Crip News v.116

New works on screen and in many other media, calls, and events. Thanks for being here.

NEWS

On Screens

• At the Sundance Film Festival happening this week, Carla Gutierrez and Amazon Studios are premiering Frida, a documentary that attempts to allow the iconic queer disabled communist artist to narrate her own life. Maximilíano Durón, Senior Editor at ARTnews, has published a scathing review (“Her Wikipedia page remains more insightful.”).

• For IndieWire, Jim LeBrecht, Co-Director of the Oscar-nominated film Crip Camp, penned a review of the true and complex disability representation in Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which premiered at last year’s Sundance and is now streaming on Apple+.

• Directors Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly (Dumb and Dumber) are premiering Daruma, a film with 2 disabled leads played by 2 disabled actors, at the Slamdance Film Festival, also happening this week. The brothers talked with Allen Salkin at Los Angeles Magazine about representing disability.

• The latest show in the Marvel universe, Echo (Hulu & Disney+), is the first story to focus on a deaf indigenous American lead character: Maya Lopez, played by Deaf actress Alaqua Cox. [A heads up that the series trailer is extremely violent.]

• Disabled actor Timothy Omundson talked with Kelli Boyle of TV Insider about the many different representations of disability in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, streaming on Disney+.

Other New Works

• Perennial Hug, an annually occurring open call and guest juried exhibition coordinated by Chicago-based organization Arts of Life, is on view from Jan. 25 through Mar. 15 at Circle Contemporary North Shore. Featuring works by Marcelo Aguilar, Molly Andrews, Alfred Banks, April Behnke, Megan Bent, Caley Buck, Grethe Bue, Raina Carter, Gabrial Chalfin-Piney, Bojana Crnomarkovic, Nicole Diaz, Kira Elasky, Stephanie Figueroa, Jaxanna Fink, Chloe Geraty, Lillian Heredia, Rowan Howe, Maggie Kamphausen, Eddie Kil, Allison Long, Ngamanga Massaquoi, Avianna Miller, Abbey Muzatko, Amber Nething, Siena Peterson, Ruby Que, B. Quinn, Nico Ramirez, Alex Stark, Blake Jackson, Nyia Sissac, Tim Stone, Chris Viau, Tyron Weeden, Jonathan Worcester, Dontavious Woody, & Kiki Zhen.

• HELD, a multi-sensory exhibition by Anna Camilleri and Wy Joung Kou, is in its final week at Tangled Art + Disability, in partnership with ReDefine Arts. The show is composed of multiple works “within a shared ecosystem including: ceramic and glass mosaic, installation, pebble mosaic sculpture, video, audio, and interaction.”

• The recording is out from a recent public lecture at the University of Washington by Patty Berne, Co-Founder, Executive & Artistic Director of Sins Invalid.

  

  Yasmeen Fathima Thantrey’s gōlī'āṁ khā la'ī'āṁ hana? (u taken ur tablets?) (2023)

• The annual open exhibition at London-based Shape Arts, Open All Hours, closed yesterday in the gallery space but remains accessible in digital several formats. Featuring work by Mike Bamgbala, Eskild Beck, Uma Breakdown, Emmy Clarke, Fatma Durmush, Yasmeen Fathima Thantrey, Charlie Fitz, Paul Fletcher, Lan Florence Yee, Yarden Fudim, Carole Lee, Oliver McConnie, Tracey Payne, Jamila Prowse, Simon Raven, Samiir Saunders, Josie Rae Turnbull, and Diana Zrnic.

  

• United Bodies, a podcast from Ms. Studios hosted by disability organizer Kendall Ciesemier, “examines how physical, mental, spiritual and social health impacts how we understand ourselves, how we interact with the world and how we may fight for a better one.” Featuring Imani Barbarin, Andrea Gibson, Samantha Irby, adrienne maree brown, and more.

• Mia Ives-Rublee and Christina Stafford from the Center for American Progress have published “Long-Term Solutions to the Overincarceration of People With Mental Health Disabilities.”

• For Irish Examiner, Esther McCarthy reports on the work of Blue Teapot Theatre Company as it auditions actors with an intellectual disability for a permanent place in the company.

• AcompañARTE is on view in the Municipal Art Gallery of the Museum of the City of Mérida in Mexico.

• For Classical Music, Freya Parr talks with artist-organizers about the field’s barriers to disabled musicians and what change might look like.

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CALLS

• Pernilla Manjula Philip is seeking 1-minute videos about “Life / body hacks” for The One Minutes Project. Submit by Feb. 1. More here.

• Curators Dylan Mortimer and Dominic Quagliozzi have issued an open call for works by artists with Cystic Fibrosis who make work related to their lived experience for Sweat Test at DNJ Gallery (LA) from April 8 - July 18. More here.

• The Kennedy Center Office of Accessibility and VSA seek U.S. arts, education, and cultural organizations to provide accessible, arts-based education experiences to students with disabilities as VSA Program Sites. Submit by March 13. More here.

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EVENTS

Cyber Realms: A Movement Practice and Virtual Showing of "Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes" with Vanessa Cruz

Friday, Jan. 26, 2 - 3:30 pm ET, on Zoom

Join Kinetic Light’s LAB for the first iteration of Cyber Realms: A Movement Practice. We will explore together how we can navigate the rhythms of our bodies through dance, Crip Time, and more! We will draw inspiration from the world around us and uncover our authentic selves. Plus, afterwards we will watch the Audio Described version of "Exhale Static, Inhale Fumes" that recently premiered at the Redcat in Los Angeles, that inspired this movement practice! Now debuting to be an evening length work later this year!

Intro to Crip Virtuality

Saturday, Jan. 27, 12:30 - 2:30 pm ET, in-person & masked at NEW INC. (NYC)

Join us for Intro to Crip Virtuality, a lecture and motion capture session with Cripping_CG (@crip_fantasy nat, @pookie_croissant olivia, @rare_earth_mineral cielo). Cripping_CG is a motion capture archive and asset library of disabled embodiment. The ideation of the debilitated body in the virtual offers an opportunity to interrogate the curative norms and ableist infrastructure built into computer generated environments and the creation of them. Cripping_CG works to offer ways to be online and create digital work that is closer to what being disabled feels like. This class is geared to anyone with an interest in disability and online culture. No experience necessary!

Many more parts than M! Publication Launch

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 17:30 - 19:30 GMT, in-person at Manchester Technology Centre (UK)

Many More Parts than M! is a prototype compendium developed by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project and funded by Arts Council England, aimed at helping architects and built environment professionals design more accessible environments. It explores ways to engage with built environment accessibility in ways that take us beyond conventional checklists, templates, design guidance and legal compliance. We'll hear from Dr. Jos Boys, who will speak about the project and chair a discussion with Zoe Partington, Takuya Oura, and Mandy Redver- Rowe.

Time, Disability, and the Making of an Opera

Monday, Jan. 29, 6 pm ET, in-person at NYU Center for Ballet and the Arts (NYC)

Choreographer Jerron Herman and Historian of Science and Technology Mara Mills discuss opera and disability and Herman's approach to choreography and design for the upcoming 2025 world premiere of Sensorium Ex, a contemporary opera composed by Paola Prestini, with libretto by Brenda Shaugnessy and co-direction by Jay Scheib. In partnership with NYU Center for Disability Studies, the evening will investigate the ways that disability shapes time, with a particular focus on the possibilities and paradoxes of fermata in Herman's work. Dance and music from the work will be part of the discussion.