performance

“Unbroken: Alice Sheppard’s Revelations in Dance”

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Title and Author: “So. Not. Broken” by Alice Sheppard, from Disability Visibility

Objective Summary: 

Alice Sheppard begins her short autobiographical piece “So. Not. Broken” from Disability Visibility by sharing a joke with her physical therapist as she arrives at an appointment. “I’m broken”, she says, but it has nothing to do with her disability (182). As a choreographer and dancer, Alice is used to living with a degree of physical brokenness, but not in the way her nondisabled audiences may immediately assume. “Many nondisabled people attribute a degree of brokenness to disability”, she writes, adding “it arises from the medicalization of our bodyminds” (182). For Alice, learning how to dance involved figuring out her body through the mechanics of her crutches, and her chair, as well as without them, leading her to new capabilities in performance. To Alice, the chair is a part of her body, because it becomes part of her embodied space, in dance and in daily life. She shares that her perspectives in dance were not just those of a disabled person; but also of a woman, and of a black woman; and she believes all of these intersections of identity impact embodied experiences in real ways. The “expressive capacity of bodies”, Alice writes, is surely enhanced by a variety of embodied forms, and she admits her new approach to the body as a whole gives her hope for a bright career future.

Quotations: 

  1. “My very first problem as a dancer was figuring out my chair. I had to learn how to move in it, of course, but I also had to understand what it meant as a black woman to use a chair onstage, in the studio, and in the world”. (page 183)
  1. “When I discovered the concept of embodiment—a word I use to describe the way in which my body takes shape and form—I made another breakthrough: My chair is my body.” (page 183)
  1. “My crutches and chair are not tools that compensate for my impairment. Nor are they simply devices that I use for traveling across the studio. I understand these starting points as embodiments, each of which has different movement possibilities.” (pages 183-184)

Takeaways and Reflection:

Clearly, Alice is speaking as someone with lived experience in multiple marginalized identities, and she centralizes the way those intersect in her life through her dance and stage performance career. The narrative does meander a little to fill in the details of her personal life, but one main claim she makes is that although brokenness and disability are affiliated through the medicalization of the American bodymind, this is both a harmful and inaccurate connotation which should be abandoned. It’s evident through Alice’s experience as a choreographer that mobility assistance devices are also a part of embodied selves, and can absolutely participate in the dance. In fact, she proposes that these devices can even expand the creative experience of dancers once integrated into routines. Alice’s narrative of her journey towards a greater self-understanding could be useful to many disabled and nondisabled in her audience, especially to those that might feel drawn towards athletic pursuits. At the end of the day, everyone must accept their body as it comes, because looking at the self as a lesser version of another person just seeds feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.

“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.

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.