Never Walked In High Heels

Last week I completed an intensive movement  theater workshop at Sadler’s Wells Theatre with my company, Aegis Productions Ltd. The technique we studied, Gardzienice, comes from some of the most physical performers available in Eastern Europe.  Our director and her assistant had the ability to suspend the laws of physics. In ten days she did her best to do the same.

If this was a disability themed blog, I would now proceed to write an inspiring entry about how I was able to overcome my physical limitations and have an amazing two weeks. Fortunately, I’m not that kind of writer and my disability isn’t the most interesting thing about me.

In recent months several of my artistic collaborators have brought up the concern of performing with a physical disability. Many artistic institutions continue to use excuses such as “having a limited movement vocabulary” to justify their lack of inclusion, or as I prefer to see it, a lack of imagination.  I believe even more firmly this rationale is not only damaging to the craft but is cowardly as well.

A lack of imagination is a shockingly common trait amongst performance practioners particularly when it comes to disability inclusion. For those of you who doubt me, please see my article referring to Susan Boyle.  There are countless singing teachers who won’t take a student on with vocal nodes. When I was five and wanted to be a ballerina, there wasn’t a single dance school that would let me join their kiddie classes. (one wonders what they were teaching.) The civil rights campaign IAMPWD estimates that while about twenty percent of the America population is disabled, only one-half of one percent of words spoken on television are spoken by a person with a disability. It’s like the artists and producers can’t see past the boundaries of their own imaginations to dwell in possibility.

Of course, this wouldn’t bother me so much if I didn’t know that imagination could be stretched, the craft could be improved, and art does not move forward without individual artists pushing to enhance creativity. Two weeks working with a Gardzienice director who refused to see limits yielded the seedlings of new forms of movement which could someday challenge and inspire endless amounts of performers.

A favorite word bounced around conservatories is that of “truth.” Students at drama schools are repeatedly told that successful performance is “truthful” and therefore transcends various barriers. Taking the institution’s own bromide as fact, do not these barriers also include disability? If acting is truthful and fully in the moment , it doesn’t matter if there are back flips or the tinest movements such as eye blinks featured, it will be effective.

There are millions of terrific ways to play King Lear. Understanding the physicality of an old man is simply one way of entering into the character.  If it was the only way of doing so, then good performance would only take someone who could move like a feeble old man to perfect the role. For that matter, no one over the age of eighteen could ever effectively play thirteen year old Juliet.  But directors say they are looking to see a role played truthfully, NOT accurately. Truth is beyond facts and sciences because even a robot, performing scientifically programmed movements could never be truthful.

It is the task of the artist to stretch their own boundaries of imagination and vision. Because the art of a society reflects the heart of a society, it is vital that we, as artists, find the human truth in our work. This truth transcends physicality, sinew, and mind as all these do deteriorate even while our humanity remains intact.  In short, Lear is not tragic because he is old, he is tragic because he is human. It is that humanity, which can transcend all sorts of ailments and deteriorations, which is at the centre of performing any character.