Invisibility, spinning wheels, mind control over someone else; these are usually the tools of fairy tales. They, and many more, come to life in plain sight in the biennial presentation of ‘The Moving Body with Disabilities’ Film Festival. I was lucky to interview the curator, Gabri Christa– renowned film-maker, choreographer, and teacher about the purpose of the festival, how films are selected, and the necessary people and parts to make a festival about the dancing body with disabilities seen in the right light.
The full interview- plus timestamps- is below
A true story…
When I was a young kid my family and I used to spend weekend in a small a-frame cabin out in the woods of Missouri. We kept a giant hardbound book of beautifully illustrated fairy tales out there and every visit, I would challenge myself to see if I could read the whole book before the trip was over. I never could.
In a cheating attempt, there were a few least favorites I would always skip. One of these was, ‘Wild Swans‘ a Russian fairy tale where 12 princes are turned into swans and their princess sister, still human, has to collect stinging nettle from the woods and weave them into shirts to break the spell and turn them back into princes. There is a deadline, which she misses, not quite finishing a sleeve on the last shirt, leaving one brother forever in-between a swan and a prince. A halfway person.
I think I did not like this story because with my ballet background, swans were female territory. I didn’t like the violence the princess has to suffer sewing the poisonous shirts together. And I really didn’t like that she didn’t quite complete the task. I chalk these preferences up to the naivete and protection of my youth, where work was usually pleasurable rather than tedious or arduous and certainly not painful. And anything requiring that amount of effort was generally accomplished. I wonder if I am alone in not liking the ‘you-can-do-it’ narrative challenged, especially in art, where the outcome is totally up to the author.
I used to see myself as the self-tortured princess in this story and now I see myself as the 12th brother, stuck halfway in an unsatisfactory body. This festival was of particular interest to me, coming to term with my own nerve damage and disability and still wanting to be a dance artist, even though the old tools are no longer possible for me. I wanted to see how other artists are facing the challenge of difference, or limitations, and see their creative strategies to answer the questions Gabri and I discuss in the interview- who makes dance, what makes good dance.
The Festival offers many options, feature and short length films, and a variety of perspectives on inclusions and disability. Some make a beautiful film discussing the process of creating a piece of dance, for others, the film is the end result unto itself.
In, “One and One Make Three“, choreographer Alice Shepphard and her ensemble, Kinetic Light, share their process behind the creation of ‘Wired‘ an aerial piece performed in wheelchairs on the topic of barbed wire. Directed by Katherine Helen Fisher and produced by Shimmy Boyle and Safety Third Productions, the film enhances senses in a way that makes sense for a dance work quite this tactile, dangerous, and juxtaposed with heavy and light, technology and human. It’s a film that touches all of the senses. Light glints off the wheelchairs, as they roll across the floor the sound of rubber and metal becomes part of the music. Sheppard explains, ”in disability, the tool IS the body” as opposed to an extension. We see the focus required of innovation, the dancers concentrated but not uncomfortable, and lighting them in higher contrasted shots that feel more metallic. This is differentiated from colorful outdoor shots where the dancers are in trees or on the beach rather than in the chairs. In all honestly, I’m not sure what to make of that. I don’t know if it’s simply because a wheelchair isn’t found in nature. Because of this inclusion of a tool, she states, “we inherently have something different to say”. It is filmic, but specific in a piece about process. Like the old wisdom that losing sight enhances hearing, this film magnifies the sounds, sensations, and strengths of expanded tools with disability.
“Stop Gap in Stop Motion“, directed by Stephen Featherston and choreographed by Lucy Bennett showcases dance from an entirely different lens. Where “One plus One equals Three‘ shows close-up shots of the barbed wire and the wheels, the viewpoint here has a hand-held feel, shots of a desk with black-and-white photographs of people that come to life and dance out of the frames and with each other. There’s an element of cuteness to it, the playful movement, the colorful sets the dancers move in, the shrinking of the human form to photo-size. There is a sentimental quality inherent in this viewpoint, as the characters are people someone cares enough about to have a framed photo of on their desk. Here, the camera adds more than perspective but relationship with the subject. The dancing wasn’t overly technical, but joyful, musical, and seemed oddly ‘real’ despite being a black and white apparition through a film. ‘Stop Gap in Stop Motion‘ places the viewer in the position of the person who has photos of these dancers as they come alive and perform for us and for each other. Somehow, even through a screen, the love feels reciprocal, charming, and communal.
The film that I found the most mentally challenging was ‘Gimp Gait“, directed and choreographed by Pioneer Winter. This is a solo for two bodies, performed by Winter and Marjorie Burnett. The film takes place inside an environment that looks cold and dark, abandoned, not friendly. This is the overall tone of the film, beginning with the two dancers saying “f*ck you, mind your own business” to no one in particular. They wear dark athletic costumes, they look dirty, ready to survive the apocalypse. The music is atmospheric, not melodic, and interspersed with text as Marjorie gives Pioneer instructions like, ‘grab my hand’. Pioneer’s beautiful muscular body is contrasted by her frail legs, bones sticking out, slumped posture. He carries her through a lot of the film. Described as ‘performing her power’, this did not resonate with me. Although she seemed in control of dictating the movement, it looked like his power. The line that stuck with me the most was her cry, “my leg is stuck”. To me, it was a forced view of helplessness and anger about it. He asks, “does this hurt?”. We don’t get an answer but it looks like everything hurts. It is uncomfortable to watch but I have the sense this is the point, and the aggression in the viewpoint puts the performers, disabled or not, in the place of power. The viewer is the helpless one. As someone dealing with my own discomfort in my body, chronic pain, and anger at disability, this was perhaps the most accurate representation even if no one likes this part of the story, and the tendency is to gloss over it or pretend it isn’t there.
