Post #12: Disability Culture in Action 🎨

Reflections on the Five Pillars of Disability Culture, as well as videos from my concert with the Music Inclusion Ensemble!

Hello, Friends!

I hope you are doing well! I can't believe it's magically summer! The lilacs are already on their way out in Duluth (such brief blooms!), so I'm hoping to do a final "lilac walk" this weekend. The methodology is quite simple. 1: Go outside, 2: Look for a lilac bush, 3: Smell said lilac bush, 4: Look around for another lilac bush on that block or the next 5: Approach said lilac bush, smell 6: Traverse the neighborhood, while repeating steps 1-5 along the way. If you've never done a lilac walk before, I highly recommend it!

First off, I have a couple of shows coming up NEXT WEEK!

• Thurs, June 20th @ 6pm in Duluth, MN between Wussow's & Zenith Bookstore for a Summer Solstice Block Party: FREE!

• Sun, June 23rd @ 4pm in Marine on St. Croix at Brookside Bar and Grill with a Full Band & ASL Interpretation: FREE!

Secondly, here are a few videos with the Music Inclusion Ensemble in Boston!

Adrian Anantawan, the group's founder, is absolutely amazing. He not only has extraordinary artistic vision, but he is kind and funny and patient and humble and makes everyone feel valued. I have a ridiculous amount of respect for him and I really hope I get to play with the Music Inclusion Ensemble again someday.

In fact, my experience with the Music Inclusion Ensemble is what inspired this post! Working with an intersectionally diverse group of both disabled and nondisabled musicians brought to life what Disability Culture means to me in a tangible way. It exemplified what I want to see for the future.

To experience the full joy of Disability Culture, build the following five pillars.

1. #AccessIsLove: I didn't invent this hashtag. #AccessIsLove is a powerful reframing of accessibility by three amazing Disability Justice activists -- Alice Wong, Sandy Ho, and Mia Mingus. It means that access isn’t just a legal requirement, it's a way to show Deaf / disabled people that you want them there. That, in essence, you love them, that you plan for their presence and involvement. #AccessIsLove means hosting events at in spaces with accessible bathrooms, #AccessIsLove means providing captions and ASL, #AccessIsLove means having a quiet space at a conference for people who need a break, #AccessIsLove is asking disabled participants what they need to participate fully, and then actually doing it. Following through and honoring access needs means so much, more than you will likely ever know unless you also experience disability.
   

2. #CommunicationIsCare: This is important because we all communicate differently. Of course, #CommunicationIsCare means having ASL and captioning at events. But it's more than that. In the Music Inclusion Ensemble, one member was Autistic and occasionally needed instructions framed differently when there was an understanding gap. No big deal, right? Well it would have been a big deal if Adrian had ignored the issue or gotten frustrated (he did not, of course).

   
   Another member had a disability that caused their speech to be difficult to decipher. But if you took the time to listen closely, to slow down and ask for repeats if necessary, communication was obviously possible. In fact, we had a great conversation backstage about the Bach Cello sonatas! After I got home, they emailed me to say how it always seems to be other disabled people who are willing to make the effort and take the time to meaningfully communicate. While that may be true now, it shouldn't stay that way! We can all learn to take time to slow down and listen, adjust our styles so that everyone gets to be included in group settings and everyone can experience the joy of one-on-one communion.
   

3. #TimeIsRelative: Disabled people have a unique relationship with time. Sometimes daily care or transportation take us a lot longer than the "average" person. Sometimes we aren't as speedy walking or rolling as others. Sometimes we can only work in spurts due to our energy levels or symptoms fluctuating. Sometimes it's just a lot to be living in an inaccessible, ableist world and we burn out for a bit and need to recharge. Being open to discussing time needs (without shame) when it comes to travel plans and rehearsal schedules, or just having the patience to deal with unexpected barriers that disrupt the best-laid plans, or even just being cool slowing the pace all around — all of these are ways to recognize that #TimeIsRelative. Building a truly inclusive world means you can't force everyone to march to the beat of the same drum — adaptability and grace are both key.
   

4. #TechniqueIsAdaptable: This should be obvious, but it's not. I play my violin like a cello. I use only three fingers on my left hand and my bow is half-sized. Yet I can play music that moves people. My teachers were open-minded enough to help me explode the technique textbook and rebuild it in a way that works for my body. Another member in the ensemble is Blind and literally learns everything by ear. What's more, she's working on how to use new tech to read even more information out loud — things like dynamics and bowing marks — that she may miss if she isn't looking at the sheet music herself. But she has not merely adapted her instrument, she has excelled. If teachers and conductors can't think outside the box about traditional music technique.

   
   #TechniqueIsAdaptable can also mean reconsidering which instruments "belong" onstage. In 2018, I was a guest artist for a fully-integrated orchestra called Tabula Musica. Like Adrian, the conductor (Denis Huna) was truly a visionary. Even though most of the instruments would be found in a traditional orchestra, he also incorporated adaptive instruments into the mix—like the Skoog! The Skoog is a squishy cube that has red, green and blue sides and each color corresponds with a different note. When you squeeze the Skoog's sides, it plays that note. He wanted to enable two adults with Down's Syndrome to actively participate in the orchestra, so he wrote parts for them on the Skoog which blended into the parts of the other instruments. Whenever it was time for them to play a note, he would very discreetly hold up a card with the correct color on it for as long as he wanted them to play the note, while conducting with the other hand. It was truly a sight to behold—a really dignified and thoughtful way to include people who otherwise lacked the motor skills to perform on traditional instruments. The sheer joy of seeing truly elegant inclusion demonstrated in classical music made me cry.
   

5. #DiversityIsValuable: A group of people doesn't become closer or more loving despite diversity, but because of it. In the Music Inclusion Ensemble, there were musicians with a wide variety of disabilities, multiple races, and artists that were born in other countries. It was so cool to be in a space where it was just presumed by default that your experience was not the "norm" for the group — we had to deliberately seek to understand each other's experiences because our backgrounds were so different. So with tender hearts, we asked questions of each other and we shared and we learned. And yet, of course, we're all also just human, so we talked and laughed and dreamed and bonded over being musicians in such a wild time in history. It was great and you could just see how much care went into not assuming so much about the people around you… This is a skill that I think would really help anyone on their personal journey.

   
   Another reason #DiversityIsValuable is because our unique views of the world can be applied to solving problems creatively, like how to play a violin like a cello, or how to make sheet music more accessible to a Blind person. Our diverse life experiences also lead us to create music that is fresh, different, or about topics that aren't necessarily covered in the mainstream. Molly Joyce, who was the other guest artist that week at Berklee, is a great example of how your music can be influenced by not just your personal taste, but your experience with disability. Adrian had the great idea to feature each artist in the ensemble with a piece either composed or performed by them, and the sheer diversity in the programming that night made this truth so clear. The concert was more interesting and enriching because of diversity, not "despite" it.

Anyway, I left that mini-residency at Berklee completely fired up about Disability Culture. It is real, and it's awesome! Thank you, Adrian, Molly, and the Music Inclusion Ensemble (as well as schools like Berklee and organizations like RAMPD.org) for confirming the truth of what I have suspected for years. When we give disabled artists the space and the necessary tools to thrive, Disability Culture blossoms into a beautiful arrangement of color, sight, sound, texture, words, music and rich emotion.

That’s it for now… Thank you so much for your support! Take good care this summer, and for all you Minnesota folks, I would love to see you at a show next week!

Truly,

Gaelynn Lea