Integrated Dance Intensive #1

Integrated Dance Summer Intensive 2010

...an interest in the diversity of human expression

Hosted in the Dance Program at the University of Washington, Seattle

Deadline for early bird booking for the five day intensive is coming up June 7.

August 9-13 Open Five-Day Intensive

Five-day dance intensive with integrated technique class, composition/repertory, community jam and guest presentations.

August 14-15 Round Table for Artists and Educators

Two day laboratory to discuss, rethink and practice access to formal and informal dance training for a diverse student population.

For more information about the Integrated Dance Summer Intensive 2010 and to register please visit: http://faculty.washington.edu/kochj/id/idsi10.html

For questions please contact Jürg Koch via: kochj@u.washington.edu

Flyer description:

The background of the flyer shows a group of last years participants during the public showing at the end of the course. The image shows five women alone or in small groups, standing, sitting on the floor or in a wheelchair. The performers appear like people on a public square involved in their own world, observing or relating to others.

Full flyer text:

Integrated Dance Summer Intensive 2010 …an interest in the diversity of human expression

Hosted in the Dance Program, University of Washington, Seattle

Open Five-Day Intensive, August, 9-13

Five-day dance intensive with integrated technique class, composition/repertory, community jam and guest presentations.

Round Table for Artists and Educators, August 14/15

Two-day laboratory to discuss, rethink and apply access to formal and informal dance training for a diverse student population.

This round table meeting is intended for experienced artists and educators with a particular interest in educational and choreographic processes in mixed ability groups. (Participation by selection only).

Instructor and Facilitator

Jürg Koch has been teaching courses in Integrated Dance at the University of Washington since 2004. His teaching is based in his experience as a performer, teacher and choreographer for CandoCo Dance Company in England, as well as his ongoing creative and educational practice of community dance and mixed ability work

Please note, this is an independent course hosted by the UW Dance Program. You do not need to be a registered student at the UW to take part.

For more information about the Integrated Dance Summer Intensive 2010 and to register please visit: http://faculty.washington.edu/kochj/id/idsi10.html

For questions please contact Jürg Koch via: kochj@u.washington.edu

- end flyer text

Dream On: What A Nightmare on Glee

After the whole quad thing from last week, I sort of hoped that Glee would be done with its disability shenanigans. But no. Oh no. This week, we had to go back to the disability, dancing and the cure narrative. And that meant Artie, walking, and out of the chair dancing.

Apparently, no one at FOX read and took seriously anything on the Internet by disabled people (well, it's just the Internet and they're just disabled people -- two of the many roundup and commentary posts here and here. WheelieCatholic on this particular episode: here [she's got good commentary all over her blog], Meloukhia here, and Bad Cripple: here). Apparently, the discussion on NPR about the cultural reaction that has surrounded Glee fell on ears that didn't know what to do with what they heard (who listens to NPR, after all?). Glee is not a world-shattering important issue -- I will be talking about some of the awful political things that have happened this week -- but culture is as important as politics; there's a symbiotic relationship between our beliefs, fears, and projections and what those who "represent" us do in the legislature.

I know. It's supposed to be parody. It's supposed to be funny. But the thing about humour that I find funny is not that it is confirms all the stereotypes -- what's funny about that? -- but that it subverts, undercuts, twists, plays with our stereotypes and our fears. It's a fine line that, say, Chris Rock has an almost perfect handle on and that the Glee peeps wouldn't recognize if it screamed, "Here I am!"

This week on Glee, the theme was dreams; the kind of thing that, "if it came true, all your hurt would go away." Can you see the disability setup coming? I'm surprised they didn't try to straighten Kurt.... When Tina seeks a tap dance partner, Artie gets "tap wheels;" he soon finds, however, that his attempts at dancing are pathetic. (Side note: They are. But that is not because he uses a wheelchair; it's because he hasn't figured out how to dance in it.) He is dissatisfied. And here it begins. Artie wants to be able to partner with Tina more fully. And to the Glee folk, that means he needs his full masculine height, his legs, and his standing-up-out-of-the-chair body. (Side note: Because, of course, using a wheelchair is emasculating, paralyzing even. It certainly renders you unable to dance. And btw? Despite Private Practice, you are never going to get your girl.)

