Some things I find problematic.
- You know? When you're dancing, I didn't even see your wheelchair? I don't even see you as disabled. (What'cha lookin' at, dude? This here's metal!)
- It was so nice to see the chairs doing stuff, leading. (My chair does nothing without me. Do let me know what you saw!)
- Dance is so healing! (Not necessarily. There's a bunch of dance injuries on this body, I can tell you -- get over your over emo-self).
- It was almost as if you weren't in a chair! (Well, damn.)
These are all meant to be positive comments, really. I get that. But all the same.
Wizard remarks that it might be like trying not to think of elephants. Try it. There. You thought of one, right? Sooo, what would that mean for a dance? Well, you might end up with a work like GIMP The GIMPsters make this an explicit part of their work: performers speak directly to the audience about their perceptions and stereotypes. This work is a confrontation, an exploration, and a seduction on the topic.
But what if you don't want to do that? How much are you forced into examining that question? How much does your audience bring so that regardless of your intention, the audience still thinks its a work about disability? What would it mean to take hold of an audience in such a way that they could see a wheelchair qua wheelchair, recognize it as part of my body, and still think of the two of us as disabled?
This is an issue that might come up in my final year at Uni. I've been forewarned by other students a year above me that one particular tutor might try and encourage me to 'explore' disability within the context of my art, and you know what? That's not gonna happen, mainly because it's just not a subject that interests me.
ReplyDeleteTo me, having people who are not part of your minority group infer that your work is ALWAYS about your disability or ALWAYS about being black/gay/whatever when in fact you are just being human is irritating and actually quite insulting to me, insinuating that you are a 'one trick pony' as an artist.
I dunno, maybe I'll just do a bunch of watercolour landscapes and see how the pretentious a$$holes twist that to make it about my disability. I'll give me a laugh if nothing else. :P
I think integrations (for lack of a better word) can be very exciting, particularly in the context of pieces that work for me on an artistic level, where the integrations of the people and all the elements (script, choreography, lighting, sound, etc) are working pretty well together and the piece does something well.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the integrations (like the first time I saw large people on stage, or an interracial couple dancing ballet, or dancers with/in wheelchairs dance...) can be exciting, enlightening, refreshing (making me question all the past exclusions)...it can be riveting and distracting because I am still getting used to a new way of being and watching performance. I am learning, for me, how to watch performance that might engage similar or very different aesthetics, it seems. I might need to make adjustments, or have questions--what am I supposed to look at, what is the dance leading me to look at, what do I want to watch, how do I adjust for everyday watching (don't stare or make uncomfortable) and performance where it is okay to really look and to look carefully maybe. How does a piece welcome looking or discourage it? (I realize here, I've been writing more in terms of performers with visible disabilities.)
But also, I want to comment on the questions, but I'll start with a last phrase addressing what it would mean if an audience could see a wheelchair...and "recognize it as part of my body".
Here I have to admit my previous denseness. Not being a wheelchair user (and maybe even if I was?)...I never thought about a wheelchair (or other adaptive equipment as part of someone's body (unless it was an arm or leg prosthesis) until someone (okay, a number of people) told me or I read about people who think of wheelchairs as part of their bodies. I think that's why discussions and reading, etc. are important because some things one (meaning, me) might never get if not told. In my case, until I met people who considered themselves part of the disability community, I had encountered many people with disabilities who were still defining disability as a more medical, individual thing, and never got the rich critical questioning and voices of people involved in integrated work.
I wanted to translate (my take) on your bulleted comments...my translations:
ReplyDelete*You were good, like other (able-bodied) dancers. Wow, you can hold your own up there. I don't even see you as bad/inept like I expected--you were really good.
* [discomfort, not wanting to call you disabled so talking about the chairs. Or really watching the chairs for the first time--maybe, not giving you credit for being the one dancing with the chair?]
*"Dance is so healing!"[i've got two takes on this, either they're seeing the dance as being therapeutic--ugh, or their seeing this as integrated, "healing" for the audience and maybe for dancers to be part of this, perhaps they're thinking it's healing as an audience, that this rights the wrongs of exclusions, of invisibility, and is powerful in a really artful way.]
* You were really good [not bad/inept/boring/limited, as I assumed]. I'm really happy and surprised [and want to tell you].
There is still so much work to be done and I think this work is done and can be done in many venues (education, conversation, challenging people, and as I've been learning, it's much more likely to happen when one is kind and understanding...maybe even questioning--that is, if one can stomach it.) I find recently, I have been looking to people who have good techniques for less confrontational ways of addressing difficult issues, especially with people who approach in kindness.
I also think there is something about visible disability that is really interesting, that many things are right in front of me, but I've been taught not to see or to see in a warped way. I think that's why sometimes when people do "get" it (or some of the "its"), it seems really obvious and is, or has been for me "O-oh, now why didn't I ever think of that before?! Wow!"
I think performance--can be really educational (whether disability and non-disability are themes or not). I haven;t quite pinpointed why some integrated work is successful and why some of it is not (in my mind...I guess, I'd have to define success, but some of the work makes me think more progressively and other work doesn't...hmm).
Several topics you bring up. I find those comments valid---this is what THEY see/feel, I mean, you are preforming for someONE, not just you, right? (unless you dig doing it alone, and then who is around to comment?) Art is about the artist, the final production, and the audience, all working together to bring life and give meaning to the final product. (My art is acting and writing.) The artist can't decide what the audience should think or feel about the art. They rarely see/feel exactly what we do or hoped they would. My goal is to entertain and make people think. Think at the moment AND later in their lives. The best artist reaches you throughout your life. YOU decide how your metal fits your final production, then you give the production AWAY like a gift. A gift should be given without expectations of getting this or that in return. IMO you are over-thinking this issue. IMO---focus on the dance.
ReplyDelete