Sins Invalid

The Artist’s Embrace of Oneself

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The documentary provided a raw, poignant view of the creative process of disabled performers who took the stage in 2012 to share their stories as disabled people. The yearly show explored disability and race, gender, sex and sexuality, and featured many artists of color and LQBTQ artists. The documentary itself, fully titled Sins Invalid: An Unashamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility, was directed by one of Sins Invalid’s founders Patricia Berne, was released in 2013 and detailed the performances’ development, the performers’ thought process behind their parts, and the importance of such a show. 

Sins Invalid features a variety of acts, with some done entirely independently and solely for the performer. In one performance, a disabled man takes a bath and uses a sponge to clean himself. The performance is done entirely alone and independently, which a few of the other more intimate performances do. However, what really stood out to me was the performances that had multiple people in them. One performance features Nomy Lamm, a singer and amputee, dressed in a bird costume in a nest of human prosthetics. She layers her voice to create a song, and is soon joined by another performer who clasps hands with her. The performance is heavily symbolic, and has a huge focus on unity and community. The importance of group performance is emphasised in Keywords for Disabilities, “Performance”, where author Petra Kuppers explains that such performances, “moves out from the individual and towards communal action, and a staged performance becomes a way of presenting disability in public” (138). The final performance featured in the documentary starts with a man in a wheelchair being caught in a fight between a bipedal individual. It is halfway through the performance when this individual disappears and the man in the wheelchair is lifted into the air, using his arms to hold himself atop a wooden beam. The performance ends with the projection of a cross over his form, evoking imagery of crucifixion. This performance is a result of the combined efforts of group and individual performance, and conveys a harrowing connection of abuse and violence on the disabled community. These performances, which we see the behind the scenes of in the documentary, are performed annually, with different stories and performers taking the stage each year. 

“This space[…] is for me” says E. E. Smith. The concise declaration really doesn’t beat around the bush. These spaces, these performances, are one of the few spaces for the diabled to feel fully welcomed and accepted. The in-your-fact descriptions of sex and sexuality, of the instability of their place in an ablist world, the fear or violence and containment, they are not only necessary — to be seen and heard —  but they mirror many of the worldviews that the audience holds. 

There is something powerful in finding yourself surrounded by your community. A magical sort of emotion as you feel true belonging in the face of invisibility and oppression. When you talk to a stranger about your personal experience and realize that you are not alone; they feel what you feel and think what you think. That you no longer have to hide. Much like the audience in Smith’s writing, the audience of Sin’s Invalid would become a part of the performance itself. Not only do you see the unfiltered performances of diabled people, but you are a part of the space itself, with each audience member having their own unknown — and previously unacknowledged — stories.

Sins Invalid emphasises that the performers do not perform for the audience, and rather are performing for themselves, to create art not for it to be objectified by a view, but instead encompassed in the minds and bodies of the artists. Performing for yourself, for the sake of expressing yourself, is an extraordinary way to create art. Artists are often uncomfortably aware of their audience, and this usually impacts the creative process in some way. What will the viewers think of this? Will they accept it? Will they hate it, jeer and boo me off stage? The artist freeing themselves from the expectations put about by the audience are able to focus solely on their art. And for the case of Sins Invalid, this resulted in an enchantingly unashamed show.

It is impossible for film to capture the experience of seeing the live performance. There is so much different about being there in person, seeing the entire expanse of the stage and feeling the entire room vibrate with the voices of the performers, to see the curtains sway open and closed, that cannot be truly captured in film. The act of becoming one with the audience could even itself be a part of the performance. Actors could enter the audience, break the fourth wall, there are even performances entirely made up by the audience. John Cage’s 4’33” is a completely silent musical performance, where the sounds of the auditorium make up the music itself. The audience’s breathing and shuffling, quiet whispers and coughs. Being a part of the audience completely changes the experience, so I feel like as a viewer of the film, I have yet to fully see the true performance. Because of this I give the documentary a four out of five stars.

