Focusing on EveryBody: New Smithsonian Exhibit Brings Attention to Disability History

This week, the Smithsonian opened up a new exhibit that focuses on disability history as part of the National Museum of American History. “EveryBody: An Artifact History of Disability in America” is the first of its kind and is entirely online, which means many people can access it.

Currently, the collection is made up of stories and atrifacts collected by the Smithsonian for more than 50 years, and the collection will continue to grow. It is difficult for people today to get a good grasp on disability history since the disabled community was often ignored in the past, but this exhibit sheds a bit of light onto that cast aside community. As museum curator, Katherine Ott, says, “Being anonymous or forgotten does not mean that you are invisible. We can piece together past experiences by combining what the image tells us (about age, clothing, location, era, activity) with what we know about the history of disability in America.”

A poster available to download

There are many untold stories out there that are important in gaining an understanding of disability history and promoting awareness and acceptance. Only a handful of individuals ever made it into the history books, and even then, it was because they had some historical influence outside their disability. The evolution of the role of disability in American culture as a whole seems to get little attention. How often does one find such an account, especially one that is accessible to a widespread audience? The Smithsonian's exhibit offers people the opportunity to see a side of America's history that often goes unnoticed, challenging people's understanding of American history and how we got where we are today.

The exhibit is divided into five main sections: Disability and History, People, Place, Technology, and Citizens and includes items like Braille writers, prosthetics, protest artifacts, medical devices, and wheelchairs that show the history and progress that has been made in America. They also have some really neat looking posters that you can download (in English and Spanish) for free and print.

Definitely go check it out; EveryBody is an interesting and educational exhibit that is worth giving a look. And isn't it said that we can't move forward without first knowing where we've been? Click here to head over to the online exhibit, explore a little, and then tell us what you think about it!

Happy learning!

That Wu-Tang Interpreter Girl from Bonnaroo

Happy Friday, everyone! I have a few different things to mention today. First, our first group of counselors will be going up to Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp this weekend to get ready for session one of camp. Good luck, and have fun!

Also, Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp's 80^th birthday is coming up. MHKC has been around an impressively long time, and such a great camp is worth celebrating. It's a good thing, then, that on Thursday, July 25^th, Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp is having a birthday celebration up at the camp! It sounds like it's going to be quite the shindig, with cake, live entertainment, some rad historical photos (like the one at the left), and a barbeque dinner. The festivities start at 4:00 pm, barbeque dinner begins at 6:00, followed by skits at 7:00. Bring your own lawn chair and $10 for dinner. It should be a good time! For more information or to RSVP (by July 5^th), email Terri at terri@mhkc.org.

And now, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, a little commentary on the most popular ASL interpreter since Lydia Calas. There has been quite a buzz around a woman named Holly Maniatty who interpreted for Wu-Tang Clan, Matt and Kim, and R. Kelly at this year's Bonnaroo music festival. Many have commented that she stole the show and was more entertaining than the performers.

Maniatty has been a certified interpreter for 13 years and a performance interpreter for ten of those 13. This year was her sixth or seventh interpreting at Bonnaroo, and though the attention she has been getting recently is overwhelming, Maniatty says that she is thankful for the positive regard being brought to Bonnaroo as an accessible music festival:

“I guess I am in front of a lot of people but I'm always so absorbed in doing a good job—it's just about the deaf patrons who are there. I hope it spreads the word that Bonnaroo has an accessible festival and amazing interpreters that come from all over the country.”

This video may contain language that is offensive to some viewers.

At festivals like Bonnaroo, teams of many interpreters work together based on skill level, music specialty (for example, one interpreter may be particularly good at signing folk music where another is better at rap), or familiarity with a particular band. Often, multiple interpreters will sign for a single band, going back and forth to reflect different artists' voices. For example, Maniatty was signing with another woman, Jenn Abbott, during the Wu-Tang performance.

Maniatty also notes that it takes a lot more than just interpreting words as they are presented. She spent about 50-80 hours studying Wu-Tang's music, background, and interviews so she could know them as well as possible. That way, she can interpret their lyrics, often filled with metaphors, as accurately as possible. Also, should a member of the group decide to freestyle, she can freestyle, too, and not lose the meaning of the lyrics.

Some of you may know that I'm interested in becoming an interpreter, but, man! Performance interpretation looks exhausting! Have any of you ever been to a concert that was interpreted? What was it like?

Also, don't forget about MHKC's birthday party, and wish the first wave of counselors well!

Click here for a full interview with Holly Maniatty.

Let the Camp Countdown Begin!

Can you believe how close camp is? Summer break has officially arrived, and the first session of camp begins in a week! I was poking around the Kiwanis Camp Facebook page (not to be confused with the Kiwanis Camp Capstone Facebook page), and I saw people sharing some of their favorite memories from pervious years of camp. To get you all pumped for camp (as if you really needed more excitement), assuage some of the anxieties new counselors might be feeling, and share with non-Kiwanians some of the sentiments of camp, I have decided to share some of these memories and the love that comes with them right here in the hope that more people will get a fuller understanding of MHKC.

