Crip News v.171
New works, other news, calls, events, and protecting 504.
NEWS
New Works
This Thursday, the nightlife project Crip Ecstasy returns to the Bay Area with “an access-focused evening of experimental drag, performance art, and dancing” in partnership with ROT Festival at The Stud (SF). The party will feature performances by Iman, Kochina Rude, Glamputee, JanpiStar, with music by DJ Fridge. KQED’s Nastia Voynovskaya recently spoke with producers Octavia Rose Hingle and Ben Cook about how access drives their party spaces.
Also on disability nightlife, I recently spoke with artist and witch Summer Minerva about how I came to the access magic of nightlife and what we unlock inside the immediacy of dance floor care.
The 2025 Slamdance Film Festival kicks off this week in LA. Continuing its tradition of presenting the work of disabled filmmakers, the festival’s Unstoppable program showcases a range of features and shorts.
Also on disability film, Esme Mazzeo spoke with Danny Kurtzman about creating accurate representation of disabled life in his film Good Bad Things for New Mobility.
Photo by Marissa Alper, Slow Factory. Alanah Nichole Davis recently profiled neurodivergent artist, mother, and activist Jennifer White-Johnson for BmoreArt.
National Academy of Social Insurance in partnership with AARP, NIRS, The US Chamber of Commerce has published “Social Security at 90: A Bipartisan Roadmap for the Program’s Future.”
Disabled artist Nikki Lilly is one of the cover stars on the latest issue of Edrea Magazine.
The Museum Accessibility Spectrum: Re-imagining Access and Inclusion, edited by Alison F. Eardley and Vanessa E. Jones, is out from Routledge.
In Other News…
On Valentine's Day last week, US Representative Jimmy Panetta from California reintroduced the Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act, a law that would eliminate the choice disabled people must make between getting married and keeping their public benefits.
In a recent webinar, the US Access Board released preliminary findings about the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence for people with disabilities and offered recommendations to promote responsible use.
The Individual’s Disabilities with Education Act (IDEA) turns 50 years old this year. In his Disability Drumbeat newsletter, Steve Davis looks at the data that show how a serious lack of funding is limiting what this law was meant to do.
Uber announced it is adding an option for riders with service animals to self-identify in the app and automatically notify drivers at pickup.
CALLS
Chimére L. Sweeney, curator of The Blackest Side of Long Covid, is calling for everyone to recognize Black Long Covid communities during Black History Month. The prompt for today: “Shout out and post a photo of the person in your home or life who supports you when you need it the most.”
Women Enabled International is seeking respondents in New York and Texas for the Disability and Gender-Based Violence Services Survey. Submit until Mar. 17.
Disability Victory is seeking respondents for its 2025 Priorities Survey.
AXIS Dance Company is hiring an Artistic Advancement Manager. Apply by Feb. 24.
Hospital Rooms is hiring a Senior Project Curator and a Production Lead. Apply by Feb. 28.
Open Style Lab is seeking applications for its 8-week Summer Program.
The Kennedy Center Office of Accessibility and VSA has issued a request for proposals for organizations for its Creative Career Internship Program. Apply by Feb. 28.
EVENTS
Social Media and Effective Debunking
Thursday, Feb. 20, 4 - 5:30pm ET, on Zoom
Knowing how to talk about the issues that matter to us is an important skill. That's why ASAN is holding Social Media and Effective Debunking! This webinar is all about making sure our community knows how to spot misinformation and explain the truth.
Inside Disability Arts + Aesthetics
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 12:30 - 1:30pm PT, in-person at Western Washington University and online
Get to know Kinetic Light’s Artistic Director, Alice Sheppard, as she explores the world of disability arts in this online lecture. In tracing the throughlines of race, queerness, disability, and access in her work, Dr. Sheppard will discuss the cultural, aesthetic, and political implications of disability arts. Speaking to and from the history, aesthetics and cultures of disabled people, the intersectional disability arts movement affirms work by disabled people, work that features disabled people, and work that imagines a disabled audience as primary. In this space, access is not a retroactive accommodation or service, but a creative and generative aesthetic in the work itself.
Disability Culture’s Altered States: Pain, Suspension, and Materiality
TODAY, Feb. 17, 4pm ET, in-person at the University of Michican and online
Petra Kuppers is giving her Collegiate Professorship Lecture as the Anita Gonzalez Collegiate Professor of Performance Studies and Disability Culture at the University of Michigan. The twenty-minute talk will be followed by a public reception.
Starship Somatics
Tuesdays starting Feb. 18, 11am - 12pm ET, online
Starship Somatics engage our bodymindspirits as portals, as trancemobiles that honor pasts and jet us toward speculative futures, into the earth and among the stars, in flux and transformation. Our classes will use improvised movement (inner and outer movement, as is accessible and appropriate to you), ambient music, dream journeys, writing, and drawing as our transportation devices: firmly grounded in the sensory immediacy of our beds, sofas, floors and windows, and flying wide to honor ways of being of all kinds.
Protecting 504
DREDF recently offered a briefing about the Texas v. Becerra lawsuit that seeks to eliminate disability anti-discrimination protections, in part on a transphobic basis.
But there’s good news: DIRECT ACTION WORKS. The Attorney General of South Carolina is closer to withdrawing that state from the lawsuit after his office was flooded with calls and emails last week. KEEP IT GOING: CONTACT YOUR STATE AG NOW.
Indeed we are and we deserve recognition as first class citizens like everyone else.