Sexuality and Defiance: A Review of Sins Invalid

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Summary:

The short film “Sins Invalid” showcases a performance project by the same name, created by disabled artists Patty Berne and Leroy Moore. This collection of performances by a collection of artists of all disabilities, races, ethnicities, genders, and sexualities focuses on the nuances of navigating sex, desire, and relationships while existing in a world that is incredibly hostile to any displays of sexuality in disabled people. The first performance by ET Russian shows them removing their prosthetic legs for the night and rubbing lotion on their legs while a narration plays over the scene describing a past sexual experience with another disabled person who was injured in a car crash. Next, Maria Palacios explains her relationship with sexuality as a wheelchair user and how she was taught that she would never have sex, get married, have children or even grow up. Palacios also describes the horrible medical treatment she experienced in her youth that dehumanized her. After these introductory performance, Sins Invalid co-founder Patty Berne comes onto the screen and explains why she wanted to create this performance troupe with Leroy Moore, highlighting the way she was paraded around her elementary school naked for doctors to analyze. This performance project is a way for these disabled performers to own their bodies and display them for an audience in a way that is empowering for themselves and others.

Next, the film explores the United States’ past of eugenics, beginning by listing the “5 D’s of types of people who should not reproduce”: Degenerate, Dependent, Deficient, Delinquent, and Defective. Performer Seeley Quest takes on the story of a woman named Carey whose mother was in colony of people that fell under the 5 D’s. When she was young she was assaulted and became pregnant, but was forcibly sterilized on the basis of her family history of disability. One of the most difficult performances to watch came next, with the co-founder Leroy Moore on his knee in the nude while another performer pulls a long list of insults from his mouth, symbolizing how the words of the world are easily internalized. After that, deaf dancer Antoine Hunter explains the experience of non-deaf people telling him he shouldn’t dance because he can’t hear music. We see Hunter dance without any soundtrack, exploring an internal rhythm he seeks to share with the audience. Next, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explains how poets and writers like her too are able to join Sins Invalid and shares a poem she wrote about the love between herself and another disabled individual and how pure and strong their devotion to taking care of each other is.

Later, Leroy Moore performs a scene of going to the doctor in sexual bondage attire and then performs a scene with Juba Kalamka where they play dominos and joke with each other until it turns to hugging and kissing. Then, performer Matt Fraser conducts a sensual bath scene where he shows the audience how he cleans himself, making use of his legs to reach areas his arms are unable to, and invites the audience to see his beauty in the way shower scenes in movies and television often sexualize the love interests of the protagonists. Right afterwards we watch Fraser in a new scene being beat up and eventually killed by an invisible assailant which we find out is an embodiment of the microaggressions he faces in day to day life. The most moving performance for me came next, where artist Nomy Lamm dressed in feathers and wings sings an eerie wordless song atop a nest of limbs. Nearing the end of the showcase, Piepzna-Samarasinha orates another of her pieces, which is a story about the experience of flirting with another disabled individual online and dreaming about their possible life together. Finally, the last performance Sins Invalid gives us is a dramatic chain of events between performer Rodney Bell and Seeley Quest where at first they are in an intimate and tender moment that turns violent when Quest attacks Bell, trying to use his vulnerabilities as a wheelchair user against him. In the last few minutes of this scene, Bell rises up into the air with his wheelchair, twisting and turning and is displayed in front of a red cross, reminiscent of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Quotations and Observations:

From “Disability and Sex” in Keywords for Disabilities, Margrit Shildrick writes, “…disabled people, like everyone else, understand their sexualities in multiple different ways, which do not fit easily with the convenient models of social management” (Shildrick pg. 164). I thought this quote is depicted very nicely in Sins Invalid because inherent to the production is the fact that each of these disabled performers have different experiences and stories based on their lives as people of color, queer people, and each of them utilizes different mediums in which they choose to perform their stories. I think one of the reasons why Sins Invalid is so good, is because one of their goals as a production is to essentially scrap the “convenient models of social management” in favor of showing the world who they truly are, safe within their community of people who support and cherish their art.

