art & disability: new geographies of the body

http://realtimearts.net/feature/Archive_Highlights/10302

Sonia Teuben, Simon Laherty, Small Metal Objects photo Jeff Busby

Since 1997, RealTime has displayed a strong commitment to the work of artists with disabilities, providing perspectives on disability offered by art. This archive highlight offers a snapshot of the landscape of disability arts in Australia from the RealTime archive, drawing attention to two central issues that become apparent when canvassing the body of work the magazine has produced about disability and art. First, disability arts practices consistently redefine and expand sensory catalogues of what it is to be human—offering new ways in which the experience of humanity can be felt. Second, writers face unique challenges when articulating these new geographies of humanity produced by artists working in the field.

the disability arts landscape

If we were to read disability arts in Australia as a body, the backbone would clearly be the work of Back to Back Theatre and Restless Dance Theatre, companies whose work demonstrates enduring excellence and global impact. Formed in 1987, Geelong-based Back to Back is Australia’s first professional performing arts company for people with disabilities. Their acclaimed work has toured nationally and internationally making the most significant global impact of the disability arts companies in Australia. Experiments with staging (Food Court), sound (Small Metal Objects), explorations of the audience-performer relationship (Small Metal Objects again) and a remarkable intellectual curiosity (Soft) are some of the hallmarks of Back to Back productions. Thematically, their catalogue features explorations of the body, love, sex, self-perception and space.

Next of Kin, Restless Dance Theatre photo Chris Herzfeld

Adelaide-based Restless Dance Theatre is a slightly younger company with a central performance ensemble of young disabled and non-disabled dancers aged 15 to 26. Restless also has a touring company, with dancers and collaborators engaged on a professional basis to make works for touring nationally and internationally. Since 1991 Restless has explored issues of independence (Safe From Harm, Rebel Rebel), and intimacy (Bedroom Dancing, The Heart of Another Is a Dark Forest) while consistently expanding dance theatre (Unspoken Outloud) as a form.

Other notable contributions to disability arts in Australia include the work of Melbourne's Rawcus and Adelaide-based No Strings Attached, along with the significant presentation of works by other artists and companies at festivals such as Wataboshi, High Beam and Art of Difference, which bring disabled artists together as a community.

finding the words

Disability arts practices often act as a compass that maps radical articulations of humanity. These mappings offer ways of rethinking and feeling cultural spaces of culture typically outside of the mainstream. While these sensory explorations are the work of the largely very accomplished artists, their practices demand other kinds of work for writers and audiences. This is the labour of adequately expressing new sensations in relation to cultural forms and professional practices. Reading the back catalogue of writing about disability and art in RealTime, there are moments where new philosophies of arts practice are articulated in synergistic journalism (RT22; RT53) and inspired intellectual offerings are made in response to live art (RT82). At other points, disability acts as a fault line on which writers stumble and which they conceptually struggle to cross.

In this way, disability and art come together to pose two challenges. The first of these is the call for audiences to feel anew and, in so doing, to brave unique sensations. Dominant tropes of disability representation continue to haunt the work of artists with disabilities, writers and the experiences of disabled people—namely, the freak show (RT62) and disability as other. But these well-worn notions are challenged by the work of many artists (RT22) and writers (RT69) who are able to offer new ways of putting disability politics into print.

The second challenge posed by the union of disability and art is exactly this call for journalists and industry professionals to journey into thought in order to offer words that do some kind of justice to the material cartographies created through enmeshments of disability and art. In his book S/Z, French semiologist and cultural theorist Roland Barthes famously characterised a “writerly text” as one which “is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages” (Paris: Seuil, 1970). For Barthes, reading such work should not be “a parasitical act, the reactive complement of a writing," but rather a “form of work.” In rising to understand the moments in which writers adequately express sensations of disability art in words, it is exactly this form of work in which we, as readers, must learn to engage.
Anna Hickey-Moody

Disability and sex; the last taboo?

http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2011/05/11/3213467.htm

The Angry Cripple Column ABC Disability 11 May 2011

WARNING: This article contains sexual references and is recommended for mature audiences.

Today's Angry Cripple column is brought to you by Simon J. Green.

Cripples have sex.