I am embarrassed to admit this, but I kept thinking back to that character in Scary Movie with the deformed hand and how it is used as a joke. Being touched by a misshapen hand, or having a deformed hand serving food, is portrayed as so disgusting that it’s a joke. I appreciate that “Gimp Gait‘ doesn’t paint over the experience of disability with a positive paintbrush, nor does it allow you to laugh at the experience. For me, this film was the most successful in conjuring old reactions to disability and very uncomfortably forcing me to confront them. It made me uncomfortable in my own skin and feel disgusted with myself for past thinking of disability as either a gross joke or cliche about resilience.
A film that was visually stunning was ‘Flutter‘, with beautiful, nuanced choreography by Robin Dekkers. Accompanied by sound from Steve Reich and Clapping Music, three dancers move in tight angled formations on an open roof in bright daylight. The clapping sound gives a sense of wings beating while in flight, the dancers sharply altering their body facing looks like the constant shift of flocking as groups of birds migrate. Performed by a mix of able and wheelchair-bound dancers from Axis Dance Company in black tops and gray pants, the soloist female consistently draws the most attention. This is not only because she is a stunning technician, musical, and often framed in the middle, she- as the only one out of a chair- uses her legs, jumps, performs more steps than the two men. They use the chairs to great effect, the quickness with their turns and ability to move in and out of formations is impressive. However, I noticed a lot of differences in their arm movements, and since it was only their arms executing the choreography, I wished for more togetherness. As a piece of film to look at, everything about this was well-done and beautiful. But as a feature in a piece about disability, I found it the least innovative in addressing a moving disabled body and I did not like that the disabled dancers seemed less-rehearsed than the female who commanded attention. The choreography was musical, athletic and graceful. If there was one part that I could have danced from all of the films I watched, I would have wanted to do that part. Then I remember that I’m disabled, I can’t move like that anymore, and any hopes of flight are entirely shot down. For me, the experience of thinking, ‘Wow this is great” and it being the able bodies dancer in the middle of the disabled seems to go against the point of the festival no matter how beautiful it was overall.
Here’s something you don’t expect someone with a disability to say in dance: “you will not have to alter things for me”. However, this is exactly what dancer Homer Avila says to renowned choreographer Alonzo King while applying for King’s workshop. The prospect of keeping these rigorous dance standards is especially intriguing as Avila has only one leg and hip, having most of his right leg and hip amputated from cancer. Directed by Karina Epperlein, “Phoenix Dance” begins after Avila’s surgery as he reflects on the transformation from a professional dancer, to discovering his cancer diagnosis, and then self-described ‘reshaping’. As he convinces King to let him attend the workshop and then inspires a new work choreographed for him and dancer Andrea Flores, we see how he adapts the demands of balet class with one leg; using a crutch to hold himself up at barre while his leg works steps like tendus, developpes, and en l’air work. The upper body strength to hold himself up like that must be incredible. The film shows the rehearsal process as Kind, Flores, and Avila work together to tell the story of Pas.
I’ve been a fan for a while: Alonzo King Lines Ballet Review 2013
Alonzo King came to Butler University while I was a student there. He was probably my favorite choreographer at the time and I was scared to death of him. The bravery of Avila to advocate for his ability to just take the workshop is impressive to me, let alone the ingenuity and physical capability he maintains despite having only one leg. In one part of the choreography, Flores continuously pushes Avila down and he stand back up, on one leg. The strength and balance required to do this multiple times is unbelievable. At one point King tells Avila to tell him when it’s too much. Avila says, ‘I can do a little more’.
I was watching this at home and at this point I closed my laptop and had a full-on breakdown. I don’t know how the piece nor the film ends. In the description, it says that his cancer returned. I am reminded of the Wild Swans story, when all of the work didn’t complete the task, when one prince was still stuck halfway between bodies. The idea that someone could be a professional dancer, lose a leg to cancer, and still be able to innovate and create with an artist on the level of Alonzo King, and then have cancer return makes me hate the world. What are these evil forces we are working against? I absolutely hate that seeing Avila’s strength in rehearsal made me recognize my own deep-seeded self-pity.
In the beginning of the film, Avila says, “it’s like walking through fire and at the end, the first thing you do is address seeing what of you is left”. It surprises me to think there is life after fire. I haven’t watched the ending yet, but I will.
It’s interesting to me that so many of the films seemed to use bird or flight imagery. We have aerial wheelchairs, a phoenix rising, the dancers of Flutter. What it is about humans that desire this sense of flight? Especially in comparison to the hated fairy tale, of my childhood, where the goal is to shed the avian form. Why would anyone want to give up a superpower like flight?
I think this is perhaps what truly perplexes me about this story, the desire to become more human when the grace and power of a swan is at hand, even if only on one side. Isn’t a little better than none at all? These are questions I still have about accepting my own disability, about being myself halfway between a ballerina and a cripple. Perhaps to live fully as one thing is better.
I think I am starting to accept the ‘halfway’ status as its own deserving category, capable of going either direction. The various presentations of dance and disability at the Moving Body- Moving Image film festival is unified in one aspect of advocacy, movement, and attitude. It is up to us.