Another quote from Keywords for Disabilities from the chapter “Sexuality” by Robert McRuer says, “Disabled people often have been discursively constructed as incapable of having sexual desires or a sexual identity, due to their supposed “innocence” ” (McRuer, 168). I connected this quote to Sins Invalid in particular to a section where a performer is expressing her frustration with societies inability to allow disabled people the experience of seeing people like themselves on the screen getting to experience sex just like non-disabled people are allowed to. Sins Invalid is a way for people to show off “An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of invisibility” as stated on their website.

Review:

I found the short film Sins Invalid to be incredibly moving in the way the performers were able to get down to the nitty-gritty feelings of pain, weakness, love, and strength that have experienced and continue experience in their lives. Before I wrote this post, I watched it one more time in order to catch the detail I may have missed in our class viewing, and each performance so aptly contends with the oppressive power structures they face, wrought with symbolism and humor. I really would like to see a live performance of Sins Invalid if I ever get the opportunity because only seeing snippets of many different performances, I would assume, pale in comparison to the real experience of getting to see it live. I rate Sins Invalid a 5 out of 5, because of the masterful attention to detail of the camera work, as well as the finely chosen scenes that moved me in such a short amount of time.

“An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility”

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“Sins Invalid”, while the name of the documentary that ENG 401 viewed in class last Friday, is also the name of the disability justice visual-and-performing-arts troupe starring in that film. Based in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Sins Invalid is experienced similarly to an onstage lookbook: it is a performance that explores beauty, desire, the body, and identity through disability, paying careful respect to the intersectional lines of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Over the 33 minutes of the film artists Cara Page, Seeley Quest, Maria Palacios, Nomy Lamm, ET Russian, Antoine Hunter, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Rodney Bell and Mat Fraser are interviewed about their performance and the motivations behind their various creative expressions on stage. Since 2006, the group have performed on a rotating basis, and are allowed to choose their own acts. A single performance offers everything from slam poetry to aerial gymnastics, all with a focus on the beauty in self-realization among the disabled, and letting go of the ableist myth that our fullest lives and disability are mutually exclusive things.

Chapter two on “Ability” from Keywords for Disability Studies, by Fiona Kumari Campbell, posits that ableism “is useful for thinking not just about disability but also about other forms of difference that result in marginality or disadvantage” (Adams et al. 14). Sins invalid, which is run entirely by disabled people of color, makes this a focus of their work within the disability facet of the performance. Seeley Quest’s performance as “Carrie”, a pregnant foster youth, exemplifies these “forms of difference”, and demonstrates the avenues by which disabled people are too often taken advantage of (financially and sexually in Carrie’s case) when they are not adequately accommodated by the systems in which they must live.

The next chapter of Keywords for Disability Studies, “Access”, by Bess Williamson, adds that our modern pressures to accommodate the disabled “[follow] the logic of the ‘social model’ of disability, which shifts attention from the impaired body to the surrounding environment” (Adams et al. 15). Williamson means here that the social model of disability sees disability as defined by society, not the way someone is born. This reminded me most of the performance of Mat Fraser, who spars with an imaginary foe onstage as audio clips of derisive comments play in the background. As the comments continue, Mat falls and convulses on the ground, unable to get up, with blood streaming from his mouth. I believe at this moment Mat intended to show how the impairments of stigma, judgement, and low self-esteem themselves become a barrier, perhaps equal to or sometimes greater than the physical challenge presented by a given disability.

Personally, I enjoyed the film for its intimacy in subject, because to me it proved another level of sincerity and frankness in a discussion on bodies. How can that not include love, sex, and romance? However, I also noticed the uneasiness in the class when the nude bodies came on screen. In this country, it’s more acceptable to show a video of a shootout than a female nipple in most circumstances, so I understand their reservations. But, I think that awkward feeling is partially intentional on the behalf of Sins Invalid, as it makes us consider what should be normalized (like the scene where Mat washes himself onstage) for the human body in society, and also reconsider what bodies we do see onstage most frequently and why.