First, the crutches: Artie moves forward and falls smack on his face. Let me be clear: some people with spinal cord injury can and do walk. Even when the injury level is high. But let me be clear: these people are vastly outnumbered by the people with SCI who do not walk. In the middle, are people who can take steps or who can stand but use a wheelchair because being able to execute the mechanics of walking does not make a legged/walking daily existence feasible. And then, there are the wheelchair users who do not have spinal cord injury.

Why is that explanation of who uses a wheelchair here? Because wheelchair users are wildly diverse. And because wheelchair use does not mean "cannot walk" and because not participating in a walking life does not, I repeat, DOES NOT mean that wheelchair users spend their lives desiring a return to walking.

Artie goes through this whole dream sequence in which he rises to his feet and dances. When the number is over, the dream closes, and Artie is shown passively waiting in his chair for Tina to bring him the tap shoes that are an "investment in his future." He then chases down all the most recent research on spinal cord injury including stem cell therapy; he finds the news that some scientists have been able to regenerate the spinal cord in certain rats. But all of this is too soon; Artie is doomed to live a life in a wheelchair. His injury is too complete. He is a "no hoper." He gives up on his dream to become a dancer and instead sings the closing number while Tina dances with someone else.

puhleeze.

First, then, the difficult stuff.

Don't wheelchair users feel bad/useless/angry/sad about using a wheelchair?

I don't know how it is for others. I can only speak to my own experience and report what I have heard others say. Transitioning to using a wheelchair is difficult. And, yes, I feel anger, sadness, grief, mourning. And, yes, I am aware of a different life, painfully aware of how my life has changed. Sometimes, those things are more acute than others. And sometimes, yes, I am frustrated.

I also feel happy about my life. I actively enjoy using my wheelchair. I celebrate my chair, the freedom it gives; I love my disabled life. I feel active pleasure in my disabled body -- there are some great early posts on this here (me), here (Kay@thegimpparade). These experiences mirror those of people I know.

So, yes, I am aware that my life is now different and that my body is now different. The questions are what do I make of that difference? How is that difference understood?

Don't wheelchair users and other disabled people desire to be cured?

Though I am physically able to perform the movements necessary for walking (particularly true since my hip surgery), I use a wheelchair for most of my mobility. Do I wish that I could still walk everywhere and that my remaining (neuro) issues could be cured? Again, I can speak only for myself. But here's what I think. I think that this is the wrong question.

Yes, you read that aright. I think that asking this question produces useless answers that don't help anyone.

If I say "no," the response of a disbeliever is that I only say this "because I am not totally paralysed and I can still walk and I don't know what it's like." I hear this often and have seen this accusation cast at other Internet peeps. When other people whose level of impairment is different say, "no," then, I see the charges change. Suddenly, it is that they are being "pollyanna-ish, being in denial, being scared to admit the truth, being cowed/brainwashed by the disability rights movement."

Here's the story of a real disabled person, a wheelchair user, who is considering surgery that might give him the chance to walk again. This is a gripping and powerful discussion of the issues and some of one person's feelings: two important parts are here and here.

So, I am going to start with a different perspective -- one that leads to better questions.

Disability and Culture.

Disability is a part of human variation.

Some people come to wheelchair use through accident or illness. Others are born into bodies whose mobility is best facilitated through wheelchair use. We come to understand our place in the world through social and cultural context. These contexts help us give meaning to ourselves; they help us understand our place in the world. They help us create meaning in our lives and tell our stories in a way that makes sense to ourselves and to others.

We can grieve; we can mourn; we can wish things were the way there were 8 years ago; we can wish we had been born like the majority of the others around us. And a disabled person may do any, all, or none of those things. All those feelings are normal -- with or without disability. But my experience and the experience of those around me, disabled and non, is that people with disabilities live meaningful lives. We live those lives with (nor around or despite) our impairments. And that we are too busy living, loving -- goddammit, living -- to spend the majority of our lives wishing that we were different or that we could set that clock back.

We have value; we are whole, complete people; we and those who live around us understand that.

