State of Emergency
If it wasn’t for the “state of emergency” in Connecticut this weekend, my mind might drift further than the three feet of snow that has igloo me in, waiting for distressed plow workers to come to my rescue. As a poet, I work hard to stay away from clichés; however, stuck inside, I can’t deny I think in clichés sometimes, especially with Valentines Day exploding onto Hallmark shelves everywhere. Where is my lover to snuggle with, the wine to drink until we’re both warm with laughter? Not to mention the chocolate and non-Hershey kisses?
Sins Invalid makes me dote on open highways, wishing I could turn my power chair up to six miles an hour and speed all the way to San Francisco. Instead, I sit at my computer and yearn for a love far more fulfilling than that of any single lover. That love is for the community of Sins Invalid that recognizes, acknowledges and celebrates all of me—the femme disabled lesbian adopted from Calcutta, India.
I was born with Cerebral Palsy and for thirty years I have been living with it and despite it. Realizing I was gay did not happen until I was a sophomore in college. I’ve lived with this and am still struggling to live despite it. While my parents always have been and are still behind me as their daughter—the advocate, the artist and the college professor, they are not totally behind their daughter—the femme lesbian. And, in part, I don’t blame them. No matter my age, they’re still my parents and coming out, for all involved, don’t have a reputation of being easy. And it didn’t help that my first and only relationship, at age twenty-five, had many societal strikes against it. I was head over wheels (cheesiness is an admirable trait) for a woman more than twice my age that already had a solid relationship. She has been arrested many times for civil disobedience, something my mother took very kindly to the first time they were the same room together (note the sarcasm). Although I’m very outgoing I can also be very quiet (which usually means I’m scheming for some good change), but my partner had a generally boisterous personality. Her age, arrests, relationship status and loudness meant there was no convincing my family of the love between us. Even though the end our relationship was inevitable, it raised questions: Was it just my girlfriend my parents hated? Was it her age? Her other relationship? Or just being gay? At the time, my answer was, all of the above, but, almost three years later, I know it’s because I am their disabled daughter. Yes, they know I’m not asexual and capable of accomplishments they would never set for themselves, but they can’t ignore my wheelchair. They have spent their lives tirelessly fighting to make sure I have the best life possible. But my sister was the one who was always warned about boys. Not me. And I never brought it up because I didn’t have a boy crush. Nor do I feel attracted to any girl. So, although my parents have never said don’t be gay they’ve never been outright affirming. Instead, we just don’t talk about it. Even though I “get it,” it amazes me how parents who have adopted three children from India (two of which have always been “different” due to disabilities) and fought so hard to help us thrive, can’t fully accept me.
This is where my yearning to join Sins Invalid kicks into high gear, I have read the stories, watched the stories and, dare I say it, been inspired by the creativity, acceptance and strength that this community continues to share. I can’t wait until the movie comes out! In the meantime, I dream that this type of love can grow if it never succumbs to cliché thinking.
Sarah Rizzuto
How Was Our Year? Let’s Look at Some Highlights from Sins Invalid 2012…
In addition to the work we’ve done to finalize Sins – The Film…
We went on our First International Tour! At the invitation of the University of Toronto, on March 17th Sins Invalid flew to Toronto to offer a full length performance at The Art Gallery of Ontario, involving four live performers (Leroy Moore, Maria Palacios, Alex Cafarelli and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha), the work of three media artists (Aurora Levins Morales, Todd Herman and Patty Berne) and one stage manager (Ralph Dickinson). With widespread publicity throughout Toronto, we attracted 300 attendees; sadly, 100 community members were turned away at the door. In the words of one audience member: “Sins presented a reclaiming, revaluing and liberation of our whole selves that went beyond anything I have seen before. The performance welcomed, loved and complicated that which is considered taboo, monstrous, the unspeakable, part of ourselves that we may have hardly even known about. Thank you for brilliance and thank you for sharing it with us.” Sins also led a disability justice workshop as part of New College Disability Studies Week, sponsored by New College, University of Toronto and Ryerson University’s School of Disability Studies. The workshop engaged over 60 participants with a diverse mix of disability studies students, professors, and community organizers. Co-facilitated by Patty Berne via video and Sins performer Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in person, the workshop linked disability justice, praxis, movement building, race, class, and queerness.
We webstreamed our full 2009 performance on demand for 24 hrs/day from August 5 – 11th, with a live Q&A on August 10th. We offered a viewing packet that included the 2009 show program, access suggestions for group viewing, and provocative discussion questions.
We led two performance based workshops:
- Reaching for Each Other: Movement Offerings across Abilities with Laura Malpass and Patty Berne
- Sex in the Summer – Getting’ Some Mixed Ability F***ing, facilitated by Mkali Hashiki and Patty Berne
We participated in two Artistic Collaborations:
- The film I Cannot Speak Without Shaking by Todd Herman featuring the writing of Patty Berne was shown in The Ugly Spirit, as part of London’s 2012 Festival for the Cultural Olympiad
- The Chili Story (Ellery Russian, Patty Berne and Ralph Dickinson collaborated on that video) was included in CripTease: An Evening of Irreverent Art. At the University of Alberta in Canada, the event peaked attendance at around 120 and featured 16 artists from across North America and Europe.