I would rate this documentary four stars because I thought it was a bit poorly produced for a documentary about a performing arts crew (you’d think they’d have better cameras in 2013), but the amount of time spent interviewing the actual artists and not the company was refreshing to me. Aesthetically, and in terms of the message, absolutely a five star film. If nothing else, Sins Invalid is a beautiful performance, and I think the artists important work bringing justice to all “forms of difference” at a degree of inclusivity that felt new to me as a consumer.

Crip Spaces: Sexual, Fulfilling, And Revolutionary

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Summary of Sins Invalid

Sins Invalid is a short documentary about a performance team of artists portraying their understanding of sex and disability – as disabled, sexual beings. The team is made up of an entirely disabled cast and crew. Throughout the documentary we see live performances as well as interviews of the crew members. Performances range from dance routines and singing, to poems and short plays. We get to know a bit about the crew and their experience navigating sex as a disabled person in a world that dismisses or fetishizes sex. The documentary celebrates queer, disabled and identities of color through an artistic lens. 

Quotes:

“This is precisely why they (Crip Spaces) are needed: as long as claiming our own ground is treated as an act of hostility, we need our ground” (Smith pg. 274)

This quote ties in well with Sins Invalid and the need for performances like theirs. There are countless sexually-charged shows, but how many include disabled bodies? How many are accessible for disabled patrons? The organization provides an opportunity for the performers and viewers to feel safe, seen, and validated. Not only that, but Sins Invalid provides a space that disabled folks can actually show up to. The moment from the film I am drawn to is at the very beginning when the audio describer/host(?) is explaining who Sins Invalid is and what they stand for. The disabled voice of color celebrates disability and praises the sexual queerness of people. 

“…we might conclude that it (the way disability and sex is misconstrued) is because sexuality is always a site of deep-seated anxieties about normative forms of embodied being” (Shildrick pg. 165)

This quote speaks in tangent with our class conversation about feeling uncomfortable. Sex is not for everyone. Additionally, not everyone has a positive relationship with sex due to lived experience. It is not a good or essential aspect of many lives, however, I will challenge the discomfort for those who come from a cultural/religious place of taboo and anxiety. If sex is taboo for “normalized” bodies, how are we digesting sexuality within disabled bodies? How are our discomforts and anxieties being projected on those who society deems “abnormal”? I am brought back to the scene in the film when the woman who uses two prosthetic legs is on stage while a narrator graphically explains a sexual encounter. I don’t believe this performance is intended to be a dichotomy; her disability is not in opposition with her sexual experience, but rather in tangent. Our discomfort may be projected onto her not having legs, when realistically it may come from a place of insecurity and social taboo regarding sexuality.

Reflection:

In reflection of the readings and this film, I feel at ease, but not complacent. I feel hopeful and full of questions.

 I find the concept of “Crip Spaces” absolutely essential, both in my own life, within my identities and for the well-being of humankind. I hope, moving forward to find spaces for myself that embrace my queerness (in all meanings of the word). Likewise, I hope for disabled spaces, Black spaces, Indigenous spaces, spaces of color and tongue, trans spaces, survivor spaces, and beyond. Shameless plug, an online platform that amplifies these folks is SaltyWorld. I would highly recommend checking it out for all identities.

Rating:

My bias leads me toward a 5/5 rating. Despite the documentary being lower budget I believe it was artistically brilliant, socially impactful, and overall well done. 

Invalid No More: Disabled Performance in “Sins Invalid”

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Sins Invalid is a short film featuring a troupe of the same name from the San Francisco area. The troupe is composed of performers with varying disabilities who express their sexuality and experience on stage for a live audience. The film chronicles the creation and heart of the troupe, formed out of a need to shift the narrative of disabled sexuality from something grotesque or shunned to something visible and celebrated. Sins Invalid is an active performance to display the varying sexualities and sensualities of each performer and to give the audience insight into the beauty of disability.