Dancing is a celebration of our bodies and ourselves. And if you ever attend the Society For Disability Studies annual conference, you would see disabled people perform what might be to you the radical act of dancing, but what is for us a natural joy.

In my BADD post, I wrote:

Movement is the movement.

When you are out on the street -- move. When you are gathered with friends and family, move. In a store, a restaurant, on the bus ... in your car. Does anyone remember this flash mob dance video (London, Liverpool Station -- as an advertisement for T-Mobile)? There was a flash mob dance this week in the Bay Area. Gather your friends or perhaps go alone. Go to a public place and dance. Go to a local dance class and move."

If this were the widespread cultural understanding of disabled lives, the people on Glee would not be able to write this crap. Because no one would watch it.

So, show people that movement is the movement. Corbett O'Toole is organizing the first disabled dance flash mob. Here's a link to the facebook page.

Kevin McHale is a gorgeous and talented dancer; it's a shame that he can't figure out how to dance in a wheelchair. Perhaps FOX should have hired a real disabled dancer for that.

Showing Spine

Spine comes either from the Latin or Old French words for "thorn," "prickle," or, yes, "spine." Botanically speaking, it is, "[a] stiff, sharp-pointed process produced or growing from the wood of a plant, consisting of a hardened or irregularly developed branch, petiole, stipule, or other part; a thorn; a similar process developed on fruits or leaves." Anatomically, it is, "[o]ne or other of several sharp-pointed slender processes of various bones." Eventually, the dictionary slides down to "any natural formation having a slender sharp-pointed form" (OED: subscription only).

Huh. Before you get to the definition or, more accurately, the list of usages for the word for the backbone of vertebrates, the dictionary descriptions stress not the rigidity of the backbone itself -- though rigidizing and stabilizing are some of what a backbone does -- but the relationship between the outgrowths, the thorny processes, and the word itself. I'm caught here. Intrigued.

I know a spine has those outgrowths -- they are there in all of the pictures of spine; I can feel them on my back. It's not that I try to wish or will them out of existence, but I always think of the spine as a series of napkin rings into which your spinal cord is stuffed. The spiky bits seem present, but not central -- most certainly not definitional. This focus changes how I think of commonplaces that require one to "show spine" or dance instructions about "centering the spine." In the case of the former, I think the request is to suck it up in some way or at least show no weakness. Conform, comply. That's what I hear.

What if showing spine meant doing a hedgehog -- prickling up, showing my spines, defending myself with thorns? I wonder what then?

In the OED description, processes is used to describe the outgrowths. They aren't processes in the usual sense of a measured, deliberate set of happenings performed in a sequence -- the thing or things you go through or do to get to a certain place. They are the outgrowings -- actually, that's a point? When do they or, even, do they ever stop growing? They aren't exactly consequences as we would think of them -- causally tied to the center -- they are their own thing. They are a reminder that advocacy is a process, an outgrowth from the center; it is not an odd on or something to be imported.

The image with which this post begins is one I hope to use as an icon somewhere on this site. In it, I am sitting on the floor (the floor is removed from the photo so that the image of my is on a white background); I have one leg tucked in front, the other stretched out. I am supporting my body on the tucked leg; my one hand holds my foot; my other arm reaches up and out. My wrist bends and drops; I am looking at my hand. Overall, my body makes a kind of "l" shape; in the image, though, I am rotated so that my body covers the left hand corner, framing the text of this post.

I think of that position as one of growth and softness. I protect my body (the hand holding my foot); I extend myself out to the world. My back bone is not visible, but I am very definitely showing spine.

dance by cool peeps

The Performance Project @ University Settlement presents

A.H. Dance Company and Collaborators in

Chameleon

May 13-15 (Thurs-Sat), 2010 at 7:30 PM

Q+A following May 13th performance
Reception and after party following May 15 performance

Ticket prices:
$15 adults/$10 for students and seniors
Tickets are $5 for youth 18 and under

Advance tickets for indicated shows are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/98414

Location: Speyer Hall @ University Settlement is located at the corner of Eldridge Street and Rivington Street. F/V to Second Avenue, B/D to Grand Street, J/M/Z to Essex Street.