That's what I discovered the other week when I published an article for US-based online lit journal The Nervous Breakdown. In the article, I explained that I'm technically a cripple, and that I've also had sex. I wrote:

"I have cystic fibrosis, a chronic genetic disease. We who are disabled strive for a life as close to normal as our respective maladies allow. A normal part of life is sex. The beast with two backs, or rather, the beast with two backs but one of them suffered a severed nerve, became paraplegic and is now dragged along by the more able back. The horizontal rumba, or maybe more of a hokey pokey that requires a little sit down to catch breath between shaking it all about."

I asked readers if they'd be interested in hearing the war stories of people with disabilities, diseases and acquired injuries, who might talk frankly about their sex lives. Ideally they'd represent a mix of perspectives: gay, straight, legless, half-brained, chromosomally challenged, right down to mutants like me. We'd talk about the unique obstacles blocking our way to the squishy palace:

* What part does a stump play in lovemaking?

* If you can only feel one half of your body, can you only feel one half of your peen? Only feel one plip*?

* Does the location and size of the tumour dictate the sexual position?

To get the ballsack rolling, I even shared a bit of my own tragic sexual history:

"For instance, there's no greater turn on than when you're really gliding that schooner home to port, and suddenly a great, panic-inducing thoracic shut down has me going immediately soft and reduced to a clump of coughing, gagging, gasping purple. When I tell a girl what I like in bed, I make sure to include, 'Being able to rub my back and run to get a glass of water while I fail to breathe, tears streaming down my face from the sheer shock of it all.

"Sexual congress doesn't matter much anyway, because one of the delightful side effects of cystic fibrosis is infertility. Even if I were to ride an oxygen bottle all the way to ejaculation, my payload would be a dud. On the up-side, in a stable long-term relationship I don't need to worry about a condom to avoid accidents.

"On the down-side, it was my nana who took me to the fertility clinic to confirm I shoot blanks. It was really quite sweet. We both knew what was going on. At the desk, Nana helped me fill in the obvious bits of the form, then suddenly found an interesting magazine when I had to describe my sex life. Once I was ready, she checked to see if I was OK, then said she'd be just outside if I needed anything. I really, really doubted I would."

What followed in the comments section was a delightfully encouraging response. People were fascinated by this world that's always been here, but under the pressing weight of awareness, treatment and cures, is smothered out of disability discussions.

Together, we envisioned an honest conversation, full of laughter due to the always hilarious nature of sex enhanced by leg braces, missing limbs, deflated organs and panic. Normals ('normies' or 'reggos'), were both supportive and curious. One sensible commenter cautioned that we don't veer off into blatant titillation, fetishism and voyeurism.

We respectfully discussed the caution, admitting that in these sorts of chats, inevitably we're filling up spank banks, but that that needn't reduce the serious side of understanding and releasing.

People also shared links. There was one about sexual surrogacy in which a polio-twisted chap worked with a shrink-who-sexes in order to overcome crippling self-esteem issues.

Another had Christopher Reeve giving sex tips for the wheelchair bound from beyond the grave. I was made aware of two organisations set up to work with these sorts of issues: Touching Base, an advocacy group for sex workers and disability-accessible sex; and the spoon theory, the best way to describe less visually obvious diseases.

Bringing this subject into the light is one of the nicest things I've been a part of. I'll wrap up with my final words from the article:

"Why, like my sputum, aren't these stories brought up more? Disease, death and decay are awkward subjects and though charities and not-for-profits try to raise awareness about the maladies themselves, they often struggle to fully humanise their clients.

"I think audiences love to hear about the disgusting, stupid, silly parts of sex. It's funny and interesting and we feel that brief catharsis that comes from talking about something we all experience, but keep quiet. Add the extra dimension of cripples and the handicapped and you've got a warm, sad, but mostly funny perspective on a shared experience."

Let's discuss sex with our disabled friends and family more. Odds are you'll either suffer a malady or be a carer for one at some point in your life. Wouldn't you like to know what to look forward to?

Simon J. Green is a Melbourne producer and writer. He has cystic fibrosis and all his limbs. Reach out to him at simonjgreen.com.

The original article and its comments can be found at The Nervous Breakdown, www.thenervousbreakdown.com.

The Angry Cripple column is published by The Punch. We republish it here because we think you might be interested. They're super nice for letting us do so.