Where Do We Go From Here?
When COVID-19 sent dancers home, communities quickly adapted. Can that flexibility be applied to disability arts post-pandemic?
When COVID-19 sent dancers home, communities quickly adapted. Can that flexibility be applied to disability arts postpandemic? Patricia Allison speaks with Justin Mii-Sum-In-Iskum Many Fingers, Jordan Sangalang and Kelsie Acton.
Author’s Note: This was written at the end of June 2020. I acknowledge that by the time you are reading this piece, the world may look starkly different from when this conversation took place. Within this piece, we spoke to our personal experiences as artists with disabilities navigating this pandemic. I would like to acknowledge those who have been gravely affected by COVID-19. I want to acknowledge my support of anti-racism and the Black Lives Matter protests as we did not speak of them within this piece, but they are a large part of the moment that we are living in and navigating.
Back in April when the realities of this pandemic were setting in, I sat down to write an article called “Welcome to Our World” for The Dance Current’s website. It was a reflection piece on my own work and its intersection within the pandemic. At the time, I was supposed to participate in an artistic residency and create a new piece that would act as my return to performing after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, three years prior. I was going to tackle the question “How do I create a performance that is as variable as my disease?” or “How do I create a piece that I don’t have to show up for?” But that residency got cancelled.
I find it serendipitous that when the pandemic hit, it catapulted a macro version of these questions onto the entire live art community. Theatres were closing their physical doors, and the entire industry had to reinvent itself. I found myself reflecting on the positionality of disability arts and wondered if there was anything that the larger arts community could learn from disabled artists. We quickly saw national opportunities for funding from institutions like the National Arts Centre and the CBC for creation at home. While this was wonderful and well needed, I found myself wondering why these initiatives weren’t offered before or how slow change would have been if it had been made at the advocacy of the disability community before the pandemic. I was impressed with how able and willing the community was to adjust to a new way of working, but I was worried about who would be left behind.
While that original article generated fruitful discussions within dance communities, it also highlighted the desire for a more in-depth look at disability arts during the pandemic. The time that has elapsed between writing that original piece and writing this one has clarified things about disability arts in a lot of ways while leaving many more questions in its wake.
This conversation is here to expand on the ideas from my original piece by including voices and perspectives that are outside of my own. Disability arts is not a homogenous group of artists but a vibrant and nuanced ecology within the culture of art in Canada. I hoped to crack open this conversation just a little bit to explore these carefully curated voices.
I spoke with Alberta-based Justin Mii-Sum-In-Iskum Many Fingers, an Indigenous, Queer, multidisciplinary artist who identifies as disabled; Jordan Sangalang, a mime, theatre and dance artist who is Deaf, based in Manitoba; and Kelsie Acton, a choreographer and access consultant who is neurodivergent, originally from Edmonton and currently living in London, England.
Unable to physically congregate for this conversation, I spoke with these artists remotely: Many Fingers on the phone and then in a group video call with Sangalang and Acton, with ASL interpretation by Rosalie Vissers.
I acknowledge that I didn’t even come close to including every type of disability that exists within dance in Canada, but I hope that this brief conversation can act as a catalyst to further the conversation of disability arts within this pandemic and we can continue investigating where we go from here.
Patricia Allison Have you found yourself creating or publicly performing art through this time? I, personally, really haven’t.
Justin Many Fingers No. Absolutely not, and then I have been trying to stop myself from feeling bad that I’m not. There’s a reason behind it, but I didn’t know what it was. You know I’m physically disabled, but I also live with bipolar and ADHD, so through this whole COVID my mental health has been, like, the most struggle just trying to even wrap my head around it. Also, I’ve studied almost thirteen years now in the field of creative performance art and I have not created my art to be filmed or to be virtually looked at.
PA Yeah! That’s huge, actually.
JMF How am I supposed to adapt, given all these other circumstances? So, I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to have to wait it out.
PA Before the pandemic, were there any accommodations that you required that were digital?
