My Body Politic: An Illustrated History

“My Body Politic: An Illustrated History” is a theatrical adaptation of my memoir, My Body Politic, published in 2006.  I am both the narrator and a participant in the work, which includes multi media materials (text, sound, images and video), as well as live performance and audience participation.  The work embeds a personal narrative of the lived experience of disability within its social and political context (Act 1), and its cultural and artistic context (Act 2).

The narrative arc of the work begins in 1971, when I was injured while hitchhiking to Washington, DC to protest the war in Vietnam, and concludes with a meditation on the war in Iraq and its manufacture of disability. In the thirty-five years between these wars, the disability rights movement grew into a political force and a vibrant disability culture emerged, reshaping what it means to be disabled in America.

Act One explores my early years with disability and growing awareness of the disability rights movement.  Using my own story, and incorporating the testimony of members of the disability community, Act One focuses on the political climate that shapes disabled people’s lives.

Act Two reflects more recent experience, and my entry into the disability arts world - the emerging cadre of dancers, writers, performers and painters who actively demonstrate what disability provides the artist rather than what feats someone can perform despite disability. Archival materials, music and video are woven through my narrative of the discovery of this genre, to illustrate how disabled artists exploit their unique configuration of body and voice in the service of art.

My vision of a successful performance rests on two equally important measures: first, the artistic merits of the work; second, the degree to which the work emulates the ethos of inclusion and integration found in disability culture. When disabled people gather, a range of techniques is used to assure democratic participation in the event: ASL interpretation, captioning, audio description etc. A high level of accommodation is essential to the success of these performances. Decisions about staging, and about the lighting and acoustic environment of the theatre are made to maximize the participation of the disabled people in the audience and those involved in the production.