West End-Clayton Word

Gotta Move: Expanding DisAbility Project travels to local schools
Steve Jennings
March 29, Volume 30, Number 13

Come one, come all! Come see Joan Lipkin and her disAbility Project do the amazing. They change perceptions! They turn conventional wisdom on its head! They prompt people to think in new ways!

And, in the case of a visit recently to the West End's Crossroads School, they confirmed what so many students were already thinking, and challenged the suspicions of the rest.

Entertainment is one goal, of course. A sour or preachy disAability Project likely would not receive many invitations to perform. But attitude-alteration is the real business here.

"We all can change attitudes, even the outmoded ones," said director Lipkin, whose amateur theater group includes actors with and without disabilities.

She and eight members of the troupe dropped in on Crossroads and presented a half-dozen brief original one-acts, little stories highlighting issues facing disabled people. The amateur company has grown so much since its start four years ago Lipkin is free to use smaller ensembles and adapt the one-acts to the audience.

One piece almost always included is a three-minute dance called "Gotta Move" choreographed by F. Reed Brown. Dancers with and without disabilities took to the Crossroads stage, spun wildly around in their wheelchairs, shook their arms and circled the stage with dance partners clinging to the backs of power 'chairs. With (the current or former) Prince singing "Kiss," the audience began rhythmically clapping as the actors formed a circular conga line. It was not the kind of thing you see everyday.

"It was amazing," said Rachel Machefsky, a seventh grader. "They were moving their bodies in other ways from other people.

"At first I did not know what to expect. I didn't think you could dance in a wheelchair, but they did. They WERE dancing."

"Sometimes when people see us dance, it's not so much that they're surprised that we can dance, but that we enjoy dancing," said Katie Banister, the first actor to join the ensemble. "When we get going, you see arms waving and people dancing and flashlights going on and off. It's fun."

During a question-and-answer session after the production, the actors applauded Machefsky for urging fellow students to speak up when they see steps with no ramp or other inaccessible situations.

But even Machefsky didn't think the disabled project players could do all that they did. Crossroads' drama teacher Julie Krieckhaus suspects that even the most open-minded assume disabled folks can't do simply because it's unusual to see disability everyday.

"I think a lot of the kids were probably surprised to see disabled people do something so artistic, I guess because most of us just aren't exposed," Krieckhaus said.

"I've worked in drama with disabled kids once week for 12 years, and even I tend to forget people like this exist. It's easy to forget when you don't see these disabled people on TV or movies or in magazines in the proportion they exist in real life, in the main flow of society."

And then there is the uneasiness ...

"There was a fear factor at first," Krieckhaus said. "By the time the performance was over, I think all of us at school felt less fear - as if we said 'Oh, these people are just like us.'"

"I think doing that was the biggest thing that was accomplished that day," she said.

Had Banister heard that from Krieckhaus, it would have been no surprise. Every time the disAbility Project visits a school or workplace, the wall between the disabled and non-disabled is further chipped away.

"You might have an older aunt or someone in town who's disabled but that person is kept distant, and might not really feel part of what's going on," said Banister, a motivational speaker who was paralyzed 10 years ago.

"This group will not sugar-coat the issue. We give the audience a close, intimate look" at disability, she said.

Machefsky said the disAbility Project opened her eyes with a one-act about a just-opened coffeehouse with no wheelchair access. Another piece focused on a disabled job-seeker unable to convince a wary shopkeeper of her worth as a employee, and a third was about a man with multiple sclerosis who is always a step behind drivers illegally grabbing the handicapped parking slot.

Lipkin's players performed for fourth graders at New City School in January. The selection of one-acts differed a little, but the lesson was the same.

"You want the kids to see really how able people with disabilities are, how they can accomplish things," said assistant director of family sport Barbara Thomson who works with parents and teachers on, among other things, diversity issues.

The ensemble as an offshoot of her That Uppity Theatre Co., Lipkin this year began the Education Intiative to bring the disabled troupe to area schools. The Whitaker Foundation funds the school outreach.

"Most schools don't have much funding, if any, to provide for anything outside their most basic curriculums. And yet they are increasingly aware of the need to provide education in the area of diversity and to extend that to include disability," the ensemble's director said.

The Crossroads performance is evidence the disAbility Project - intentionally or not - has created a cycle of self-promotion. Appearances at New City and the Sheldon produced buzz and led to productions at De Soto, Kirkwood and Columbia MO, which led to Crossroads, which led to ...

Well, no one can say for sure right now, but Lipkin has talked of taking the troupe outside Missouri.

"Since we began this group, I've discovered how much the disability community is overlooked and underserved," Lipkin said. "There were many people in the general public who really had no reason to think about people with disabilities, and now they do. We have people seeking us out, wanting to schedule performances.''

All the notice has shoved Lipkin into a scheduling frenzy, not only nailing down play dates but lining up time commitments from her players, most of whom work during the day in everything from dentistry to counseling. As the troupe gathered up its props and small sound system used at Crossroads, the director shook her head and smiled. The disAbility Project has created a frenzy, but it's a good frenzy.

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