time" when you are late through no fault of your own)? What happens to your hopes and dreams when life is hard?

The filmmakers do not tell and perhaps cannot know. I wonder if Mr. Conde were asked, what he would say.

Lives Worth Living

2013-03-24T12:06:00.003-07:00

While I am thinking through my next post, I thought I would clear out some of the old drafts from years ago....

This one may or may not be relevant now. The thoughts are unfinished -- that's why it was and is a draft. You know how it goes though .... sometimes, a draft is enough. Sometimes, both the thought and the feelings count.

_______________________________________________________________________

November 2011?

You may say that I'm one of those disgruntled people who will never be satisfied. But I was most certainly not satisfied by Lives Worth Living.

As Haddayr also mentioned, it feels weird to be critical of what is posted as "our moment" (not her phrase). But it was supposed to be the moment when the story of the disability rights movement went mainstream. PBS documentary. Mainstream. PBS!!! And it is a mess. That's not to say you shouldn't watch it. Watch it. But as you do so, bear in mind that no account of momentous events is ever the "right" account, the "only account." Many voices went into the disability rights movement; only some of them are heard here.

My first disappointment comes with the title. So many people believe that a disabled life is not a life worth living. You can find manifestations of that belief everywhere. But to lead with a contradiction of that statement is ineffective. It's engaging on their terms. Your life isn't worth living. Oh yes it is. Oh no it isn't. And so on. What if the title of the programme had drawn our attention to rights won? The culture made public? The title frames how we look at the whole thing. And if you go into it with that as a title, you end up having -- sometimes consciously, sometimes not -- the question of value and worth in the back of your mind. Is this a life worth living? That question hangs over the complex embodiments, harrowing pictures and emotionally moving narratives that make up the piece. It's distracting. But it is not the question you want a mainstream audience to have. You want them to end up there. But, really, they should not start there. No one should be going there.

There's a lot to say about the film itself. How it meanders. The use of images for shock value -- contextualization and analysis would help us interpret these images and clips in a way more complex than "awful." There's a lot to say about emphasis. In this film, despite the awesome interviews given by the participants, rights are given, not won. The participants talk consistently about fighting, battles, and winning. The film presentation shows rights being given -- in fact, it concludes that way. I find that this overly-emotional approach undercuts the power of the activists themselves. It's schmaltzy. And the disability rights movement does not need schmaltz and sympathy. It's about justice and equality. The film becomes a victim of its own tendency towards ovewhelming and non-critical emotion; that undermines the work of the interviewees.

.....

When Bad Performances Happen

2013-03-18T15:53:00.004-07:00

I have been reading this thing over on @MusicBox in a post about when bad performances happen. It's a conversation that ranges across some Twitter entries and a blog post by Alexandra Gardner.

I love it. And since I have a show this weekend, I am wondering about what happens when bad performances happen as a dancer. By "bad," I don't mean the ones where something cataclysmic happens, I and they mean the ones where you and/or your colleagues don't quite get there.

@GarrettShatzer asks, as a composer, on Twitter, "Would you rather have a subpar-but-not-terrible performance of your piece or no performance at all?" And the conversation goes from there. As a dancer, I've never really thought about what happens for the choreographer if I or we give a bad performance.

As a dancer, I want to give my best -- for myself, for my dancer colleagues, for the audience, and the choreographer. It's my job, yes; it is also my mission. I do everything I can to do to prepare, to be ready, and to surrender my body and my self to the present of the performance. However, some performances and so shows are better than others. So, then what?

Well, there's a lot at stake for the dancers; we are responsible for conveying the material. There's also a possibility the choreography might be bad. And nothing we can do with or about it can change that fact. We, the dancers, can sometimes survive bad choreography -- we can be seen as doing the best with what we have. I've even had a review like that. But I do wonder how many people in the audience can tell the difference between "I didn't like that," "The dancing was bad," and "That was bad. Poorly constructed, etc." When they can, what happens after that? I really don't know. And I almost don't want to. I have to give of myself and thinking about reception scares me.

What if the choreography is bad, how many shots does a choreographer get? What if the piece doesn't work? Well, that's the question. It's in the tossup...

How do choreographers feel when they feel that dancers let them down? What do they do? If they have an opportunity, they can give the dancers notes. I know that I've been called to rehearsal on show days to receive notes and have even seen choreographic changes to a piece during a show run -- every day of a 6 performance run in this particular case. But beyond encouraging the dancers, rehearsing them, making changes and giving notes, what should choreographers do? Is there a point at which they have to accept that their piece simply won't work? How do those chips fall when you create a piece specifically for a particular dance ensemble? Can you stop them from performing it again? (Suppose that depends on your contract and your status/stature in the field... )

I have never seen a choreographer speak out against the dancers. Nor can I imagine a forum that would permit such an attack. In person conversations are something else, of course ... but formally? I have seen dancers speak out against a choreographer -- but this normally involves safety, not the quality of the work. So, I haven't really seen much discussion of what can happen when performances go bad.

