Celebrating 100 Blogs in 100 Words and Pictures

As OMOD project coordinator and self-appointed blog manager, I cannot be happier to compose our 100th blog entry! When I first took the reins of our VSA Texas blog in July 2015, we hadn’t published a blog entry in five months and our monthly page views had plummeted; now, just shy of two years later, we publish entries on a weekly basis – barring the weeks when my own perfectionism gets the best of me – and our page views regularly extend into the thousands. Of course, this has little to do with me and everything to do with our dedicated team of bloggers made up of our amazing staff and guest contributors!

In managing our blog, I am constantly reminded that our blog has never been about the statistics or the number of readers we gain. It has always been about telling the story of our organization and hearing from the everyday people behind the incredible work we do. And the 100 photos I culled from these first 100 entries (and spent an embarrassing number of hours editing into ten tiny collages) will illustrate that far more effectively than my words:

The wonderful world of Body Shift, featuring stunning photos by Camille Wheeler and others!

Adventures in OMOD

Remembering the tremendous work of Actual Lives Austin!

Launching youth into the world of media through our Side-by-Side internships and New Media Arts classes

Bringing art and entertainment to children with disabilities through our annual Art in the Park and Art in the Gardens festivals

Expanding our services to Texas Veterans with creative writing classes, public readings, and art exhibits around the state

Providing opportunities for Texas artists with disabilities to share and sell their art. Not only visual art, but CDs, books, greeting cards, even handmade apparel, too!

Our blog has also offered a forum to engage in critical discussions about disability representation in media.

Our Unsung Hero of the Week series has allowed us to acknowledge our dear friends and collaborators who make our work possible and honor those who are no longer with us.

Last but most important, our blog gave the dedicated staff who work in our offices the opportunity to tell their own stories and articulate how their own lives have been impacted by this work. They are the heart of VSA Texas.

Okay, so I know that was more than 100 words, but I just couldn't cut it down any further! I hope you will forgive me, and more importantly, I hope you will continue to read our blog as we add new voices and new stories to the mix!

Love is in the Air!

I find myself watching young lovers, but I really like to witness the reciprocated love that has weathered the test of time. I love how couples take care of each other. I wonder at the secrets they hold close.

This is the one day of the year when we celebrate all the love that surrounds us; that keeps us going when we are sad and makes us feel like we can reach for the stars… and put one into our pocket.

But I really can’t speak to love – unless it is the unconditional love of a pet – and I even question the “unconditional” part once in awhile. So, instead, here are two love stories from good friends of VSA Texas:

A tractor-trailer jack-knives on a snowy freeway, as seen from a rearview mirror.

The first one is from David Dauber, former cast member and director of Actual Lives Austin:

As I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the jack-knifing eighteen wheeler crashing across all three lanes of the highway like a flipper in a pinball machine, I wondered if love was truly worth this trip. Terri and I had been together for ten months, and I was headed from Fort Worth to Austin for another weekend of euphoric love. Love that could not be denied or even put on hold. This weekend was our first Valentine’s Day together, and not even an ice-covered, snow blanketed road was going to keep me from making the trip to Austin for the romantic dinner I reserved months ago at Cool River with my love.

We had both discussed our lonely Valentine’s Days of previous years. It had only been a year ago that I sat safely at home with a combo burrito from Taco Bell, Lord of the Rings 3 on my TV, and a longing for more in my life. This year I was on an adventure of my own, and nothing was going to stop me from seeing “my precious,” Terri.

David and Terri, pose before a snowy forest backdrop with their son, Denver.

As we celebrate our fourteenth Valentine’s Day, our love for one another continues to grow. While a steak dinner at a cozy table for two has transformed to ordering a heart-shaped pizza at home and listening to our son scream demands for more Kindle time just to watch another Minecraft YouTube video, I wouldn’t change any of it. I’m no longer alone. We are loved by my Kansas friends that stop by to visit us as they drive through Texas on their family vacations. We are loved by our family church friends that we made together years ago. Terri’s friends she first made in Actual Lives love us by showing, that even in death, we are never alone and that circles are multipliable.

Once we have true love, our circles connect. Once those circles are connected, they form the symbol of infinity. The infinite love that Terri and I share make every bit of it worth the trip. Happy Valentine’s Day, Terri. I love you.

