19 You Can Dance Too, Disability, Women
Description
This article is from the Essays on the topic of Women and Disability.
19 You Can Dance Too, Disability, Women
You Can Dance Too
by J. Estelle Reddin
Participation in dance enables us to transcend our disabling
conditions. Our purpose is not dance therapy. Our interest is in
how we deal with our lives, rather than how we deal with our
disabilities.
Dance with DAWN and the Prince Edward Island DAWN (DisAbled
Women's Network) group is the result of seizing opportunities and
bringing together various factors at a particular time and place.
The belief that "you can dance, too" became a reality through the
action of Peggy Reddin, a dance instructor in
Charlottetown, P.E.I. Peggy is my daughter.
I have used a wheelchair since 1974 as the result of a car
accident in 1961. The wheelchair made my disability much more
visible but greatly improved my mobility and reduced arthritic
pain and discomfort. Peggy was 12 years old at that time and had
had a few years of ballet training. Intellectually I knew that
exercise was important for my well-being, but it was so boring
and solitary! By the time Peggy went on to the National Ballet
School for their three-year teachers program, we had talked about
the dream we shared of dance for persons with
disabilities.
Eventually she completed her studies and returned home.
Meanwhile several events helped us realize our dream. The
International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) had raised
awareness of the needs of the disabled community and the
obstacles placed in our path by society (Smith). Feminist
writers were calling attention to sexism and various forms of
oppression affecting women's lives. The Secretary of State had
begun to provide funding for projects for women and for the
disabled, Health and Welfare Canada was involved in a survey of
"Adults with an Activity Limitation" (Charette), and DAWN Canada
was founded in 1985 (Meister; Doucette). It all came together.
A few of us took part in the Health and Welfare survey, which
helped us realize the real need for an exercise program for women
with disabilities, something other than competitive
sports--in addition to our desire for some means of artistic
expression. Peggy undertook to invent and set to music dance
movements suitable for women with a variety of disabilities. We
were successful in obtaining funding support from Secretary of
State for a P.E.I. DAWN group with dance as an activity.
A dance program contributes routine and structure to our lives,
and makes a contribution to positive physical and mental health.
Health in its broad sense, including human connection and
feelings of self-worth, is of prime importance to women with
disabilities. But above all, dance provides an opportunity for
artistic expression. At a conference on "The Spirit Soars,"
Michael Seary, the keynote speaker, said:
Artistic expression is central to human experience ... and
needs to be accessible to all. It has to do with image and
awareness; to be aware is to be truly human, fulfilled....
Differences dissolve, we sense our beginning, and we are as one
with the universe.
Participation in dance enables us to transcend our disabling
conditions. Our purpose is not dance therapy; ours is a self-
help, not a medical model. Our interest is in how we deal with
our lives rather than how we deal with our disabilities. The
group functions as "we," not "they." We have performed in public
twice at the annual Women's Festival organize,d by the P.E.I.
Women's Network, and at the 1990 CRIAW/ICREF Conference in
Charlotte town. Specially commissioned music was choreographed by
Peggy for a set of senior ballet students and our dance
group. We look upon ourselves as contributors and sharers
through our dance activity, when we simply dance together or when
we perform for others.
Our group is the only DAWN group in Prince Edward Island. Our
active membership consists of women who live in or within a
radius of 50 kilo metres of Charlotte town. We hope eventually to
spread out to other areas of the province. Transportation is a
major problem for women with disabilities: there is no public
transportation in the province and the special transport for
people with disabilities is expensive. Our present membership
consists of 14 women from 20 to 70 years in age, with a range of
disabilities including impaired sight, hearing, speech,
mobility, and mental ability. Conditions include post-polio, head
injury, epilepsy, MS, arthritis, and disabilities from birth.
We participate in networking meetings and workshops with
representatives of other women's/feminist groups in the province
for information exchange and to become aware of goals and
activities of these groups. We respond to various invitations for
input from a multi-disability women's group. Ours is a
geared down time table. Things come about slowly, yet we have
made progress over our five-year existence. Our time and energy
is of necessity spent on nurturing ourselves, each other, and our
group. Outreach and growth we may dream about, but we have
learned to recognize our limitations.
Each year with the assistance of modest funding, we attempt one
project as an organization. We have built up a small library in
our search for information about other dance groups for persons
with disabilities; we took an active part in the 1990
CRIAW/ICREF Charlottetown Conference; and we have held two
workshops to facilitate access in the arts, including music,
painting, and drama. At present, we are working on a project to
produce a directory of support and services available to women
with disabilities who are particularly vulnerable to abuse. We
plan to assess the usefulness of this assistance, and to present
the information in a form easily accessed by women with various
disabilities. We believe that accessibility to support and
services that are available to non-disabled persons is a human
rights issue. Progress is made slowly. As women who live with
physical disabilities, we represent a group who in our society
are kept invisible, cut off from the mainstream by structural,
systemic, and attitudinal barriers. Such women are often feared
as being so "different" as to be threatening. In reality,
although women with disabilities may have particular concerns,
many of the difficulties we experience, such as discrimination
and lack of access, are common experiences to women as a whole.