When I perform "badly," I feel awful. It is hard to know what to do about that. Sometimes, I don't really understand what happened to make the performance less successful than I would have liked. Was it technical? Was I emotionally not ready? Did I let my mind wander? Did my spirit pass elsewhere? Was it the connection between me and my colleagues? Was it something that happened on the way to the theater for them? For me? Something at home? Did I eat too much? The list of possibles is endless. And when more than one person is involved, the combinations of stuff make it difficult to figure out why the magic didn't happen.

Performance is about personal consistency, yes. And then, there are the ghosts and hobgoblins.

You Don't Need Feet To Dance

2013-03-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

Informational Only:

I have been offered a chance to review this film and I've met Sidiki a coupla times. For the moment, this is merely a notice.

You Don’t Need Feet to Dance reveals the extraordinary life of African immigrant Sidiki Conde, a man overcoming his disability one day at a time in New York City. Sidiki was born in 1961, in Guinea, West Africa. Sidiki learned to manage his disability, building his upper-body strength so that he could walk on his hands. In time Sidiki and his friends organized an orchestra of artists with disabilities recruited from Conakry, Guinea’s streets. They toured the country, striving to change the perception of the disabled. In 1998, Conde’s music brought him to the United States, and he founded the Tokounou All-Abilities Dance and Music Ensemble. In the United States, he has continued to perform and teach, instructing people of all abilities in schools, hospitals and universities, and served as artist in residence at a Bronx public school for children with multiple disabilities. In You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, Sidiki balances his career as a performing artist with the almost insurmountable obstacles of life in New York City, from his fifth-floor walk-up apartment in the East Village, down the stairs with his hands and navigating in his wheelchair through Manhattan onto buses and into the subway. Despite the challenges, Sidiki teaches workshops for disabled kids, busks on the street, rehearses with his musical group, and bicycles with his hands.

Invisible By Design?

2013-03-15T10:15:00.001-07:00

In the past months, I have watched as people casually use elevators instead of stairs -- for whatever kind of reason: heavy luggage, carts, strollers, impairments (apparent and non). The elevators are just there. When they work, they are a neutral choice. I have watched as all kinds of people take accessible routes and press automatic door openers. I have watched people claim accessible restrooms for their broken legs, suitcases, pumping, child-changing, eating and break space (yes, sometimes staff have no space, so they claim the roomy accessible stall). I have watched people push strollers, clothing racks, carts, suitcases, -- anything that has wheels -- down the curb cuts. And I have begun to think.

I think that we have lost much by, perhaps albeit necessarily, selling inclusive/universal design and design for aging in place as something for everyone -- as a societal norm. I agree all people need and will use it. I agree about its necessity and with the general appropriateness of making the norm argument. But I also think that the more normal it becomes, the more invisible our disability histories. Normal erases the struggle, politics, work and sacrifice it took to get these things to happen.

Enjoy access. Enjoy using, being, living. And remember those who made it possible. Look them up. Learn their names. Tell someone.

I wish we could remain visible as our world changes to accommodate us.

Gaga Goes GOLD

2013-03-14T14:46:00.002-07:00

Well, I've only been back blogging for a coupla days, and already .... Lady GAGA is at it again. I mean? How would the blogosphere manage without her style? If you are new here, here are my other Gaga posts. Gaga And Wheelchair: II. Gaga and Wheelchair: I I can't believe I'm writing about Gaga and the wheelchair again. Yes, this is part 3.

So, here's the thing: Does her wheelchair outclass Larry Flynt's chair? I mean, who has the best gold? Most gold? Best bling? Sorry, really not sure what the calculus should be here. What can you say to such excess? Umm. Whose chair is sleaziest? Most functional, despite the gold? Why do gold chairs always take the old-fashioned medical model look -- is there something about gold vs titanium or aluminum? Did Gaga rip off Flynt and then just add a canopy -- wouldn't want to brown that skin? Is Gaga speaking to Flynt, challenging him on disability and sexuality? Does Gaga's pout beat Flynt's penile implant? (Oh my, this blog will forever be NSFW!) Will Flynt start hiring disabled porn actors in response? How much do those things cost? Flynt's chair is reportedly 80K. Gaga's could be cheaper -- the gold is supposedly only 2.6K's worth.

Scandalous.

Seriously, though, I don't know what Gaga's deal with disability is. Nor do I want to.

