How to Change the World, Justina

Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:40PM by Elena Taurke

One morning on the way to Ballet class, I hear the news that Black Americans are moving away from northern urban areas toward the South and into the suburbs.  This interests me for what it will mean for diversity, so I remember it.  

As we chitchat before class, Justina, a young Black woman just returned from a family visit to Tennessee, comments:  "The South never changes."   I argue briefly and then ponder her comment for the remainder of class.  (You can blame all my mistakes on that!)   When class is over I ask her what she meant.  A graduate student in Social Psychology, she is frustrated by entrenched patterns:  expectations shape behavior, behavior reinforces expectations, and the cycle perpetuates itself.   Indeed, I agree.   Except here she is, an exception.

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Yes, but can you wipe your ass?

The first time I heard the question was shortly after I told my rheumatologist about the pain in my knees after tap-dancing for some length of time.  I recall that I was rehearsing for a little showcase.  I recall that I was proud.  I recall that he said: These are not normal knees…of course you are going to have inflammation if you tap-dance.  And a little while later he asked if I have trouble wiping myself.   It's important, obviously.   Tap dancing?   Not so much.

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The Straight Line (La Ligne Droite)

Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:30PM by Elena Taurke

So named for the challenge of running blind in a straight line, this film (at the Reel Abilities fest) features a young, rich, male runner, recently blinded, who encounters a not rich woman recently out of jail.   They are both hard and angry.  In a totally unbelievable moment, he recognizes her as kin.   He--actually his mother--hires the ex-con to guide him as he learns to run again.  Both are guarded, misunderstood, angry.  They fight, become vulnerable to each other, begin to trust.  The interfering mother interferes.   (Don't forget, when you make a movie about heroes, to include either a dead mother or an interfering mother.)   Love blossoms.  Against all odds, he wins the race.  

I braced against the emotional manipulation, my cynicism reinforced by the titles for the hearing impaired:  [soft inspirational music plays].   But gradually, my resistance weakened. 

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Crutch Master

Gales of laughter in the bus as he gets the first reaction--people on the street in some kind of shock and awe at a man using crutches to skateboard through the streets of New York.   He is known as the Crutch Master, and the mastery is evident and spectacular.   We are in the bus as the audience to his performance.  Hooked up to cameras, a DJ, and a major sound system, it feels like a combination of a hip dance party and a sting operation. "Wall Stall" Shannon Technique 2010 

So we are in the bus to watch the watchers.   We desperately want to see people on the street react to our Crutch Master.  We want their "Huh?"  We want to see them dislodged from their complacency.   We are hungry for it.    Many of us standing, craning necks from window to monitor display, aching to see a bystander get shook up.  Crutch Master is doing his best to deliver.  Here he is bumming a cigarette from a Wall Street Trader.  There he goes doing a jig for a tourist bus.  We see the people try to resist, turn their backs, shake their heads.  In the bus, we are cracking up, laughing forcefully at how people try to just keep going, how they can't recognize a true phenomenon, how they miss what is right before their eyes.  

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Menopause is an Athletic Event: Insomnia!

I dozed until midnight, then adrenalin and heat fired up my body for the race, the chase, the battle in the jungle.  Only I'm not in the jungle; I'm in bed trying to sleep.  I'm having a major argument with my body:  What is wrong with you?!  Can't you feel the fatigue?  Why are you flooding me with all this energy?  Body:  Hey, it's not my problem; you're the one with all the worries and ISSUES that keep me up.   Mind:  You have a lot of nerve calling me out on ISSUES when these things wouldn't even bother me if I weren't flooded with adrenalin and cortisol and whatever else you're doing to me.  

Most functional people would have grabbed a cab straight to a psychiatrist for Ambien. 

