Disability Arts Take Center Stage

Disability as a culture perspective? Disabled people as complex powerful creative? That doesn't exactly fit the "traditional" view of disabled people as isolated victims, but it is the view that a growing number of disabled artists and activists are using as an identity that shaped their work. As performance artist-video producer-disability activist Pamela Walker states: "We have a lot to offer this 'body beautiful-worshipping society.' We are 'difficult images,' and our inclusion can help our society become one that celebrates differences rather than fears them." As with any minority population struggling to establish an identity, it takes a while for the rest of the world to catch on.

If Bay Area disability artists have their way, the work will catch on, and art will be a major factor in forging this new identity. Theatre-goers can get a hearty taste of this exciting approach on October 7 at the New Performance Gallery when San Francisco's Festival 2000's celebration of multi-cultural diversity presents "Moving Over the Edge," a variety performance concert of disability arts. (See Upcoming for details) The concert showcases a diverse group of performers who incorporate disability into the art form or use disability realities as text. By doing so they help define a disability culture that expands our narrow views of human potential. As Walker states: "Art plays an important part in any political movement. Legislation like the "Americans With Disabilities Act" is vitally important, but you can't legislate attitudes. People learn more by example than they do by being told."

Having been denied arts education and training due to discrimination and lack of access to programs and performance venues, many of the "Moving Over the Edge" artists are from the school of "learn by doing." AXIS dancer Judy Smith, who uses a motorized wheelchair, is one example. When nondisabled dance, Thais Mazur, first asked Judy to join AXIS in 1987, her response was, "You've got to be kidding." As Judy explains it: "Why would I think I could dance? What did I see in the world around me that would give me the idea that a disabled person could be a dancer? And yet, AXIS, with their commitment to equality of movement between disable and nondisabled dancers and their innovative choreography, is helping to expand the very definition of dance. In the process, they're receiving raves from dance critics and the disability community for their virtuosity, artistry and professionalism while they provide new images of disability movement as beautiful and artistic.

Because the disability is "an equal opportunity employer," including all ethnicities, classes, ages, genders, sexual orientations, etc. it is often one of several cultural identities that informs an artist's work. Afi-Tiombe Kambon, an oral historian and professional actress, combines disability history and Afro-American history in her work. Through her intimate and stunning monologues, Kambon takes us back in time to reveal hidden parts of our American heritage, creating an honest historical context and adding to our cultural knowledge.

Pandoura, a WRY CRIPS performer and Board member acknowledges a complex intertwinement of identities: "I bring to my arts the benefits, experience, knowledge and sensibilities of African-American, woman-identified and fat people's culture. Being part of a disability acts groups like WRY CRIPS expands both my cultural identity and WRY CRIPS' cultural perspective and expression. The importance of this multicultural work is that it extends personal and political horizons for all of us."

Imagine what it will mean when America is truly a multicultural society: All colors, shapes, sizes, genders, ages, and sexual orientations will be valued. No group of people will have to fight to be included, to have a voice; no group will have to have special legislation protecting their rights, special festivals to showcase their talents. But as Bruce Curtis, quadriplegic movement artist from The Exposed to Gravity Project, reminds us: "We have a lot of work to do. There are still too many people in this county considered 'the other,' too many stuck on the outside looking in."

The "Moving Over the Edge" concert at the New Performance Gallery in San Francisco on October 7, brings a diverse group of disability artists into the spotlight, chipping away at those "otherness barriers" with new dimensions in dance, poetry, music, performance arts, comedy and theater, providing Bay Area theater-goers with a great opportunity to witness a new cultural identity in the making.