JMF When I was first exploring my disability within the arts, digital was like my go-to. But once I started getting experience being hosted by festivals and other things, for me, [working digitally] started to feel like a bit of a brush-off. … You didn’t actually get to see the struggle of what it took to actually do that performance. I find more abled bodies have a lot of discomfort in disabilities.
PA Can a show ever be truly accessible for everyone? I feel like the answer has to be no because the umbrella of disability is so broad.
JMF The answer to that is no, but I’m trying. For example, when I have a performance, we never have house lights out to black. There is always a little bit of light. People are always welcome to come and go if they need to, having designed areas. For example, if someone has Tourette’s, they can make noise, or they can leave if they need to. Having alternative seating like mats or beanbag chairs where you can lay and chill out. Those are kind of some of the steps that I do. Trying to implement [these accommodations] into the work structure before the art so that people can actually enjoy the art.
PA That’s a beautiful way of saying it: ‘Before the art so that people can enjoy the art.’ Do you find that artists that are disabled are underpaid, or do you find that this is especially so in this pandemic?
JMF Speaking from an Indigenous perspective, this is not new. From a Queer perspective, this is not new. From a disabled perspective, this is not new. But in all three of those categories, for me, this is an extreme low. But there’s another thing, you know, the abled white dance community is always asking, ‘Well, where is the disabled dance artist?’ or ‘Where’s the Queer dance artist or the Indigenous dance artist?’ I’m just tired of people asking when the abled white community alienates and doesn’t even give us the opportunity to identify as dance artists.
PA Yes, actually.
JMF That’s why you can’t find them. You don’t include them in the first place. And we’ve had to accommodate our entire lives, or in some cases, recent years for some. We’re right here.
PA Do you think you’re waiting for physical space to open again before you continue creating?
JMF Yeah. My work is not designed to be virtual, and I don’t want to do it because I have to. If that means I have to wait, well, then I guess I have to wait.
PA Is there anything you feel like we haven’t touched upon?
JMF I think I would say that as much as this is an isolation, we’re all in this together. We’re trying to figure it out, and what’s helped me the most is forcing myself to reach out to others. And when those connections happen, it relieves a lot of that stress. Don’t worry about what you need to do. If you can or cannot do it, just keep going.
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There were two points that really stood out to me in my conversation with Many Fingers. First, even though I have worked on a few disability arts projects over the past decade, I am somewhat newly diagnosed with MS and still exploring disability in the arts through my own lens. I also work in screendance and often use projections in live performances. A nuanced distinction that I hadn’t quite picked up on yet was not using the digital devices to hide the disability, or at least not to do it for the comfort of the audience. I will carry this with me into my future phases of creation.
The next point that I appreciated Many Fingers articulating was “Before the art so that people can enjoy the art.” I think so much of accessibility and accommodation in mainstream theatre is an afterthought, but we need to popularize making accommodations and accessibility the basis for the space and the art that we’re creating. I carried this point in particular into my next conversation with Acton and Sangalang.
Patricia Allison Do you think there is anything positive or negative that this pandemic has taught you about your specific accessibility needs in creation?
Kelsie Acton Less so in creation, but I think this has been a huge wake-up call for me about how hard I work to be out in the world. Since the expanse of my world has shrunk, I’m in dramatically less pain. I’m less exhausted. … I think when I’m out in the world, I’m physically bracing myself against sound and the sort of overwhelmingness of sound in the world.
Jordan Sangalang I think I would say it’s almost made it easier in some ways. Not easier, that’s not the word, but accessible.
More accessible. For Deaf theatre online, it has forced us to look at things a different way. So, that’s one of the good things I’ve taken away. Everyone is a lot more flexible than they used to be.
