Symposium Report II: Conversation

The conversation came in two parts: discussion of the physically integrated dance scene and the disability part. I liked the first and am worried a lot about the second.

Because Jess Curtis works in Europe (mainly Britain, France, and Germany), we were able to get some insight into the differences between the European and American (post) modern and physically integrated dance scenes. Some key points.

• It seems that there is a fair amount of tension between the European and American dance worlds over the direction of (post) modern dance. Words like abstraction, growth, meaning were used to characterize the debate. This part of the conversation was very brief and not particularly detailed, so although these are big not clearly defined terms, I will pretty much leave them that way.
  
• Whereas in the US, we seem to concentrate on physically integrated -- often, but not solely, meaning "wheelchair" -- the integrated dance world in European more frequently includes a range of disabilities, including cognitive/developmental.
• Funding: a biggie.
  
• The problem of finding disabled dancers and getting professional level training. What does training include -- how do disabled dancers learn the movement that is possible in their bodies AND the conventions of dance. Another big one.
  
• Accessibility in environment and in attitude -- this is also a big one.
  

Things got a little murkier for me once the topic turned to the disability aspect. I'm kind of dreading writing this bit; I don't want my negative feelings about the way disability was handled to overwhelm my excitement and joy at the event as a whole. So.

It's just that the disability thing happened again. Even in the most open of environments and in the most celebratory of environments, disability makes the inexperienced nervous. And when people are nervous or uncomfortable, they say or do stupid things. I've certainly been in this position. I know that when I have said or done something stupid, I want to make it better. Immediately. And so, I plunge forward and rush into even more stupid stuff or I try to pretend that it didn't happen (cringe). Given this awareness, perhaps the best thing I can do is not isolate and analyze every single horrid thing that happened. After all, there was no meanness and hostility -- just goodwill and excitement about disability and dance. And perhaps the best thing I can do is work still left to be done. I don't want to point fingers.

Somehow, the disability community -- activist, artist, scholarly, individual -- has not yet succeeded in severing the connexion between disability, tragedy, and overcoming. I know of no single thing that will destroy this pernicious narrative.

Somehow, disability, when exposed in a public and publicly accepting environment, unnerves the TABs to such an extent that it dominates everything they see; they want disability, loss, pain, etc. to be explained.

Somehow, we have to explain that it isn't true that "everyone is a little crippled."

Somehow, we have to find within ourselves the strength to keep speaking out and keep educating everyone around us.

Somehow, somehow, somehow.