And here is David Chapple, OMOD speaker, on the strength of true love:

In 1997 I met my future wife Kate at the Pittsburgh Employment Conference (PEC) for augmentative communicators. I was from Ohio and she was from Texas. Our eyes met and we just knew, it was love at first sight. But unfortunately Kate was in a relationship, so I had to hold back my feelings. We spent our time together throughout the conference and even took a romantic stroll to see the fireworks over the city. We almost kissed that night, but our feelings had to remain unrevealed for the time being.
  
Throughout the years, Kate and I kept in contact and we saw each other again at the same conference now and then. However, one day in 2011, Kate wrote to me on Facebook and said she had left her husband, and gave me her phone number. I could not believe it and said to myself, “What the hell?” I texted her right away and we finally revealed our feelings for each other that were denied all those years ago.

So we decided to have a date at the conference in Pittsburgh. We had a wonderful dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. After dinner we went off alone and we finally got that long awaited kiss. Fireworks went off, the symphony started to play, and lightning struck, when we kissed. I knew right then I wanted to be with Kate, and she felt the same way!!! Over the next few months our relationship grew, we could not bear being apart. After some deep conversations with my family, friends and Kate; I decided to move to Austin. Every August 4th we go to Joe’s Crab Shack to celebrate our anniversary. But the 4th of August 2015 was very special because Kate and I got married at Joe’s Crab Shack.

Dave and Kate pose for a photo.

These two Davids have fought the odds that society has placed against them finding true love and have proven that their pockets are full of stars.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Is Art Really a Waste of Money?

Way back in 1965, the United States Congress decided that there should be a federal, independent agency whose “funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities.” This is how the National Endowment for the Arts came to be. There is a reason VSA Texas and the National Endowment for the Arts work so well together; through our missions, we strive to make art an important part of life that reaches across all lines. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about defunding one of the only federal agencies I like, and it’s just not something I can understand. Is art really a waste of money?

For the last ten years, the NEA has funded some of our most groundbreaking work. Our first grant from them allowed us to put together a strategic plan that paved the way for us to bring Accessible Arts, an art therapy program, into schools. This was the first validation of the quality of work we were doing.

Photo of cast and crew from “Daze of Our Lives,” onstage after a 2008 performance at the LBJ Performing Arts Center

This led to another year that allowed us to hire a choreographer and director for our Actual Lives Company. Up to that point, we were mostly doing stretching and movement on stage. Now, we were able to bring in a dance element, and from this, we created our program Body Shift.

“I continue to be amazed at the transformative impact Celia Hughes and VSA Texas have had on the central Texas dance community. What started as a few annual classes has grown into a dance community comprised of people of all abilities, and this supportive Body Shift community could not have existed without the efforts of Celia and her team. I’m humbled by their endless work towards increasing access to the arts for all people, and I’m proud to partner with them for another season of Body Shift.” - Allison Orr, Artistic Director, Forklift Danceworks

The next year, with the success of the previous two grants, we were able to bring in Alito Alessi, founder of Danceability International, to do a 10-day teacher orientation and workshop to introduce his method to our Body Shift Mixed Ability Dance Community. From that, we were then able to raise our own funds to bring him back for a month to train twenty-eight teachers from all over the United States and Mexico. We are very proud to be the first city in the US to host this full-on Danceability Teacher Certification training program in ten years!

Three women in blue t-shirts engage in dance with a woman in a pink shirt in a wheelchair and a man in a red shirt, who is also in a wheelchair.

This year, we are bringing in StopGap Dance Company, a premier mixed ability dance company out of the United Kingdom. They will be devising a new site-specific performance with dancers from the Body Shift community to be seen in Austin in early August 2017.

I’m telling you all of this because through four small grants, the NEA has provided the VSA Texas family with some of the most valuable programs we run and they have directly been responsible for the improvement of well over 5,000 lives. VSA Texas is proof that you don’t have to have a lot of money to make a HUGE impact, not to mention a pretty solid return on investment, considering how much we were able to do with around $10,000 per grant.

