If the Bodies of Work Festival succeeds in its mission, the arts community in Chicago will start thinking about artists and audiences with disabilities. Not think of them in a whole new way. Just be aware of their existence.
“We want people to think about disability outside the tired cliche of the inspirational, tragic, overcoming narrative,” Sandahl says. “Disability art and culture is identity-based. It’s about different sources of creativity rather than something to overcome. We want people to get the sense that they’re seeing cutting-edge professional work.”
The fact that the artists involved with the festival are disabled doesn’t excuse them from the larger responsibilities of making art—that is, investigating the human condition beyond their own experience. Take Stephen Dwoskin, an experimental filmmaker who died last summer. He used his disability as an entry into a larger conversation about prejudice, race, and class.
A few weeks ago, Sandahl and her Bodies of Work colleagues, along with representatives from the Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities, led two disability awareness training sessions for the managers of the 13 venues hosting the festival. They discussed such issues as what to do if someone in a wheelchair shows up after all the wheelchair seating is filled, or if a guide dog leads a blind person directly to the front of the line, cutting everyone else. And they discussed how to make disabled audience members feel as though they aren’t imposing on the goodwill of the management when they request a sign-language interpreter, or the person sitting behind them when they sit in a motorized chair with a high back.
The younger generation that grew up with the Americans With Disabilities Act (it went into effect in 1992) is more aware of its rights and less afraid to demand them. So, oddly enough, is the baby boom generation, who may have developed some impairments as they’ve grown older but don’t necessarily see themselves as “disabled.”
“The majority of the audiences will be nondisabled,” Sandahl says, “but there will be many more people with disabilities than most people are used to seeing.”
Opening celebration Wed 5/15, 6-8:30 PM Chicago Cultural Center, Preston Bradley Hall 78 E. Washington
free
Through 5/25: various times, venues, and prices, bodiesofworkchicago.org