I’M WORRIED ABOUT THE EMOTIONAL DEMANDS ON DISABLED ARTISTS RIGHT NOW ~Kelsie Acton
PA What’s funny for me is that I’ve been teaching online. So, I don’t have to physically travel to a dance studio anymore and that’s great. But what I’ve actually found is that because I’m not wasting the energy to travel, I’ve been gradually making my dance classes harder. … I was saving energy, so I was getting excited about it, and then I was pushing too hard, adding little jumps in, and then I’ve had to pull back again. And I had to go back to teaching while sitting down. So, for me it was a learning [experience]. I’m trying to find the medium place now.
Have you found yourself creating or publicly performing art through this time? I, personally, really haven’t.
KA I have really good friends who are based in Chicago and one who’s in Pennsylvania. We met at the UCLA Dancing Disability Lab, and we spent the year calling each other and saying ‘We should collaborate’ and then thinking about grants that could get us to Chicago or get us all in the same place. … When the pandemic hit, we started thinking more creatively about it. Could we choreograph together over Zoom? I’ve also written a grant with a friend in Vancouver to try to learn how to do some dance on film together and see if we can learn together how to choreograph on the Internet. So, it was this beautiful reframing at the same time the world was falling apart.
PA I think that idea of reframing is really important. We’re all being asked to reframe right now.
JS To be honest, I haven’t been creating that much since COVID. If I get creative, I feel like it’s more beneficial to be in physical space. For me, it’s important to be in space with people and feel the vibe when we work together to co-create. So, I haven’t been creating very much. … I am feeling a little disconnected from that space lately.
PA Before the pandemic, were there any accommodations that you required that were digital?
JS It’s often required for me to bring an interpreter with me in person. Now, yes, I’ve started using video conferencing like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet but not for performing
or online theatre. Mostly for meetings. When an interpreter is not present, I rely on captions that are offered by Google Meet or Skype, but they’re not very reliable and they’re not at the right synchronized time.
KA Moving across the world [from Canada to England], I used technology a lot socially but didn’t use it at all art-wise. I was really focused on, like pre-pandemic, getting out, taking class, starting to meet other disabled dance artists.
PA Do you think it’s even harder for a disabled artist to create art in this time?
JS I can’t speak for all Deaf or disabled dancers, but for myself, I think that it depends on so many things; so many factors can affect that. The barriers that exist but then also the opportunities that exist are not natural, or not as organic, as I would see it, as an in-person connection. Movement with another person, communicating with another person in physical space, touching each other, being able to touch each other to show movement and how you want to see movement, as opposed to online where I feel like there’s a lot of unnatural feel to it. So, yes, in that way it’s somewhat challenging. Technology does work for some people, but I don’t feel like it inspires me as much.
KA So, I guess there’s my own lived experience where I feel like the barriers are that I don’t know what I’m doing; we’re starting from scratch. I think, more broadly, I’m worried about the emotional demands on disabled artists right now. I’m less in touch with what’s going on in Canada, but here in the UK there’s really scary stuff happening, like doctors sending Do Not Resuscitate orders to autistic and intellectually disabled people. The idea being that they’re not deserving of care. Or I think of the artists I know that are having to make really hard decisions about how many support workers and who they welcome into their home. So, I worry about how the work of surviving is creating barriers to people’s art. And I mean, that’s pretty small because I’d much rather have all these people I’m thinking of survive then have their art. But I would also like for them to have opportunities and make art as well.
PA What I feel like I’m seeing [in this time of pandemic] is a redefining of what is ‘professional,’ and I think that that is something that disability arts has suffered from in the past. Now because of the pandemic, people are making videos at home and working remotely, and they’re finding alternative ways in a way that I look at disability arts and the way it has been, and I’m hoping we can move forward and redefine ‘professional’ from here.
I SEE IT’S TOUGH FOR MOST PEOPLE TO FIND THE POSITIVE IN COVID. WE CAN EDUCATE AND LET PEOPLE KNOW WE’RE HERE AND WE ARE COEXISTING WITH YOU. AND WE’RE HERE GIVING YOU A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ~Sangalang
KA That’s brilliant. I had not thought of that.