For more information and to make a reservation for any event, please call 212-453-4532 or e-mail project.audience@gmail.com.

Chameleon is a multi-disciplinary presentation about global citizens who have been exposed to several cultures in their developmental years. Exploring the notions of home, cultural identity and relationships through film, spoken word, theater, photography and dance, Chameleon draws on the insight and experience of Third Culture Kids: those who have spent a significant period of time in a culture other than their own. For more information about Chameleon please visit our project blog at http://tckcckahdanceproject.blogspot.com

A Moment Of Searing Dance Honesty

Time to tell the truth. Every so often, I write about what it feels like to be in a piece and what the piece does to me as a dancer. This morning, as I drove down to the pool, I had a flash of insight: I am uncomfortable, perhaps even dislike, who I am in one of the most exciting pieces of our repertory yet. Don't get me wrong. I love the piece. It is physically difficult, intense, exciting, emotional, challenging, rich ... and, from what I hear, watching it is a life-changing experience.

But I don't like who I am in it. In post-modern/contemporary dance, the concept of "who," which implies a kind of personhood, needs a little explanation -- and what follows is an oversimplification, but here goes. In ballet, the "characters" are recognizable; there is often a story to tell, a narrative that has some kind of human psychological coherence as the characters interact. One of the things that happened in modern dance and, indeed, in modern ballet is a move to the abstract. You get to look at the movement; the dancers themselves aren't actors in a story. It's just beautiful movement and a sense of coherence in the piece (if it is well done) grows from the movement.

One of the things post-modern/contemporary dance does is expose the dancer as individual, person without embarking upon a story. Unlike traditional modern dance and ballet where unformity is one of the issues being taken on, post-modern/contemporary dance can seek to separate the dancers and acknowledge them for who they are -- as movers sometimes or, even, as people off the stage. Choreographers create for these dancers movements that are perhaps drawn from the individual dancer's own set of preferred movements -- a movement vocabulary -- or that the choreographer thinks is unique to and for them. It's a dangerous and risky project for a dancer: the border lines between who you are, what kind of mover and performer you are, and who you think you are suddenly become blurred. It's scary.

The new piece, the experience of which I describe here, is awesome; my experience of it changes me every time I dance it. I grow within myself and my body. It takes me on as a dancer. I just wish it didn't require me to be that particular dancer. How to put it? Well, the piece begins with a chase; first two, then the rest of the group explode onto the stage and run perimeters. Just before we collide at the second point, there's a secondary freeze; I break into dance versions of the spasm in which my arm flies out and my body collapses onto my lap. It's quite impressive. From there, I seem to be taken over by rubbing and itchiness and scrubbing and frantic movement up and down my body. These gestures are interrupted by wild turns and a repeat of the collapse spasm. My character, it seems, can find no stillness.

The opening section yields into a felt timing improvised section; I've been challenging myself to adhere to the structure of the improvisation while allowing the essence and quality of the movement twitchy spasm movement to continue into new movements. In other words, I am establishing my "character." I have no idea whether or not the coherence of my movement vocabulary reads to the audience, but I feel it is an important part of being a motivated, focused dancer who grows anew with each performance of the piece. So, I am there, being twitchy, spasmy, rubby-scrubby. There's a moment at which I get to "break down the movement" -- look at some of the elements in a different and softer way, but I do spend most of the 23 minutes being the upshot of that first aggressive spasm.

Right now, I would rather be someone/anything else. I don't have a good sense of who the other dancers think they are; the partnering happens because we connect, but knowing their whole self narrative isn't part of that. I try to connect with who or what I see at that moment: playfulness for one, reluctance from another, curiosity from still another.

At the end of the piece, the structured improvisation returns in a softer, more abbreviated form. The choreographer gave us a new instruction; "you've been through a lot; you've learned something." But what? Since my "character" is born of movement rather than of any particular psychological trait, it seems to me that what I learn should originate in and affect the movement. I have a hard time with this. It's a hard project to begin with -- even if the character had been an emotional/psychological thing -- but when the character is defined by the quality and effort of the movements plus the movements themselves, it's a much harder thing. The other thing that makes this so hard is that I don't think it is productive to decide beforehand what I learn; I think it is essential that the learning/changing process be authentic to a particular performance. I have to catch the wave and ride it.

