I wrote:
>" I went to a day-long singing workshop. It was to end in a
performance,
>which I badly wanted to be involved in. Instead, tho, I started
having
>seizures, and spent several hours in hospital.
>
>My inability to sing in that performance was *entirely* because of my
>impairment, as far as I can see. There is just no way it could have
>been accommodated, nothing that would have made it possible for me to
>perform on that day."
Phil then suggested:
>I'm pushing it here, probably, but I can see multiple accommodations.
What
>if the performance happened at the hospital?
Nope. I might have *heard* some of the performance, but my brain was
too scrambled to perform.
>What if the performance was rescheduled to another day?
That could have worked. Long days and my brain just don't mix-- and
the scheduled performance (and my seizures) were at the end of a long
day.
Of course, no guarentees I wouldn't have had a seizure on the day the
performance was scheduled-- no matter *when* it was scheduled.
>What if seizing was understood as a kind of
>singing?
Nope, sorry.
>The principle accommodation from my perspective is something like
unless all
>participants can participate in the performance, then the performance
>doesn't reflect everyone.
And it wasn't only me who couldn't participate. Others had other
commitments on the day, and left the workshop early. Probably
impossible to find a day/time when everyone was available to perform,
tho. And we *did* all participate-- in the workshop, at least. That
was an experience, in and of itself.
>How can we design a performance so that everyone
>can participate, regardless of "impairment"?
The performance would have to be quite non-traditional.
>In my own work, the question
>often asked of me is, how can someone who doesn't speak determine for
>themselves what their life should be? Since we can't know, they say,
they
>can't be self-determining.
Ah-- but there are ways of letting people know what you want that
don't involve speech. Pictures, a yes/no, facial expressions (like vs
dislike)...
Unfortunately, too many people don't *ask* people with limited
speech/language what they want. They ask family members. Or they just
impose their own ideas.
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Ria Strong
Melbourne, Australia
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