We need to change the rhetoric that the arts are a dispensable commodity, rather than a crucial part of the very fabric our humanity is built upon. If you don’t want to see the arts go away in your lifetime, then say something about it. Make your voice heard. Support a local arts organization, buy from a local artist, employ artists and pay them what they’re worth. We can’t control national funding, but we can support people in our own backyards. It’s time to get creative.

VSA Texas Unsung Heroes of the Week: Gene and Dave

This week we have the privilege of introducing our dear friend, Gene Rodgers, to tell us the history of The Gene and Dave Show in his own words:


Have you ever wanted your own television show? Have you ever wanted to be your own producer, writer, director, and on-screen talent? These are questions that never occurred to Gene and Dave when they were involved in performance arts. They just wanted to share their creative talents with as many people as possible. Well, look at us now!

Gene and Dave with an image of the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue,
Town Lake, and the Austin skyline digitally placed behind them

Dave and I, both electric wheelchair users, were involved in VSA Texas-sponsored live performance group called Actual Lives Austin. We wrote stories about events in our lives and then shared the stories on stage. One day during rehearsal, Dave approached me and said, "Hey Gene, I’ve got an idea for a script, and you’re the only one I know crazy enough to do it with me." Well, I was all ears. We immediately wrote the script for a skit called ‘Who Works Monday.’ I had a friend film us. I edited the video on my computer, and we posted it on YouTube. It was about a guy who hired several attendants and had trouble keeping track of who worked on which day. It was a parody of Abbott and Costello’s ‘Who’s On First.’ See it at www.thegeneanddaveshow.com/who-works-monday/.

A lot of folks told us they really enjoyed it and that we should have our own TV Show. That was all the encouragement we needed. Just several years previous, I became a certified producer at public access Channel Austin. My show was called "Geno’s Place." I just had to go to the public access studio, learn how to operate a camera, and learn how to get that media edited and back to the station for broadcast. Well, it was a little more complicated than that, but in essence I was already a producer.  Dave and I just needed to come up with a show theme and start putting shows together.

Our TV show had pretty humble beginnings. Celia Hughes, at VSA Texas, helped us find funding. We set up some lights in my apartment and filmed ourselves in my living room. Then we started using a green screen, which allowed us to digitally change the background of our set. Once Channel Austin remodeled their studios, we started to film there. Since we were able to use our own digital cameras and edit our shows on our computers, we created shows in a fairly accessible venue.

Gene and Dave seated at a table with 2 microphones
in the Channel Austin studio. Behind them a blue screen
covers the entire wall.

The editing station at Channel Austin shows the process of
digitally placing an Austin postcard behind Gene and Dave.

Being co-hosts of The Gene and Dave Show has allowed us to meet all sorts of people in all sorts of situations. We can always be seen at SXSW. In fact, Dave interviewed R2D2 there. We get to interview folks at public and private businesses to learn more about how they include people with disabilities in their activities. Our show covers many disability-related topics, including employment, recreation, health, and many more. We can be seen on Time-Warner channel 16. All shows are archived on our website at www.thegeneanddaveshow.com.

Gene and Dave sit on either of R2D2 as Dave, microphone
in hand, conducts the interview.

Contact us at gene@thegeneanddaveshow.com and dave@thegeneanddaveshow.com.

Actual Lives Austin Reunion

“On my honor, as a good cripple…” and so began another raucous evening of theatre by and about people with disabilities. Actual Lives Austin entertained and educated people about life with a disability for over 10 years. On April 17, 2016 many members of the company came together to reminisce the good times and the not so good times, remember those who have passed away, celebrate marriages, children, career successes and exchange phone numbers. Chris Strickling, co-founder of the company with Terry Galloway, was in town from her retirement home in the Yucatan, which was the impetuous to get everyone together. It has been almost 6 years since we worked together as a group, but judging by the laughter and conversation in the room, it might have been only yesterday.

Performing Good Cripple’s Oath in Washington, DC

I bet you are wondering how we found each other in 2000 and how we managed to stay together for all those years. Hard work. All good things require a little hard work and a lot of love. And we really did love what we were doing. Hundreds of stories were developed into theater pieces, dances and songs over the 10 years. The three snippets shared below represent just a brief glimpse into the humanness of all the people involved. Love to Tanya, Mesko, and the person who cannot be named for sharing your lives with us.