Most times, I find varying levels of success. The last time we danced this work, it was at 10:30 in the morning on a dusty hard stage without our real sound and lights. I had a good run; I was keyed into the atmosphere and the people in a really clear (to me at least) fashion. I recognized and was able to use the tension between the requirements of the dance and the "Seriously? It's far too early! I haven't had enough coffee to be doing this" feeling of my body. When the end came around, it just felt like a cooling of an pre-dawn storm; I could turn over and go back to sleep as soon as we were done here. Easy does it. Ahh. There, we are. The time before that, the end came around and I was like, "Shit. Here? Already? What did I learn?" and that was what I had to work with.

Sometimes, my scrubby, rubby, spasmy character can't change; she can't learn. She just can't. And that's that. I always feel sad for those performances; have I failed in some sense? I don't like feeling that I have failed. I don't like permanently being this person? Couldn't the choreographer have seen someone else in me? How about a floating, happy-go-lucky person? But, no. Scrubby is what I have to go with. And as long as we perform this piece, I will be searching for growth and change within the constrictions of scrubby, twitchy, spasmy.

Spasm Made Me Do It: Disability vs Feminism vs Justice

This piece deals with difficult stuff: the intersection of a sex crime, feminism and disability. Some of the stuff I will be quoting is disturbing; you might find the implied language unsuitable for a workplace.

The piece of junk that is the NY Daily News reports this (warning: the article and the comments are difficult to say the least): the case of a man with CP who claims his spasm made him make contact (the kind of contact is disputed) with a Taxi and Limousine Commission judge. The judge is suing him for sexual abuse and sexual harassment (this on top of the fact that they have a history of problematic email contact).

Who knows what happened? I know what I see in the presentation of the story.

The man in question is an attorney; the complaining witness a judge. These qualifications might have structured their relationship and, even, the way the News reported it (not that they should -- after all, this is a story in which feminism is pitted against disability, as the comments show -- it's just that there might have been a better angle to pursue).

Regardless of qualifications, let's just start with the presentation. Mr. Mertsaris is pictured on his stomach on the floor (yes, out of his wheelchair), with a roller tucked under his chest and a towel where his head might fall. His expression is one of surprise. In the background (he seems to be in his living room, as opposed to an office), a semi-erected ironing board with some clothes on it; some more clothes slop off the sofa sectional. The effect is of a semi-child, living in messy unprofessional surroundings.

There are no pictures of the judge, nor is she named; this is appropriate for a story about sexual abuse and harassment: a sex crime is being alleged. That said, the commenters seem to have found a picture of her, and there is a viciously mean thread about how, and I quote, "f*" ugly she is, whether her ugliness is equal to the touch of a disabled man, and how she kinda deserves it....

[deep breath. pause.]

Mr. Mertsaris admits having made contact with the judge's buttock. The News reports that the judge claims he made contact with her inner thigh and that Mr. Mertsaris grabbed her buttock. How one disentangles this with fairness and respect to all the parties concerned, I do not know. But if I were Mr. Mertsaris, I would seek a different legal representative: ""If he was starving to death and had a hamburger in front of him he couldn't lean over to pick it up," Gibbons said." The man's attorney, Wayne Gibbons, seeks to use the helpless defense: He has so little control, he'd die before he was able to help himself.

So, there you have it in a nutshell: the worst of all worlds. A disabled man who may be unable to prove his actions were an involuntary consequence of his impairment. A woman whose physical privacy has been invaded by a man from whom she has already had intrusive contact. An attorney who will defended by an attorney who cannot recognize his client's humanity. And, don't forget, since this is the internet, after all, a comment/forum stream that blames the woman, blames the man, and sees nothing wrong with doing so. Even the "brightest light" -- the commenter who defends Mr. Mertsaris for not being helpless on the grounds of his having obtained a J.D. -- confuses physical impairment with the ability to perform the intellectual acts required to be a lawyer.