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Gay "Marriage"

Made in 2008 or so, Gay "Marriage" exposes the dilemma of the maddening and unfair paperwork imposed on gay couples who want the same financial rights as heterosexual married couples.   It is a tragicomedy that blends interview and animation to bring to life the horrifying effects of paperwork unfairly imposed on gay couples:  JTROS, taxable gifts, powers of attorney, HIPAA, and more.   

A star-crossed lesbian couple get the romance knocked out of them as they wake up to legal reality.  Music by Mayra Casales.  Running time, 12:13 minutes. 

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What is Dis?

What is Dis?*   Dis-ability.  A lack of adequate power, strength, or physical or mental ability.  Incapacity.   A physical or mental handicap.    So how does a cripple dance?   And do you want to see her try?   Don't stare.   No, wait.   Please do.     

Have you heard?  Disability is the new Black.   Disabled dancing bodies are everywhere, and people are talking about it.   Facebook-acclaimed New Mobility  features "Physically Integrated Dance," and the brand new International Journal of Screendance investigates the "Spectacle of Difference."   Dance Film and Dis Dance are coming of age together.   David Toole of DV8, photographed by Anthony Crickmay and John Cole 

What is Dis?  One of Dante's circles of hell, a walled city surrounded by a field of limbs of non-believers.   Do you dare visit?

Don't dis me.  "DisTHIS!"  proclaims Lawrence Carter Long, as he introduces his so-named film series featuring disability:  "No handkerchief necessary, no heroism required.  This is disability through a whole new lens."     

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Baby Crone

Sure I thought the release was happening as I turned 40.  I don't care what people think, said I, boldly striding into the decade.  So I unleashed my creativity upon the world.  And then, after making the autobiographical Martyred Moms, I proceeded to suck up praise and criticism like a baby starving for milk.   Don't care? my ass!   Narcissism roared its head and I, helplessly it seemed, inflated and deflated according to the circumstances.  It wore me out.  Like a stone on a beach being polished by smashing up against the rocks.   Smash!  ahhh…  Smash!  ahhh…  see?

50 is Smash.  40 was playing around.  At 50, my life shows on my face.  At the movies, they ask me:  Senior or regular?   I can laugh but I  tell you it feels like a punch.  I'm in another category. 

Not that I was ever beautiful, but I certainly knew how to be eye-catching. Now They don't look at me that way.   If They look at me or talk to me at all, it's often because They need something from Mother--or even Granny. geez!  

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What's the Rush?

Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:44PM by Elena Taurke

Maybe it was on the millenium or maybe it was 9/11, but on some momentous mark, I resolved to Stop Rushing. Years passed, charged by, actually, as I watched, bewildered, my resolution crushed by the stampede of moments.  Resolution wasn't enough.  I had to ask:  

What's the Rush?  No, Really.  What is it?

First of all, I don't have time to stop rushing--too many other things to do.  The Tyranny of ToDos, I call it.    Except who put the damn things on the list?  

Don't start with me!  I've tried dropping the list.  If I don't have a list, the world runs me down.  My daughter's needs and the bits and pieces of life fill the entire container and I'm still rushing to keep up.  

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It Doesn't Show

Updated on Friday, October 15, 2010 at 11:50AM by Elena Taurke

Updated on Friday, June 8, 2012 at 4:50PM by Elena Taurke

It doesn't show, they started to say after the surgeries.   This should have been a cure for shame, and maybe it was, but it also produced a new problem.   A deep and integral aspect of my personhood became invisible and unknowable. Don't look. Juvenile arthritis is a peculiar and defining experience.  As a toddler, you get braces and casts instead of the exhilaration of walking.  As a kid, you get the special  role in the ballet recital.  Then, as your wrists are progressively deforming, Phys Ed with its impossible pushups and volleyball falls by the wayside.  You are left with the other rejected kids in Choir and then in Drama Club, where, to vanquish your depression, you pledge yourself a career and vengeance.  The twist (pardon the pun) in the story is that, along the way, you fall in love with dance--the one thing that everyone agrees is totally out of the question. 

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