When analyzing the film from a disability theory angle, it is clear to see the subversive nature of the film. Robert McRuer explains in his essay on “Sexuality” in relation to disability theory that, “exclusion from normality or a presumption that one could not be part of the heterosexual/homosexual system, in other words, sometimes allowed for disabled pleasures and disabled ways of knowing that were not reducible to dominant systems of heterosexuality that were dependent on ablebodied definitions of sexual norms” (McRuer, 169). Given that in the 20th century people continued to find ways to label disabled sexuality as “abnormal”, there  is a need to break out of the othering that comes from heteronormative analysis of disabled sexuality. Sins Invalid as a performance troupe finds their own ways of subverting the narrative of abnormality, transforming the concept of disabled sexuality into something beautiful and sensual. This explicit subversion is emphasized in the lapdance performance of Maria Polacios, where she turns her wheelchair into an object of sexual mobility and sensuality. Something that the heteronormative society would see as abnormal suddenly appears erotic, freeing the label of disabled sexuality.

Patricia Bearne, Co-Founder of Sins Invalid, speaks in the film about there being a distinct lack of disabled bodies on stage, how people with disabilities need a space where they can perform and grow as performers. In a short story labeled “The Beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People”, s.e. Smith defines the concept of crip space as “unique, a place where disability is celebrated and embraced- something radical and taboo in many parts of the world and sometimes even for people in those spaces” (Smith, 273). This is exactly the kind of environment that the founders of Sins Invalid have fostered. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha expands on this concept by speaking about how the first time she watched the show, she was amazed and moved to tears by the the notion that the queer and disabled performers did not have to hide any part of their identity while on stage. Sins Invalid as a troupe is working towards freeing the boundaries that have been set by society for people with disabilities, expanding the definition of what it means to live free lives full of love. In Petra Kupper’s analysis of “Performance” in disability studies, she explains how in performances like these “the action moves out from the individual and toward communal action, and a staged performance becomes a way of presenting disability in public” (Kuppers, 138). For the people who are disabled in the audience, this is a celebration of the lives of fellow people with disabilities. For the nondisabled in the audience, it is a chance to see another facet of disability, one that has long since been locked away by society. All around, it is another chance for the audience to see how acceptance and support can create stunning and captivating narratives for all viewers.

As someone who is asexual, this would not be my first choice of a performance to view. However, I do understand the need to shift the current accepted narrative that people with disabilities are without sexuality or that their sexuality is otherwise repulsive. Interpretive performances are also not my first choice of visual performance, but I think that each scene represented in the movie has its own beauty. If I were to watch performances that are not overtly sexual, I would have an easier time enjoying them. But that is a personal preference to avoid blatantly sexual media. However, I am struck by the moments of spoken word, specifically the performance of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, relating her relationship to an adventure through the cosmos. And I can appreciate the stories that they are trying to communicate and the medium of which they are doing so, and I hope that they continue to find joy and freedom in their performances. From a professional standpoint, 4 out of 5 stars, from a personal standpoint, 3 out of 5.

Validating Sins: a review of “Sins Invalid : an unshamed claim to beauty in the face of invisibility “

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“Sins Invalid” is a vivid anthology of art performance expressing personal experience surrounding sex and sexuality through the lens of disability. Performers share some of the intimate moments of their lives, highlighting the impact having a disability has had on their ability to engage in sex and romance, none. Their performances also shed light on how ableist culture has contorted their daily lives to be abnormal, introducing struggle into their lives. Sins Invalid is a disability justice performance project, run by POC artists with disabilities show casing the talent and creativity of disabled artists. The Film, “Sins Invalid”, depicts the thought process behind one of Sins Invalid’s showcases.  The artists behind Sins Invalid strive to create understanding of issues surrounding their race, sexuality, and lack of able-bodiedness, something society demand participants have, by directly playing against the stereotypical non-sexual and non-sensual script given to disabled people.