I do want to believe that Gaga is doing some fairly serious thinking about disability. That doesn't mean that her performance of disability is going to meet the rigorous eyes of those of us who live and work in the disability culture and arts world. But I think it is fair to say that she has caught our eye; we've been talking and thinking about her postulatings, her imaginings, and her possible realities. And I think, somewhere, behind the scenes, it feels as if she is dipping her casters into our world, too. I know I, for one, understand the desire to confront and flout. I understand the desire to be extreme! I don't always feel happy about those things; they are sometimes responses to horrible prejudice. I understand the desire to present myself. To break barriers. To make people stare. I like OTT (but I try to do it without offending!)

How about this as an attempt to start a conversation? In postcard style.

Dear Lady Gaga!

Welcome!

I can't wait to see what's next. Bring on the spectacle. Bring on the SHOW!

But remember at the end of the day, we, too, have to live with what you do.

WCD

Until You Make It

2013-03-10T21:46:00.001-07:00

As I said the other day, I recently had an audition and then immediately read Haddayr's post on auditioning. So, it seemed a good time to write about the experience. It had been over six years since I had done one. You hear all kinds of things about dance auditions: people being cut half way through the day, people being asked to wear numbers, people being yelled at, treated badly .... I had no such experience.

Dance auditions take many formats. Mine was simple enough: a technique class, a compositional/task oriented session, and a personal interview. But that's where things can go wrong. So, what's it like to audition? What do you do? This is just my personal routine, but here goes anyway.

I got some body work; I wanted to get rid of some old tightnesses and painful parts. There are some places in my neck and some places in my back. I always enjoy loose shoulders. I increased my class attendance: I wanted to be at the peak of my game. In the event, this wasn't all successful. In the technique class, I could feel my stuck bits still being stuck and I could feel my technique falling apart. So it goes. Right idea: luck of the draw in the outcome?

I researched everyone and everything about the people who would be on the interview panel and memorized the salient bits of their bios. I learned what I could of their companies and watched video clips. I wrote down the questions that I had about them and the project. This was useful -- there's nothing worse than being in the part where they say, "And do you have questions?" and you have nothing to say. So, I had some perspectives...

The day before, I went to the venue and checked out the best ways to get there. How long it took. I found the restrooms and got a sense of the place. None of this is necessary, of course, but it helps prevent things like being in a hurry to get there and flustered when you arrive. I liked being able to be in the place without having to ask for directions every couple of seconds. Makes things more comfortable.

The thing itself wasn't too bad. Or at least, it shouldn't have been. But the thing about a dance audition is that it holds up a very large mirror in front of you: there's the little voice of self-doubt and then there's the other dancers in the room. You get it both ways. Catch someone doing something beautiful and I think I could never do that. That *must* be what they want.

So, then there's the moment when you pick your spot in the room, you take a deep breath, and the work begins. I've been watching people audition for years now -- for West Coast. It's very different when you have to do it yourself. I consciously try not to feel self-conscious and to focus on enjoying the tasks before me. That's easier than you would think. Things go quickly; I'm trying to figure out how to make them work on my body. The people watching move around to get a better view; there's no point hiding at the back. Are questions allowed? Will you be penalized for asking questions? I don't know.

And then, suddenly, it's my turn to dance. I do my best. Feel some things go wrong and some thing go well. It's the weirdest thing when you look and suddenly you realize you are on the wrong side or turning the wrong way or .... And there it is. Nothing you can do. It's like dropping a plate of food. When things go well, it's exhilarating. Who knew that turning could be such fun? Yes, I've got this. My timing is right. I'm going to stretch a little further -- push that line, see if I can get a little higher...

In the second section, we are asked to work with other dancers. This is always tricky. What if you are partnered with someone you don't like or someone who is what you perceive to be "weaker" than you. Or, worse, "better" than you. What if your teammates won't do things as a team and goes all out for themselves? What if your partner just uses you? I was very lucky in this audition to be partnered with generous dancers -- dancers who worked as a team to make *us* look good and who were creative and funny as we worked on the tasks.

Speaking of which? Tasks? What does that mean? Dancers don't just learn things from the front -- by which I mean copy or take into our own bodies phrases that an instructor or choreographer demonstrates. We also make phrases from abstract assignments. One of these involved timing: You have 6 counts to do x, 6 counts to do .... and so forth. Another involved moving as if you were ... normal for you, stuck, loud stuck, quiet stuck... and so on. You can combine these: 6 counts of loud stuck. Another involved numbers: dance your telephone number in a box where the sides and corner spaces are your numbers. I rather liked this one. And it was fun to combine my number dance with other numbers.

Finally, the personal interview. I asked questions about the project, the vision for the site and the project, the impulses that brought people to the table, etc. I was asked questions about creative processes I had been in. Why I danced as I did, etc. And then, it was over. A day full of stress, regrets, excitement, and fun.

If there are any generalizations here, it is to keep going. To keep at it. To fake it until you make it. Because eventually, you will. Good luck!