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[brainwavefusion]

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[the-wheelchair-critic]

Swan Lake

Written in the style of The Dance Current:

June 6-10 2018, Bluma Appel Theatre, Luminato Festival Toronto

Entering the theatre my eyes land on the woman on stage almost immediately. Looking past the near naked man squawking and chained to a cinder block, I am drawn instead to her, excitement coursing through me. It is rare to see wheelchair users on stage. Rarer still to see wheelchair users as part of a mainstream dance piece. I am momentarily thrilled that tonight I will be treated to seeing a fellow wheelchair dancer exhibit their craft.

Quickly, my excitement turns to dread. The woman sits in a hospital-type wheelchair, heavy and difficult to maneuver. There are no footrests, her legs hover awkwardly above the floor. The woman forgets and reminds herself of how her disabilities impact her perch in the chair, curling and uncurling her feet and hands in an unnatural way. Signs that using a chair is unnatural to her. Before the lights have even dimmed the performance has been tainted. My identity is not something that can be reduced to a prop. It is unacceptable that someone without a disability has been given permission to portray my experience on stage. I know in this moment, that before the end of the show the woman will stand from her chair and dance, seemingly justifying the use of an able-bodied woman cast in a disabled role once again.

Swan Lake/Loch na hEalais an Irish retelling of the story of Swan Lake. Placed into a contemporary Irish context, Jimmy O’Reilly (Alex Leonhartsberger) is reeling from his father’s death, and his mother Nancy’s (Elizabeth Cameron Dalman) need to move into accessible housing which will take away the only home he has ever known. His story is interconnected with the terror and tyranny of The Holy Man (Mikel Murfi) who in his role as priest commits sexual atrocities and banishes young women into life as speechless swans to avoid their ability to tell his secrets. Jimmy falls in love with The Holy Man’s victim Finola, and their irreversible march towards tragedy is cast.  

Within the arts world, the practice of hiring non-disabled actors, dancers, and performers to play a disabled role is known as cripping up. It is a practice that is as problematic as it is insidious. The writer and director create a character who is disabled, from their limited understanding of disability. Then, when time comes to cast this character, disability is recognized as an inconvenience to the story they want to tell, or to their production process. Several of the ideas that influence their understanding of a disabled character permeate their ideas of the disabled actors who might portray those roles on stage. There is no space to imagine a wheelchair user who might be able to stand for short periods of time, or dance independently of their chair.

Cripping up is particularly problematic as non-disabled people have been socialized to understand disability as tragedy, and something that is to be pitied. This is evident in the role of Nancy. She is a pitiable character. Gnarled and twisted. Moved about the stage by either her own inefficient and awkward push, or by attendants who magically appear and move her around the set like an object. She is cast as helpless against her own growing medical needs, and her inability to provide for her adult son. She is further cast as victim of the Holy Man, who sexually assaults her during a party.

I hold this perception and conceptualization of Nancy against my own understanding of my wheelchair using disabled body. Rather than feeling disempowered by my disabilities, I find using my wheelchair thrilling and empowering. I do not spend my days mourning when I was able to traverse the world on two legs, but rather rejoice in how much more reliable and active in my world I can be. The only regret I feel is that I was not empowered to use my wheelchair years ago. Seeing characters like Nancy whose disability exists to provoke pity provides no service or justice to disabled people, and creates further distance between public perception of disability and our realities. It is clear we have more work to do to ensure that disabled characters of the future are better written.

The disconnect from reality is emphasized in Nancy’s repeated movement from her wheelchair on stage. In a 75-minute production, a severely disabled woman gets out of her wheelchair no less than four times. While the most vulgar of these instances is the finale dance scene, the one that strikes me the most is the birthday party scene. Nancy leaves her wheelchair, laboring furiously with a cane to carry a birthday cake full of candles to the center stage. This is outright dangerous, and there is no call for it. Disabled people have adopted many strategies to carry objects while in their wheelchairs, however, most occupational therapists agree that carrying objects that are on fire is a poor decision, particularly when you are using your least supportive mobility aid and have a substantial fall risk. Given the attendants who constantly surround her, there is no reason why they could not, under her direction, carry the cake for her.

Finally, the finale adds insult to what has been a trying disability story: The wheelchair user dances joyfully on stage, underneath a cascade of goose down, free of the bonds of her wheelchair. Once again, the only acceptable plot line for a disabled dancer is that our only dream is to be free from mobility devices, the only way in which we can have value is to shed them. I wonder for the umpteenth time why a wheelchair dancer was not hired to play the role, and recall the many dancers who would have been exceptional casting choices. This is the final blow to what has been a horrific exploration of a disability story. The disabled community deserves stories that represent our realities and our experiences, where we are whole characters, told from our perspectives, and portrayed by us. Anything else is insulting.

[the-wheelchair-critic]

Sutra - Video Version

This review was written as a blog style post. Enjoy!

It’s a classic chronic illness story. Person recovers from a chronic illness flare, and applies for an exciting new opportunity, hoping that this will be the time their body will actually cooperate with them. Person gets accepted into a highly competitive performance criticism training program, which demands a significant portion of their usable time and energy, even during a time of good health. Person’s chronic illness, upon hearing that their host is excited and engaged about a new activity, can’t resist the chance to demonstrate who is really in control: knocking the budding performance critic into a state of being bed-bound for days on end.