JS I think the same, Patricia. I see it’s tough for most people to find the positive in COVID. We can educate and let people know we’re here and we are coexisting with you. And we’re here giving you a different perspective.
PA Yeah! And I just hope that it doesn’t stop when the world opens up again. Imagine a world where we can start to build a room with all of the accommodations that it needs so that ‘accommodations’ don’t become an exception, but they become the standard even before hiring happens. I think everyone could benefit from a gentler creation process. I think that’s one of the things this pandemic might be showing us. Is there anything you feel like we haven’t touched upon?
JS I think it’s really important that we have this type of dialogue, and we continue to dialogue. It’s not like we just checked this off our list and now we’re done with each other. I think we continue to move forward. With COVID, this is our new normal. … It’s about being collaborative in a creative approach. It’s not just about accessibility or accommodating people’s needs; it’s about ‘How do we do this in the creative process?’ ‘How do we collaborate together?’ ‘How do we look at our dance and look at our energy and invest that in one another?’
KA I want to ask us how does this change all of our practices, yes. But I want to demand of the rest of the dance world, ‘How does this change everyone’s practices?’ How do we learn from people like Patricia who are going to be experiencing post-viral symptoms like fatigue and lung scarring, which also makes you really tired. How is the rest of the dance world going to learn from all the brilliance of disabled artists and all of the new knowledge that we create together? And how do we keep it and not just throw it away the instant that we declare everything is open?
PA And I think that speaks to a little bit on what Jordan was speaking to. How do we keep having this conversation? The conversation doesn’t stop here. I think we have to keep talking to each other, but also our able-bodied collaborators.
My hope is that this conversion has given you a little bit of insight into what disabled artists are going through in this time of pandemic and, ultimately, this time of reimagining. I think these artists, as well as myself, speak to the desire for this to be a continued conversation and not the end of a road. In particular, this time of pandemic has forced us to pump the breaks. It has created this void of the unknown in which we can readjust and pivot in a new and beautiful direction.
I’m also hoping this piece has asked you to redefine who is professional. By excluding the disability voice in the conversation, you are ignoring a large and beautiful crosssection of culture in this country. As always, I am left with more questions than when I began, and my hope is that you will engage in the following question with me: Is there an openness to inclusion that this pandemic might have inspired?
Read Allison’s column “Welcome to Our World: Can digital innovation during COVID-19 be leveraged in a post-pandemic world to make dance careers more accessible?” >> thedancecurrent.com/column/welcome-our-world
These conversations have been edited for clarity and concision.
Sommaire
En avril, lorsque les réalités de la pandémie commençaient à s’installer, Patricia Allison devait participer à une résidence d’artiste et créer une nouvelle pièce pour son retour à la scène après son diagnostic de sclérose en plaques en 2017. Parmi ses questions de recherche : « Comment créer un spectacle aussi invariable que ma maladie ? » et « Comment créer une pièce qui n’exige pas ma présence?». La résidence a été annulée. «J’ai trouvé fortuit que quand la pandémie nous a frappés, la communauté artistique ait été confrontée à mes questions à une échelle beaucoup plus grande… On a rapidement vu des occasions nationales de financement du Centre national des arts et de la CBC pour la création à domicile. Pendant que cela était bien et bienvenu, je me suis demandé pourquoi ces occasions n’existaient pas avant la pandémie », écrit Allison. « Si elles avaient été revendiquées par la communauté des artistes handicapé.e.s, ces occasions se seraient fait attendre longtemps. » Elle a parlé avec Justin Mii-Sum-In-Iskum Many Fingers, artiste multidisciplinaire autochtone queer établi en Alberta qui s’identifie comme handicapé; Jordan Sangalang, un artiste de mime, de théâtre et de danse malentendant établi au Manitoba ; et Kelsie Acton, chorégraphe et consultante en accès neurodivergente, originaire d’Edmonton et vivant à Londres, Angleterre.