According to Petra Kuppers, in the essay “performance”, “Making choices about one’s intervention is part of what an artful and conscientious disability performance practitioner does…”(139). The question to ask, is what type of intervention are the members of Sins Invalid engaging in? The performers are very explicit in their intentions. They are purposefully fighting against oppressive ideas of able-bodiedness, heteronormativity and racism. However, “Disabled people often have been discursively constructed as incapable of having sexual desires or a sexual identity, due to their supposed “innocence” ”(168), as Robert McRuer in “Sexuality” puts, seems to be the main antithesis of the showcase. This is often the only thing connect one part of the film to another. The film has a lot of ground to cover and not nearly enough time, leaving some discussions as footnotes. But does this matter? Not if the viewer is inspired to look further into the injustices and struggles display by “Sins Invalid”.

Now, for the rating of this film, I would rate Sins Invalid 2.5 out of five stars. The reason for this poor rating is digestibility. “Sins Invalid” is a hard watch. Not because of the disturbing treatment of people with disabilities described at times but due to the extremely explicitness of some of the more focused performances. For some, this may not be a deterrent when watching the film. I applaud your comfortability around sex, I suppose. I personally found some parts uncomfortably pornographic, which other parts ripe with symbolism and deep thought were stained by. I know that I am not alone in this mindset. It is not that I am conservative or prude, it is my personal beliefs that intimacy should selectively share with a few and not the world. Of course, there exist a wide range of opinions on sexual expression and its place in society, so my dilemma may be amplified in some and non-existent in others. No matter what your stance on sex positivity and expression, one should consider the messages conveyed by Sins Invalid. There was a borderline freak-showness and over sexualization to some performances that puts the message Sins Invalid is attempting to impart in danger of being obscured by some of the acts. I believe that was purposeful chose embracing the freak show stereotype. My final impression of both the film and project is that the artists are attempting to normalize a disabled sexual experience, but they are inadvertently alienating a portion of the audience with the explicitness of their performances.

Note: Both quotes used above are from essays featured in the book Keywords for Disability Studies, by Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss and David Sirlen.

Performance and Expression

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The film Sins Invalid is a contemplation of performances from a show by different artists in the disability community. Poets, dancers, musicians, and actors come together on the stage to create a raw and pure performance of emotion. Expressing, not only their identity, but their sexuality, race, and experience as being disabled in an honest way. Between performances, there was commentary on the creative process and experiences the performers had while creating and performing their acts on the stage for live audiences.

Something I made a connection to between the film and the Keywords for Disability Studies books was sexualization. In the chapter about race the author writes, “For instance, the public’s morbid fascination with the sexualized bodies of Saartjie Baartman, the South African woman known as the “hottest Venus.””(146). It was common in the past for people of race or disability to be sexualized in a negative, unwanted way by the public. In this film, we see people of different race and disability reclaiming their sexuality and how they feel about their bodies, despite the opinions and misconception of others. The other connection I made was to the chapter about the topic of the word queer, “”Queer” opposes not heterosexuality but heteronormativity-the often unspoken assumption that heterosexuality provides the framework through which everything makes sense.” (143). Not only does the film challenge misconceptions of disability but it breaks down heteronormativity, opening our eyes to other people’s sexuality, sex, and experience that should be but is not viewed as ‘normal’ due to the concept of heteronormativity.

I really enjoyed watching this film. To watch people own their identities, to stand on a stage and listen and watch them proclaim their truths and who they are was incredibly powerful and inspirational to me. Each performer told their story, their experience and how they see themselves and their body. It just felt so raw and honest to me and I really loved that. I think this film is also incredibly powerful because it changes the perspective of the viewers. It breaks through the misconceptions and stereotypes that media and society have created about the sexuality and lives of people with disability. I find that incredibly impactful.

4.5/5 Stars