Anonymous

This week I am writing, but music, not words. Not creative music but remembered music. Old, remembered melodies. I don’t know where they come from, but one leads to another. Mostly I remember honky tonk songs, played on the radio by my mother. This week it was:

Have I told you lately that I love you? Shall I tell you once again somehow? Have I told you how with all my soul how I adore you? Well darling I’m telling you now.

This heart would break in two if you should leave me. I’m no good without you anyhow. Dear, have I told you lately that I love you? Well darling, I’m telling you now.

After the words are written down, next comes a trip to the piano to pick out the tune. Then, last for me, transferring that melody to the chords of the guitar. These songs sound better to me now, than when we drove down the highway with the windows open, wind in our hair, and mother singing along. Actually, I found mother’s actions to be a bit embarrassing. But I was a pretty snotty kid.

We had so much love we had our own fan club!

"Sun Dance" by Tanya

I have experienced many different kinds of transitions in my life, but this one was nothing like I’ve ever felt before. Imagine yourself in the piney woods of east Texas and it’s hot, really hot, I mean frying pan hot. I’m at Sundance, not the film festival, but the Lakota New year.  So-the-people-will-live Sun Dance. I just wanted something to happen, but the angels never came, the sun just kept shining down. That day I learned that I knew nothing about God. What I discovered was, that didn’t matter.

Mesko performing "Bullies"

"Bullies" by Mesko

I was 14 when I took up weight lifting. I was tired of being beat up. The local bullies, most of them, quit bugging me when I started pulling weights. Finally, even the two biggest, dumbest bullies gave it up – they just quit one day. Period. I didn’t know why.

My friend Glen Randall was not rocket scientist. He just wasn’t, and he knew it. He liked hanging around with me. Why? I’d turn him on to things. Books, movies, and the like. He was more of a physical type than me, MUCH MORE!! Glen was not only good at fighting, he liked to fight. He died of brain cancer in last twenties, before I even knew that he was sick.


Many years later, I found out that Glen had taken each one of the Bad Boys who were bullying me into a back alley and beat the crap out of them – after telling them “Leave Mesko alone!” He had my back, Big Time. I never got to say Thank You as a teen. I’m saying it now.

We love you Actual Lives Austin actors, dancers, friends, fans, and supporters. It was great fun!

The Actual Lives Austin group at the 2016 reunion

Meet the Body Shift Team

With support from Impact Austin, our Body Shift program is growing! Here are our newest VSA team members, Silva and Olivia, to tell you a little bit about themselves:

A Note from Silva:

This is my very first blog post. I'm a little nervous about it. If I could dance it to you, I would. Here, isn't everything possible nowadays?

Slow motion video of Silva dancing in a kitchen

Dancing and movement have always been part of my life. First as a classical ballet, then different modern dance techniques and finally my heart setting on dance improvisation. I have been teaching and choreographing with Body Shift since 2010 and that is when I took part of the intensive that Body Shift offered and it made me so happy to dance with everyone that I begged to be a part of it. Now I teach Elements, which is our bi-weekly class, and co-create with the participants a performance in a month-long performance workshop where we bring dance to a public place like the pedestrian bridge or in front of the court house. This month we also start choreography lab, which is a place for anyone to bring their ideas about a dance that they want to make or an idea about a dance score that they want to try out. As always with Body Shift, these classes are open to all! I hope to dance with you soon.

A Note from Olivia:

My love for movement and dance started when I was a child playing records and twirling around in my room to The Beatles.  Mom took me to ballet classes but I quickly lost interest as that style of movement did not appeal to me.  I wanted to be free to move in whatever way I chose and express my individuality. Soon after, I discovered mime, musical theatre and acting classes.  This led me to studying theatre improv and physical theatre as a teen.  In undergrad as a theatre major I was introduced to improvisational dance and I was hooked.  I found it was a form of dance that could be used with actors for ensemble building and for generating extraordinary character interaction.  My friend and mentor, Pat Stone, introduced me to the idea that improvisation could be used to make dance accessible to all people.  The idea that people who move in unique ways and might otherwise be isolated from something so wonderful could experience their bodies through improv was so exciting to me that I went all the way to Germany to take part in the DanceAbility teacher certification program with Alito Alessi.  That was twelve years ago and since then I have made it a priority to share dance with people of all abilities. 

