(KQED sonic ID) (Short piano notes blend with electronic and orchestral textures to evoke a sense of hope and movement) [Alice] Hi.
Welcome to "If Cities Could Dance."
We're Kinetic Light and we've been working in the San Francisco Bay Area.
We're here to share some of our perspectives on disability arts and our creative process.
[Laurel] We are disabled artists making work that nobody else would make for us.
(Music slows to be more reflective) [Alice] Work that has implications for how we understand intersections of race, gender, disability, technology, design, access.
[Michael] The audience is the most important member of our troupe, and in particular other disabled people.
So when we present our work, it's a two-way conversation.
[Jerron] Kinetic Light, it's a beautiful intervention.
And I love that we use that word because it signals that we might be obsolete in a decade.
We might not be necessary.
And we shouldn't.
(Light, ethereal soundscape) (Bright synths and piano chords evoke curiosity) [Alice] We're at Z Space, and we are tucked up in the thing that people are calling bubble residencies, a pandemic concept.
[Tiffany] Alice, if you could go from splat and then lightly mark your flying pathway.
[Alice] We are working on the final creative and technical processes for "Wired."
(Trickling percussion and hesitant strings evoke tension and curiosity) "Wired" tells the race, gender and disability stories of barbed wire in the United States.
[Jerron] It is a heightened, dangerous, exciting work.
[Laurel] You're dangling 20 feet in the air from a rather thin metal cable.
And once you leave contact with the ground, you may have very little control.
[Alice] As I fly, I am experiencing my body: the power, the lightness.
This body is giving me so much joy.
The Bay Area is where I first grew into disability culture.
(Tender acoustic guitar, piano, and electric guitar reverb evoke warmth and reflection) (Whoosh of wheels hitting floor) The independent living movement took its roots here in the Bay.
The idea that disabled people are not medicalized bodies to be warehoused, to be closed away.
That disabled people have a right to live in non-institutional spaces.
[Jerron] Growing up, that sense of independence was a strong through line.
And it's still a point of pride to be from the Bay Area.
To dance in a place that heralds the actors, the organizers.
It feels like the past is moving through me.
[Judy] Every time you raise issues of separate but equal, the outrage of disabled individuals across this country is going to continue, it is going to be ignited.
There will be more takeovers of buildings.
(Reverberant piano keys build tension) (Supporters clap) [Laurel] In 1977, the 504 protests, [Laurel] In 1977, the 504 protests, the disability community moved in and occupied the federal building in San Francisco.
[Protestors] What do we want?
Human rights!
[Laurel] Federal legislation which protected disabled people from discrimination.
[Protestors] Sign 504!
[Laurel] After four long years of negotiation and compromise, Jimmy Carter's administration decided to throw those regulations out.
[Protestors] (Singing) Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around... [Dennis] The more we learn about all of our disabilities inside of our own coalition, learning sign language, learning braille, learning about hidden disabilities, we will become a tighter and firmer group.
(Supporters clap and cheer on the protesters) [Laurel] This was the point in history that cemented the movement as a national power.
(Rhythmic pushing up the ramp) [Laurel] We are at home physically, in a way we are in so few other places.
(Light, playful echoing synths) The Ed Roberts Campus in Berkeley, it's among the great ramps of the world.
A ramp as a thing of beauty, not constructed as a functional object alone.
(Whoosh of wheels gliding down ramp) (Piano arpeggio with solo violin and cello evokes tenderness and love) Places where somebody thought about me when they were designing this.
That sparks joy.
(Rich warm vocals soar above sparse strings) Access as an aesthetic, it challenges us.
True artistically equitable accessibility expands the art form.
For someone who is primarily non-visual, what does that dance sound like?
[Michael] When we put all of that into the work, the work gets better.
(Playful marimba tones intertwine with dreamlike beats) When I start working with the audio describers and they see something poetic in a movement and the way the light falls across someone's face, that informs me, what I've created, and often leads to changes.
(Deep and expansive electro ambience with sparse piano) [Alice] For us, access-it is a creative force.
Once you commit to imagining a disabled audience as primary and not as incidental, it changes the understanding of the work, the insiderness.
It changes the resonance.
[Jerron] Being a part of "Wired" has stretched me entirely as a performer.
(Haunting synth sirens repeat with dissonant string and horn accents) The barbed wire is reminding me that I am unsafe.
So, I have to find relief and exuberance and comedy and joy and struggle in that.
(Ocean waves hitting shore, fog horn) (Introspective, ethereal piano melody; dark bass drone, entrancing synth) [Alice] We have been deeply careful to think through how our bodies in chairs, without chairs for Jerron, fly.
Not to use the air as an escape, but to really dig into the air as places to find queerness, disability, and race.
[Laurel] Thanks for coming along on this journey with us today, and we really hope you've enjoyed this little peek into our process and our work in progress, Wired.
Everyone please remember, stay safe out there.
