Keywords for Disability Studies. edited by Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss,& David Serlin. NYU Press, 2015.

Summary:

The section, “Performance”, begins with three scenarios in which people with various disabilities may find themselves. Scenarios where they may be exaggerating or playing up the symptoms of their disability to receive the assistance they need. Kuppers makes the distinction that these are all subconscious performances of disability, they are done out of survival instinct. Then, a second type of performance is introduced. This second type of performance is purposeful with the intent to display disabilities. Purposeful performances of disability bring the focus away from the individual and towards community, whereas subconscious performances are meant to bring focus to the individual. Kuppers turns her attention towards the ethics of disability-centric performances. She asserts that a performer must carefully consider what narrative they are supporting and conveying with every detail of their performance. For example, considering if their role or parts of the script promote the segregation of differences, through excluding performers with disabilities, displaying harmful stereotypes, or the performance is inaccessible. The point of the purposeful depiction of disabilities is to break down existing stereotypes, humanize people with disabilities and include them in the art world. Kuppers ends this section by describing how the lives of disabled people can be highlighted and illustrated through art  performances in a way that positively impacts all, especially others with disabilities.

Quotes:

“How to live artfully; how to move nimbly through discursive fields, tipping past stereotype traps; ducking the diagnostic, medica and charitable gaze: These are the kinds of guerilla skills most disabled people learn in a disabling world.” (pg. 139)

“In different ways, these staged performances in public all subvert some expected scripts (…) and leave others untouched.” (pg. 138)

 “Wider aesthetic issues include how disability performance practice is influenced by the histories of the freak show, by cultural fascination with the grotesque, by eugenic discourse, by the kind of audience engagements characterized by sentimentality, by notions of virtuosity and its space in modernist and post-modernist practice.” (pg.139)

Reflection:

I found the opening section on subconscious performance to be the most interesting thing discussed in this section. I can see how what Kuppers was talking about could be misused to justify the faking-it myth. But the exaggeration discussed, I think can be found everywhere. It is just a part of communication. Most people play up their sexuality to advertise to potential partners; women and men will sometimes over express their gender; Minority culture groups will practically brand themselves with their specific culture. My impression that non-binary people are not trying to fit into overly defined category like the binary genders most of the time, so there is no real way to over perform. We dramatize a simple thing about ourselves when we want others to no beyond a doubt that aspect of our lives is true. Our performances are ingrained into our subconscious from life experiences. This makes the fact that a person with disability may over emphasize their disability to receive assistance accessing basic necessities and rights incredibly sad. This leads into purposeful performance. I got the impression that the types of performances Kuppers was referring to in this part were for the purpose of normalizing disabilities. Making it so that people with disabilities will not be conditioned to put on unintentional performances to receive help, to be seen. This is why scripts surrounding or including disabilities need to be carefully thought out, why more disabled people need to be included in performance art without their disability being made into a spectacle.