We hosted two cross community dialogues amongst cultural activists and movement builders from different sectors in a dialogue series entitled MAKING CONNECTIONS: Conversations Within and Between Communities, with a few dozen people participating. Conversation topics included:
- Who is worth paying for, and who ends up paying? The capitalist construction of disability and disability in the market. Conversation questions included: How do we understand our bodies and our work in an economy that by definition asserts that disabled means unable to work? How do we hold our selves, our relationships, and our work to effectively disrupt this oppressive narrative? How do we as community organizers and/or cultural workers understand labor in relation to art and movement building? How can we re-conceptualize means of production and consumption in a disability justice framework? How can we create a practice where the economy exists to serve the people and not just the people serving the economy? How can we expose that the medical industrial complex profits off of its own construction of disability as pathological “net drain”?
- Medicalizing, Fetishizing, & Classifying Crip/Brown/Queer and otherwise “Transgressive” Bodies & Minds, based on the questions: can we identify intersections/ conflicts/ parallels between the medicalized exotification of our crip bodies and of our ethnicities? What are some forms of modern-day eugenics? Where does this move into the grey area of cures? How do we move beyond architectural/attitudinal barriers & access to the “disabling” that is created by white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, patriarchy, hetero-normativity, or medical system? What are some parallels and distinctions between “devotees” fetishizing crip bodies and the hypersexualization of brown/black bodies or gender non-conforming bodies? How do we inhabit our bodies and eroticism while resisting the pigeon-holing of our bodies?
We were covered in numerous places, including:
- Aorta Magazine, Feb 2, 2012
http://www.aortamagazine.com/blog/sins-invalid/
Sins Invalid: The Claims to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility
- National Sexuality Resource Center, February 14, 2012
http://www.nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/sins_invalid_unashamed_claim_beauty_name_invisibility_soon_be_documentary_film
Sins Invalid: An Unashamed Claim to Beauty in the Name of Invisibility Soon to be Documentary Film By Jenese Jackson
- Cultural Organizing, March 8, 2012
http://culturalorganizing.org/?p=586
An Interview with Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility By Paul Kuttner
- Sex with Timaree, March 29, 2012
http://sexwithtimaree.com/2012/03/29/sins-invalid-what-bodies-are-allowed-to-be-sexual/
Sins Invalid: What Bodies Are Allowed to be Sexual? By Dr. Timaree Schmit
- YES! Magazine, Aug 01, 2012
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/its-your-body/sins-of-the-flesh
Speaking For All Bodies (Not Just the “Perfect” Ones): In “Sins Invalid,” performance artists shatter stereotypes around sex and disabilities to reclaim the body’s redemptive power By Sven Eberlein
We maintained our strong online presence, with 12,180 total visits to our website in 2012 with 8,429 distinct visitors!
We maintained our channel – Crip Justice – on YouTube, with a total of 54 public videos, 122 subscribers, with total upload views of 88,861 (17,907 views in 2012 alone)!
We diversified our earned income to include:
- touring performances
- presentations
- webstreaming
- partnering with Ships In the Night
- Kickstarter campaign
We had ROCKSTAR Interns:
- Lateef McLeod
- Brooke Willock
- Sandie Yee
- Nina Maghazei
- Beast Von Fancy
- Eni Pela
We further understood the meaning and practice of Mixed Ability Organizing.
We loved. Our selves. Our bodies. Each other. Our community. You.
Sins – The Film
Thank you for your support, your inquiries, and your excitement over the film! We want to share some important updates for you about the film and the premiere:
Thank you for your support, your inquiries, and your excitement over the film! We want to share some important updates for you about the film and the premiere:
In late August of last year, Sins Invalid’s Advisory Board met – and in acknowledging that we only “launch” a film once, and that a premiere event is a key feature of a launch but not an entire “launchpad”, we decided that it made the best sense for Sins Invalid to fully capitalize on the launch and have every element of the film launch in place when we premiere the film — including a website, a companion DVD, agreements with film festivals and universities in place, etc. So, the Advisory Board recommended that the premiere happen in Spring 2013, in the context of an already engaged distribution plan, and not as a stand-alone event.
We were checking in with the performers scheduled for the October premiere, updating our foundation partners as to the change in timeline, in dialogue with the venue, and drafting an update to send y’all in the newsletter…and then, as you likely read in Leroy’s Welcome Back note, Patty was hit by a car. It was a serious accident, and she sustained a broken femur, tibia and fibula in her right leg. It took a long 17 weeks of healing for her to get back to being in her chair daily. We are so so grateful it was not worse.
The accident forced a hold on the film work for the Fall. We are grateful that the first week of Jan saw Patty back at Sins Invalid!
We know that you are excited by the film and we are hopeful that this change in timeline hasn’t alarmed anyone too much. In the past few weeks we’ve worked to create a final cut with our editor and the film looks AWESOME!
As always, please feel free to share your thoughts – and we offer you many thanks for your patience, support and encouragement.
In unity,
Leroy Moore and Patty Berne
No Comments » | Leave a comment »