This being the internet, the story isn't limited to the Daily News. So far, it is most popular in Australian outlets (??!), but some US-based coverage of the case is even more startling. NY's Gothamist has the following juicy quote from Mr. Mertsaris' attorney: "He whacked her in the butt but it wasn't sexual abuse." He goes on to conclude, " If he was starving to death and had a hamburger in front of him he couldn't lean over to pick it up," and "This is one of the most stunning displays of a lack of compassion, a lack of human kindness, a lack of judgment." (Formatting is as originally printed.) The comments so far on Gothamist are all blaming of the judge (ugliness and meanness) and in favour of Mr. Mertsaris as a helpless disabled person -- the "c*" word is used. To my mind, this split represents the likely more liberal and left-leaning audience of Gothamist vs. more conservative News readers.

[pause. cleansing breath.]

And speaking of less liberal readers, what did the Post's benighted readership make of all this? I'm going to quote at length the comment of one Conrad:

Hummm. Interesting. Did he touch her, thinking due to his disability, he'd get away with it? Or, is the judge a biatch on wheels? Looks like it's going to court, so we'll find out soon. Having seen the level of control CP patients have, I'd guess it was intentional. If he was that out-of-control he'd never be allowed in a courtroom due to his status as a spastic.

Oh. Conrad. You couldn't be more mistaken. The judge's disability status is not mentioned. Do you really think she could be a wheelchair user? Or did you just get tripped up by your infelicitous use of figurative speech. Is your concern about contact between two disabled people? And what's with your typing? Do you really think that this little mis-spelling relieves you of your social obligations to be respectful? And do you really believe that someone is not "allowed" in court due to the manifestations of their disability? The question of intention and the nature of the touch seem to run through this question, but your comment reveals only your bigotry.

After supplying a quote in which Mr. Mertsaris senior informs the world that his son cannot eat by himself (Relevance? Are we supposed to be able to insert some value judgment about Mr. Mertsaris and the quality of his life from that?), the Australian Daily Telegraph offers the following:

Last October at the Commission's office in Queens, a TLC judge accused Mr Mertsaris of grabbing her upper thigh and buttocks while they were alone together.

She also allegedly screamed: "Help, help."

Mr Mertsaris - who communicates best by email, working the computer with his head and with aid from his carer - says the contact was accidental.

He also admits sending the woman a series of emails in the past, which prompted her to ask a manager to tell him to stop.

myFOXny.com revealed the messages were not sexual, but "just chatting"

Mr. Mertsaris may be guilty; he may be innocent and the judge may be guilty. None of these accounts would help a reader seeking to understand what happened. I won't be going to the myFOXny site: the readers there won't help me gain understanding into this very complicated series of events.

Pain, Presence, and Architecture

I've been out all week with a back spasm; this is day 9. At first, I tried to move around and through it, figuring that this was just one of those things that eventually releases; now, however, I have given up: easy, easy, easy does it.

The experience of sudden reduced mobility has me thinking about architecture; the failure of some recent conversations about pain and the body has me thinking about what we do when things hurt. So, somehow or other in my sad little brain, they all got combined. It's not so much that I'm thinking of the body as a vessel or structure in the same way that a house is a vessel or structure -- a static object intended to send a message or contain the "real thing" -- I'm kind of thinking of the body as a designed object intended to reveal the present and to help you experience it. Bear with me -- it's a new thought.

Background text: The house is done, and we have moved in; this place has changed how I experience suboptimal body days.

Further down the road, I am watching a new house go up. They've dug up the land, cleared the trees and are building the structure. The windows went in last week. Overall, the actual structure is designed with elements that are commonly recognized as "expensive, grand and/or impressive." There are Romanesque columns, Venetian-ish balconies, and flights and flights of stairs: each window seems to lead to a room at a different height. The structure is not at all to my personal taste -- I happen to think pseudo-mediterranean villas with a faux vineyard-ish look are architectural nightmares, but everyone is entitled to an opinion (apologies if this somewhat resembles or, gulp, actually *is* your house).