I started working with VSA as the movement coach and sound designer for Actual Lives, a theatre company made up of adults with physical disabilities.  When Allison Orr offered a mixed-ability dance workshop back in 2009 I was there along with a group of actors from Actual Lives and Body Shift was born!  We started out by offering an intensive in 2010.

The Actual Lives theatre company celebrates the end of
another successful show.

I had met Silva in the DanceAbility course in Germany and it was our great fortune that she fell in love and married a man from Austin (she’s from Finland!) and moved here not long before that first Body Shift intensive. After the 2011 intensive, people were hungry for more opportunities to dance together so we started offering a monthly class in addition to the annual intensive. In 2013, we launched the performance workshop series which ends with a site-specific showing of our work.  Now, many of the regular participants have gotten so advanced that they are making their own work and share at choreography lab every 3rd Saturday of the month.  In addition, Silva and I have begun teaching a weekly class at the Conley Guerrero Senior Center on the east side and have taught workshops for Texas School for the Blind, Texas Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services and more.  To summarize – Body Shift has grown from one intensive to now two beginner classes each month, two performance workshops a year, a choreography lab once a month plus an intensive and regular workshops and classes throughout the community. 

It brings us so much joy to see people moving together and having fun that we can’t stop adding more opportunities to make it happen as much as possible!  When will you come and dance with us?!?

Participants of Elements class at Town Lake YMCA

You can find more information on the Body Shift website here: http://www.bodyshift.org/ or simply come to one of the Elements of Dance classes, held every 2nd and 4th Saturday of the month, from 2:30-4:30pm at the Town Lake YMCA (1st floor exercise studio), 1100 West Cesar Chavez Street in Austin! Cost is on a sliding scale of $5-$20. See you there!

VSA Texas Unsung Hero of the Week: Chris Strickling!

I want to tell you about another unsung hero of VSA Texas.  For over 14 years, Chris Strickling has graced us with her talent and generosity.  Starting in 2000, when she approached me to help make her vision of an inclusive community of people with diverse disabilities bringing their stories to life on the stage, Chris has been a selfless supporter of the celebration of the ordinary, and sometime extraordinary, lives of people with disabilities.

 

Myself, Chris and Terry

Beginning with a one-week Actual Lives Austin performance workshop –yes, a promised “one week” workshop – we launched what turned out to be a 12 year adventure, eventually involving Bob Tolaro, Allison Orr, Olivia O’Hare, Tanya Winters, Susie Angel, Juan Muñoz, Gene Rodgers, Dave Dauber, Carol Gilson, Frankie Ramont, Laura Griebel, Terri Stellar, Thor Armbruster and many others too numerous to mention.  And who could overlook Terry Galloway, the godmother of Actual Lives, uncensored (kind of), real-life, and just plain real. We went on to perform more than 48 original performances in Austin, Dallas, Georgetown, and Washington, DC, the latter at the invitation of the VSA International 2004 International Festival. As we explored the possibilities of Actual Lives, Chris helped bring this unique theater experience to young adults with disabilities.

Chris was also an integral part of starting our summer camp program for youths with disabilities. Our first summer camp workshop for participants ages 13 and up was an empowering and transformative experience for everyone, including the campers, volunteers, teaching artists, and VSA Texas staff.  Daniel, shown in the picture below, as well as many others, have participated in VSA Texas summer workshops ever since. 

Chris and Daniel!

And then, in 2013, Chris joined the ranks of the Opening Minds, Opening Doors: Promoting Self-Advocates as Speakers team.  She worked with OMOD Coordinator Eric Clow to develop the initial training curriculum based on the Actual Lives model, and then recorded teaching videos that will inform our instructors and participants throughout the life of the project.

Thank you Chris.  As we continue our work with people with disabilities from all “walks” of life, we will raise high the flag of inclusion, disability rights, real talk of human sexuality, personal dreams, hopes and possibilities. Your work continues. Happy retirement.  We look forward to visiting you at your humble casita in Ishmael, Mexico.

All our love, 

Celia