And now, in no particular order, favorite camp memories!

1. The annual F&G synchronized swimming contests
   
   
2. “No matter how lame my jokes were my campers always laughed whole heartedly.”
   
   
3. Berit falling in the fish pond
   
   
4. How campers get to just “be”
   
   
5. Campers having fun, trying new things, and seeing their smiley faces on the adventure course
   
   
6. “I love when Marilee sings the song: How could anyone ever tell you, you were anything less than beautiful... And she looks into the crowd and then turns around and looks the staff in the eyes, I cry everytime!”
   
   
7. Adventure Kelly as the last raisin
   
   
8. Dancing
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. BBQ/Skit night
   
   
10. Meeting new friends and counselors
    
    
11. “My favorite memory was when Berit was in my group and he let me dress him up like a girl, and put make up on him when we got ready for the dance.”
    
    
12. Seeing old friends and staff
    
    
13. Meeting new peers
    
    
14. White water rafting and water guns while rafting
    
    
15. Horses
    
    
16. Swimming
    
    
17. “I still have a thank you card from a camper's grandparents from when I was a counselor in 1998! Camp was one of the reasons I became a Teacher!”

Finally, I would like to share a quote that was mixed in with the memory comments:

"So many wonderful memories over the years! I love camp!! The community that we build with the counselors, campers and staff in just a week is life-chaning and a beautiful experience for everyone! One reason I keep coming back, my heart and soul belongs up at Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp!! Wouldn't trade any of it!!"

Exciting, right? What other memories do you have, or what are you looking forward to most this summer at camp? Share here and/or on our Facebook page!

In Appreciation of Counselors

For many of our future MHKC counselors, today marks the last official day of class of their undergraduate careers. Next week they will take their last finals—I express my congratulations and jealousy—and be on their way toward career hunting, graduate school, or maybe a nice break from it all. Most importantly, though, they will be on their way to Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp! This post is to you, future Kiwanis counselors—all of you, whether you're just getting ready to graduate or if you're well on your way forward. Thank you for sharing your time with us at MHKC.

It is cram time for finals, so I'll keep this post short, but as camp is fast approaching for those in session one, I thought now is the time to express my gratitude to all of you who help keep Kiwanis alive.

Yeah it does.

As some of you already know, I am fairly new to the Kiwanis family, having joined at the end of October, 2012, and, like many of you, I have not yet been to camp. I don't know firsthand the wonder and fulfillment I've heard about from others who have already completed their capstones through MHKC (and even come back again after fulfilling their capstone requirement). I do, however, have confidence that there is some kind of strong magic at that campground just off Highway 26. You can see it in former counselors when they talk about their experiences at camp; you can see it in the MHKC staff as they put their hearts and efforts into keeping the camp alive and growing; and you can see it in the campers. They overflow with the magic of camp, the prospect of new friendships, and the promise of a good time, and they bubble with freedom, unbound by what “can't” be done.

I am inexpressibly happy and thankful that soon you will get to experience this for yourselves, because even though I am somewhat new here, I have rapidly gained a deep affection for Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp and what it does and stands for. So thank you, and congratulations. I am certain you will create new friendships and change someone's life, if not your own, and I am so excited for all of you.

This is the final stretch, counselors! Summer and camp are fast approaching. You can do this.

Reelabilites: Bringing Disability to the Big Screen

For as often as I feel like I post about film, it looks like I've only done one (conflicted and convoluted) film-related post on this blog. Perhaps I'm learning the art of self-restraint. Being that said, I have recently learned of Reelabilites, the largest film festival in the United States dedicated to showcasing films by or about people with disabilities. So today, lovely readers, I share with you a post about film.

First, I feel it is necessary, either for your information or my self-indulgence, to explain why film is so important, especially when it comes to informing people or changing their perspectives. Film has the ability to affect a vast audience; one person's ideas can be shared with people worldwide. That's a lot of power. And although movies,especially documentaries, may be limited in what they can share because of time constraint, this condensed expression of information is actually pretty helpful for a couple of reasons. First of all, more people have time to watch a movie than, say, read a book on the same topic. Films are also more accessible across various levels of comprehension, and even informative movies tend to be entertaining. Finally, there is the visual aspect that cannot be lost in translation from country to country the way that words, either spoken or written, can.

With that in mind, it's easy to see how films by and about people with disabilities could play a huge role in awareness and acceptance, and why film festivals like Reelabilities are important in recognizing and sharing those movies.

Reelabilities, initiated in New York in 2007, showcases international and US films that highlight a variety of disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy, blindness, Down Syndrome, and mental health. The festival now tours in multiple cities and strives to make each screening as fully accessible as possible with captions, sign language interpretation, CART (Computer Assisted Realtime Translation), Braille, and audio descriptions.