This is the situation in which our intrepid genderqueer fatale found themself in this week. There is some irony in that the show that we were meant to see this week is Sutra, a dance performance which examines the lives of the Shaolin Temple Monks, choreographed by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Through this show we are led to understand the fulfilment that can come through communal living, prayer and a contemplative practice such as martial arts and mindfulness. This is demonstrated through a child’s eyes predominantly, as the youngest monk and Cherkaoui play games which come to life through the larger set (designed by Antony Gormley). Each wooden box on stage represented through smaller wooden boxes, moved into various shapes and forms, mirroring each other and creating a landscape for the action of each scene. Therefore, watching this array of movement and prayer, while unable to conceptualize movement beyond momentary trips out of bed requires a suspension of disbelief from my current experience of embodiment. While effort is beautifully recognized in this piece, my body currently feels more like the wooden boxes being manipulated and tumbled over, rather than one of a limber and light monk, ready to engage as a warrior at a moment’s notice. To view this piece at this moment in time, forces an almost willful disconnect between the actions watched onstage, and the levels of activity that my body is currently capable of.

Instead of being able to join the cohort to view the live performance of Sutra, I am reviewing a recording of Sutra which was filmed at Sadler’s Wells on May 31st, 2008, which was watched in my pajamas in bed. It feels important to talk about how often there seems to be a divide between the worthiness of Theatre, which is consumed in person in a live state, and forms of theatre which are more accessible to those who might not be able to attend in person. Alongside of class concerns, such as the high price for tickets to attend mainstream live theatre events, there are also many people for whom live theatre may not be a possible outing. In fact, many theatres remain inaccessible to those who use mobility devices, require accommodations for hearing or vision loss, and those with unpredictable health; who have difficulty spending money on tickets when they do not know if they will be well enough to attend the performance. Not to mention that many other barriers can prevent various groups of disabled and non-disabled people from attending. Therefore, far from being a lesser option for performances that should be avoided at all costs, videos of performances can be a powerful tool in increasing the reach that a performance has. They can help us bring the human element of performance art into spaces where there is no other way of having that experience. This is something to value and appreciate, rather than denigrate as being unworthy.

One of the most meaningful moments for me in Sutrawas an invitation into one of the monk’s prayer rituals. Each monk sits on the top of a wooden box standing vertically that plays as much of a role in the show as each individual performer does. Each box acts as an extension of the performer themselves, their body, and their practice. The monks are led through a prayer ritual by Cherkaoui, who sits on the floor facing the group. As someone fluent in American Sign Language, the hand gestures that the monks use as part of their prayer practice read more like prose, and have me as a viewer wondering about the gestures that they are using, wishing I had been sitting in on the rehearsal where they were established. However, in my current state this moment feels like encouragement to engage with the world where I am at in this moment, rather than looking to uncertain futures

As someone who has spent a large portion of their life bed-bound, my computer and the access to the media that it offers have frequently been my lifeline to a world that otherwise feels like it is passing me by. I’ve spent days at a time with my only human contact being through social media and the cast of whatever show I am binge-watching on Netflix at the time. There is power in the media we consume to make us feel as though no matter what we are going through, we are a little less alone.

Overall though, I find Sutra difficult to watch in my bed-bound state. There is something about the juxtaposition between martial arts and bodies that are easily able to flip, bend and bounce, and my own body, with its current resistance to movement that makes it difficult to feel immersed in the moment. In watching, I feel familiar feelings of resentment of bodies that are more capable than mine bubbling up inside of me. The movement of the monks and Cherkaoui has a genuine embodied feel to it. Where one can recognize the strength of a sense of presence in the moment, and an awareness of space that can only happen in performance. It calls to the performer in me as recognizable, and brings with it a sense of longing for a return to a body that can inhabit those moments and resentment for the state that I currently find myself in. While Sutrais an introduction to the ways the Shaolin Temple Monks are orientated to the world, the current limitations of my own body find it difficult to allow myself to be fully drawn into their sense of their own physicality. Perhaps Sutra isspeaking to an experience of the body and embodiment that is slightly less universal than what they are aiming for. One that leaves the realities of my disabled body aside to be contended with another day.  

[sakuramaito]

Performing Sakae (さかえ) at our video shoot at the JCCC in August 2015.

(Photo by Slav Kovalsky)

[stephgoldii]

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#teamgoldii #danceto make you dance #stephgoldiihiphopscinderella #ft @stephgoldii (at Hudson County, New Jersey)

[stephgoldii]

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#teamgoldii #danceto make you dance #stephgoldiihiphopscinderella #ft @stephgoldii (at Hudson County, New Jersey)

[sakuramaito]

Going over our routine for Sakae (さかえ) at our video shoot at the JCCC last August.

[thenickynetwork]

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futuretense.ca Saturday Nov 19th, 8pm Lee's Palace #comedyTO #danceTO #beyography @harbinger_dr_tony_mica (at Elevation Dancentre)