We recognize ourselves when others write about women. Feminist
scholarship and writing has given us the confidence to say, "I am
woman breaking the silence with the truth of my life." Where some
of our able-bodied sisters have led, we can follow. It is really
when the authors are themselves persons with disabilities that we
see the truth more clearly. Some recent sources of such writing
include, to name a few, papers in The More We Get
Together from the CRIAW/ICREF Conference, Voices From the
Shadows, Deaf in America, and a series of position papers
prepared by Jill Ridington for DAWN Canada. A special issue of
The New Internationalist contains several articles written by
both men and women with disabilities in several countries around
the world. The keynote article by Vanessa Baird closes with these
words: "And how can able-bodied people become allies of disabled
people rather than oppressors? By listening, for a start." (7).
But we don't see ourselves as followers only. To be successfully
disabled, according to our philosophy, requires a certain
element of rebellion--rebellion against the status quo,
rebellion against the prescriptions and scripts written by
others for our lives. Language is one of our favourite targets
and a good base for hum our. Would you enjoy being "differently
abled"? Isn't this a double put-down that says we must be
different from what we are (who we are) and that "able" is
socially acceptable? "Consumer" also belittles us; many of us
subsist on welfare cheques. The cost of having a disability along
with our low employment rate assures that we are not
enthusiastic members of a consumer society. We don't fit. Leaf
through a few popular magazines and substitute a woman with a
disability for the women actually portrayed. You too will laugh.
"Physically challenged"? Why should we accept a label/tag that
reminds us of the problem of getting out of bed in the morning
and getting into our clothes and Beaning another day? Some
challenge ! I have yet to see any medals awarded . If we must be
labelled we prefer "women with disabilities." This restores some
dignity and acknowledges that we are first of all, women and
persons.
In defiance of all these labels, one of our members came up with
a private in-name for ourselves: "closet crocks." Others have
written about underlying societal values and fears that
necessitate "passing" in order to cover up and hide our
differences and make life endurable (Todoroff and Lewis). Anne
Louise Brookes writes eloquently of victims of abuse who also
learn the skill of "passing." Difficult although it may be, we
need to come out of our closet and face "the slings and arrows of
outrageous circumstance" if we are to reap the joys,
pleasures, and sociability of dancing together.
We are pleased that Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la
femme has chosen to publish this special issue. We hope that
those who read it will find something of interest and be better
able to recognize and dismember attitudes that are obstacles in
our lives; and know that we are women who share common hopes and
needs for love, power, and freedom to create meaning in our
lives.
Estelle Reddin has taught in the Home Economics Department at the
University of Prince Edward Island since 1971, and has been a
member of several Women's Studies committees at the
university. Her research interests include foods and food ways of
Atlantic Canada; and an ongoing study of the everyday life of the
P.E.I. fisherman's wife.
References
Baird, Vanessa. "Difference and Defiance." Disabled Lives.
Special issue of The New Internationalist 233 (July 1992).
Brookes, Anne-Louise. Feminist Pedagogy: An Autobiographical
Approach. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1992.
Charette, Andre. "Special Study on Adults with an Activity
Limitation." Canada's Health Promotion Survey: Technical Report
Series. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1988.
Doucette, Joanne. "The DisAbled Women's Network: A Fragile
Success." Women and Social Change: Feminist Activism in Canada.
Jeri Dawn Wine and Janice L. Ristock, eds. Toronto: James
Lorimer and Company, Publishers, 1991. 221-235.
Matthews, Gwyneth Ferguson. Voices From the Shadows: Women with
Disabilities Speak Out. Toronto: Women's Press, 1983.
Meister, Joan. "Keynote Address: The More We Get Together." The
More We Get Together.... Houston Stewart, Beth Percival,
Elizabeth R. Epperly, eds. Charlottetown: Gynergy Books, 1992.
11-18.
Padden, Carol and Tom Humphries. Deaf in America: Voices
from a Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Ridington, Jillian. "Who Do We Think We Are?: Self-image and
Women with Disabilities." Position Paper 1. Prepared for
DAWN Canada: Disabled Women's Network Canada, 1989.
Seary, Michael. Keynote address. The Spirit Soars: A Conference
on Expressive Arts and Disability. Halifax: Recreation Council on
Disability in Nova Scotia, 1990.
Smith, David, Chairman. Obstacles: Report of the Special
Committee on the Disabled and the Handicapped. Ottawa: Minister
of Supply and Services Canada, 1981.
Todoroff, Milana, and Tanya Lewis. "The Personal and Social
Implications of 'Passing' in the Lives of Women Living with a
Chronic Illness or Disability." The More We Get Together...
Houston Stewart, Beth Percival & Elizabeth R. Epperly, eds.
Charlottetown: Gynergy Books, 1992. 29-38.
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