I used the word "house" (as opposed to "home") deliberately. Because this house is very much focused on its structure and its externals. The message of building is apparently what matters most. The structure strives (noisily, earnestly) to impress. In the coming months, there will no doubt be fancy tiles and terracotta colours splashed up and down the place -- that particular design is very popular around here. If you are not sure, what I am talking about this link has everything you would need to know (including pictures). I can't imagine what it would be like to live in one of those things day in and out.

The link has a throwaway marketing phrase -- something about "connecting to Tuscan architecture." I've been hearing this idea of "connecting to something beyond yourself" a lot. Philanthropy adverts, environmental adverts, hell, even tourism in the West Bank adverts (thanks NPR) all want people to "connect" to something other than themselves. Houses serve as one vehicle, a purveyor of connection to something. They bear the occupant and the viewer -- probably the viewer more than the occupant -- away from their current place and time to something else. They translate (in the non-linguistic sense); they communicate aspirations, desires, hopes; they can also serve as static status updates.

I'm keenly aware of these significances when I look at my own home. As more and more houses in the area are redone, the externals of the buildings are more and more eye-catching. Yes, I understand what happened during the housing boom; I can see it here in the buildings, the lingering hopeful for sale signs that alternate with equally as hopeful for rent signs. I can see that many peoples went all out for the appearance of grandeur for their homes.

I wonder what people think when they see our house. We did not change the original 70's house externals; we kept the same footprint; the structural changes we made were to facilitate earthquake and general house won't fall down the hill safety. (House was built by a random guy who wanted to see if he could build a house on poles; he succeeded, but his engineering wasn't all that great). Don't get me wrong; our house is very nice. And I like it a lot. It makes me happy.

It doesn't make me happy, because Wizard and I ponied up bucks and staked a claim to a piece of American real estate upon which we wreaked/wrought (depending on your perspective) the American equivalent of an English? castle. No, it doesn't. It doesn't make me happy because we built a posh-o-rama peon to our bank balance and social aspirations. Nope, we didn't; it can't. It makes me happy, because it enables me to experience exactly where I am. The house has no aspirations; it is what it is: a renovated 70's place on the side of the hill in the trees. It is beautiful; the house reveals the beauty and facilitates/mediates our experience of the beauty and of who and where we are at the time -- the time being now.

I've been acutely aware of this as I wait for my back to get back to normal. How we cope with pain is an interesting question. In my world, I use the word pain to describe the kind of acute pain that requires immediate and constant medication. I use more specific words -- ache, tingling, numb, hurt, etc. -- to describe the daily discomfort. The back pain is muscular, and I am doing everything I can to make it go away. This is how I usually handle stuff: I work, work, work. Do all my exercises and stretches. This time, however, I am noticing that I want to have a different attitude/mindset while this stuff goes on.

Here's what I mean. Over the years, I have learned from the Shrink a number of techniques to dull the pain and to help me focus and feel better, less panicked, less out of control, etc. And when I perform these practices -- slowly, carefully and consistently -- I feel less run by the pain.

NOTE: I do not think these kinds of practices can or should replace pain medication -- they probably only work for certain kinds of pain. I am not recommending them as a "you should try this" -- it's more of a " this is what I do sometimes for certain kinds of hurt."

This time, however, I am finding that I don't want/don't feel able to perform distract/divert/overcome kinds of maneuvers. The pain rises and falls mostly independent of what I am doing, but overall, it isn't a 24/7 constant excruciating kind of thing. Nor does it rise to unbearable, unless I do something extreme. And I find that my perspective has changed; I don't want to divert and/or take control; this time, I want to ride it out, to be in it, and feel all of the, well, whatever there is to feel about it.

I am beginning to think that my change in outlook has to do with the house. When people walk through the door and go, "OMG, it's fabulous!" They aren't responding to the white wall or the glass or the pretty green rug; they are reacting to the experience/effect of being in the place. What if I could manage the same thing for my body? The accessibility of the house allows my body to be. Just be. I can move around and do what I need to do without hassle. I get to experience my body in a neutral environment.

So when body-shit happens, I am trying to just experience it as part of the environment. No more striving to make the externals right. No more stretching, testing, checking, working. Just gently experiencing. Noting that I am scared that it will never go away -- not true. It will. It's "just" muscular. Noting. Noting. Noting. Noting that I can maintain this perspective until the pain rises to a certain level at which point I panic: will it ever stop? How can I hold on? What can I do to be comfortable? And then watching it retreat.