This year's films are numerous and vary from city to city. Some of the screenings have passed, and others are far into the future, but the links to a few of the cities' film list are below for those who want to look into seeing some of these movies. I will mention, though, that “Mary and Max”, the claymated film about a pen-pal correspondence between an eight year-old girl and a 44 year old man with Aspergers, is one of the films featured at the festival, and it happens to be streaming on Netflix right now. “Praying with Lior”, “Ben X”, “Wretches and Jabberers”, and “Ocean Heaven” (AKA "Ocean Paradise") are all streaming right now as well. You might want to take a look at those or some of the other films in the links below (I'm only posting a few links in an attempt to avoid excessive overlap of movie titles):

New York

Boston

Chicago

Cincinatti

Houston

I think it would be awesome if we could get this festival to come to Portland. Any thoughts on that? What about on these films or films in general? 

Share and discuss!

A Symbolic Makeover: Changing the Way We View Disability

The International Symbol of Accessibility, also known, perhaps crassly but accurately, as the wheelchair symbol, has been around for 45 years. In the past few months, I have stumbled upon multiple articles proposing an update to the familiar symbol, claiming that the symbol depicts a dated view of people with disabilities.

Artist Sara Hendren with her new symbol over the original design.

The original symbol, designed in 1968 by Danish student, Susan Koefoed, was intended to be an international way to identify facilities accessible to those with disabilities. Koefoed's design is similar to the one commonly seen today, except it lacked the circular head at the top of the chair. (It's important to note that her design was not intended to be a headless person in a wheelchair, but rather the chair itself with no person anywhere in the design. However, the change was suggested by International Committee on Technical Aids chair, Karl Montan, who thought that without a “head” at the top, the equal thickness of the lines could be mistaken for lettered monogram.) One of the primary criticisms of the design is that it does not accurately represent the disabled community.

In 2011, Cambridge artist and mother of three, Sara Hendren, decided to take matters into her own hands and design a more representative symbol. She began taking an interest in accessibility after giving birth to a son with Down Syndrome, and has since endeavored in a street art-based method of spreading awareness, creating transparent stickers of her design and putting them over the original symbols. While her design does not take into account the wide variety of disabilities that require denotation of accessible facilities, it does give more movement to the symbol, showing that the person and the wheelchair are two independent entities.

Hendren's success was furthered by help from friends who put her stickers up on signs around Boston and by Brian Glenney and Cyndi McMahon of Gordon College. McMahon, Gordon's director of marketing communications, contacted possible partners and got Fred Doulton, social affairs officer at the U.N. Secretariat for the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to jump on board and take with him Victor Calise, commissioner of the New York Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. So even though getting the new symbol widely adopted is a challenge, Calise, who was paralyzed from the chest down when he was 22, hopes to have the old wheelchair symbols throughout New York replaced by the new, forward-thinking ones.

What do you guys think of the new design? How would you make your own? I'm thinking it would be awesome to see some pictures of your design ideas on the Kiwanis Capstone Facebook page. Show us what you've got!

ILL-Abilities: Breaking the Conventions of Dance

“No Excuses, No Limits”. That is the motto of international b-boy crew, ILL-Abilities, a group comprised of five dancers who have different physical disabilities. As can be seen from the videos below, this crew does not let physical limitation inhibit their expression or dancing capabilities.

At first, the name ILL-Abilities might sound derogatory, but don't let their moniker deceive you; according to their Facebook page, “the concept of an ILL-Ability is to take the (Dis) [slang for “disrespect”]* out of disability and replace it with 'ILL'. In today's slang, bad means good and ILL means: unique, amazing, and incredible. So in other words Unique, Amazing, and Incredible Abilities.”

I would say that unique, amazing, and incredible are pretty accurate descriptions. B-boying, or breaking, is an extremely physical style of street dance often, but not exclusively, danced to hip hop music. In spite of its strenuous physical nature, it turns out breaking is not exclusive to able-bodiedness, either.

ILL-Abilities is comprised of founder Luca “Lazylegs” Patuelli (Candada), Jacob “Kujo” Lyons (U.S), Redouan “Redo” Ait Chitt (Netherlands), Sergio “Checho” Miranda (Chile), and Tommy “Guns” Ly (U.S). Each member has a different ILL-Ability, from hearing loss to amputation to muscle and bone growth disorders, that simultaneously forces and allows him to take b-boying in a new, specialized direction.

The crew gets together to do motivational entertainment shows and performances, and during the first week of May, they were at the Breakin' Convention in London, and international festival of hip hop dance theater. There, the group help a breaking workshop for people of all abilities, showing them how to adapt their bodies to the moves. Watch a bit of that in the video below (from about 1:10-2:17).

Street dance is a fascinating and beautiful form of expression and one of my favorite forms of visual art, so I find it extremely inspiring that there is a group pushing the boundaries of this art form and of dance in general, and that they are spreading motivation, awareness, and acceptance worldwide. And, of course, it's fun to watch!

I know that first video is somewhat long, but I strongly encourage you to watch it (and others) and share your thoughts. What do you think of ILL-Abilities as a crew and/or a concept?

*bracketed note is my own, not ILL-Abilities'