The body is like a well-designed house. A dancer's body is particularly so. Too many people prize the externals. Is she "too fat, too thin, too short, too tall...." Does she have those lines? Am I any of those things? I know that the externals are a shorthand for the inner work of dance and now, it turns out, living. The central question is not what does it look like; the central question is can you commit to what you have where you are. That commitment makes for beautiful dance, for certain. It is a wonderful principle of architecture; no more grandeur -- no fake Tudors, no fake Mediterranean villas.... just California ranch houses. I don't think it makes great pain control, but it is, perhaps, an interesting approach to life.

Sins Is Hiring

Sins Invalid is a performance project that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as members of communities who have been historically marginalized. Conceived and led by disabled people of color, we develop and present cutting-edge work where normative paradigms of "normal" and "sexy" are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all individuals and communities.

We present multidisciplinary performances (video, poetry, spoken word, music, drama, and dance) by people with disabilities for broad audiences in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere; organize multidisciplinary performance workshops for community members with and without disabilities; and offer political education workshops for community based and educational organizations that share our commitment to social justice principles as a means of integrating analysis and action around disability, race, gender, and sexuality.

The Development Coordinator will work with the Executive Director to make the organization more sustainable by increasing stakeholders, including foundations and major individual donors, and creating compelling new fundraising materials that communicate the mission, vision and work of the organization. The position is responsible for planning and implementing a strategy to raise $200,000 in operating funds.

Position Responsibilities:

• Coordinate grants including the production and submittal of funding requests, interim and final reports
• Maintain donor tracking and recognition systems
• Solicit in-kind and cash donations from local businesses and community organizations
• Initiate and manage major donor approaches
• Initiate on-line giving strategies including leveraging online social networking for fundraising purposes
• Interface with funders’ community and stakeholders on behalf of Sins Invalid
• Devise/implement year end major ask fundraising event and/or mailing
• Document organizational development processes & strategies
• Work collectively with other staff, grant-writing contractors, and organizational members to conduct initiate strategic planning for long term fund raising for Sins Invalid

Necessary Experience and Skills:

• Minimum two years non-profit fund development experience
• A successful record of attracting and sustaining public and foundation and funding
• Proven familiarity with social justice work in a non-profit work environment
• Experience and competencies in working in a diverse work environment
• Prior experience working in teams and in collective settings
• Ability to work independently
• Experience and familiarity with non-profit finances
• Experience with grants management and reporting, including experience working with multiple public and private funders
• Understanding and commitment to anti-racist and anti-ableist principles
• Extremely strong organizational skills, excellent time management skills and proven ability to work well independently
• Strong ability to set own goals/timelines and meet deadlines independently
• Excellent written skills and proficiency writing and editing letters of intent, foundation proposals, donor letters and donor materials
• Accuracy, attention to detail, and the ability to proof own work
• Excellent oral and interpersonal communication skills
• Demonstrated experience and proficiency with Mac systems and the internet
• Experience and proficiency with Word, Excel and the internet required
• Experience using "Web 2.0" social networking tools (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for fundraising purposes

Preferred Experience and Skills:

• Experience and competencies in working in a mixed ability, multiracial, multi-gendered environment
• Familiarity with performance related work in a non-profit work environment
• Prior experience mentoring
• Familiarity with the California Cultural Data Project
• Familiarity with Sins Invalid’s mission and programs

To Apply:

To apply, please send an email to info@sinsinvalid.org. Please write “Development Coordinator” and your name in the subject line, and include two attachments as pdfs (1) Cover letter including your (a) full contact information (b) the reason you are interested in this position (c) your familiarity with Sins Invalid (d) the unique experience, skills and qualifications you offer to this position and to the organization (2) Resume with three professional references. We will contact you if we wish to talk with you about the position/invite you for an interview.

Sins Invalid is an equal opportunity employer. Applications are strongly encouraged from people with disabilities; people who identify as LGBTQI; people of color; women; immigrants; people living with HIV/AIDS.