Sins Invalid: An Unashamed Claim to Beauty
in the Face of Invisibility
Sins Invalid is a multifaceted organization that does training and organizing around disability liberation and cultivates disabled artists through workshops, artists' residencies an an annual showcase performance that includes commissioned pieces. With a focus on beauty, embodiment and sexuality, Sins artists also explore historical themes and our rich multiplicity of identities.
In October 2008 I saw Sins Invalid perform for the first time. It changed my life. After years of being housebound by illness and injury, I was newly in a power wheelchair and out in the world, dealing for the first time with how able-bodied people react to visible disability. As I watched the incredible bravery and beauty unfolding on stage, I felt myself become more beautiful and more brave and I thought, I want in! I knew I had to find a way to work with these amazing artists---and I did.
In 2009, although I was still too ill to perform live, I had two pieces in the fall performance. One was a dance choreographed for a remote control wheelchair, to a recording of a piece I wrote about what it meant to me to finally get my own power chair. The second was about how chronic fatigue affected my sexuality.
In October 2008 I saw Sins Invalid perform for the first time. It changed my life. After years of being housebound by illness and injury, I was newly in a power wheelchair and out in the world, dealing for the first time with how able-bodied people react to visible disability. As I watched the incredible bravery and beauty unfolding on stage, I felt myself become more beautiful and more brave and I thought, I want in! I knew I had to find a way to work with these amazing artists---and I did.
In 2009, although I was still too ill to perform live, I had two pieces in the fall performance. One was a dance choreographed for a remote control wheelchair, to a recording of a piece I wrote about what it meant to me to finally get my own power chair. The second was about how chronic fatigue affected my sexuality.
in April, 2011 we presented Sins Invalid's Fifth Annual Perfomance at Z Space in San Francisco. I wrote five pieces for the show. Pussy Vinaigrette is a humorous mock-cooking show video about incontinence. Stroke is a seven minute dance performance which I choreographed to a poem I wrote about my 2007 stroke, and the total lack of attention to sexuality in my rehab process. I also wrote three pieces that provided a historical/poetic structure for the show, and were danced by the amazing Antoine Hunter. Last year saw the release of Sins Invalid, the film.
Stroke
Written, choreographed and performed by Aurora Levins Morales.
In 2007, while sitting at my desk, I had a stroke. Over the next year I had 45 minutes a week of physical therapy, with long gaps while waiting for insurance authorization. After a year I was given half the cost of a power wheelchair and sent on my way.
So in May or 2009, after months of preparation. I went to Cuba, to the Centro Internacional de Restauración Neurológica, CIREN, where I received two and half months of free, intensive medical care, 35 plus hours a week. Here's a picture of me taking my first steps. At the end of my stay, I could walk two miles.
But whether in Berkeley or Havana, one thing nobody ever asked me about was how the stroke had affected me sexually. Like any other affected portion of my body,my sexual organs needed to be stimulated in order to recover their connections to my brain, and remember how to function, but the sex lives of disabled people is such a taboo subject that it doesn't seem to occur to most therapists to even ask the questions. I began to work on this piece soon after my return from Cuba, knowing I wanted to perform in a more physical way, as a celebration of my restored mobility. In the summer of 2010 I took Axis Dance Company's summer intensive in physically integrated dance, and began to create the movements of this story. With direction and support from Sins Invalid director Patty Berne, I created a seven minute dance, to the soundtrack of my own voice reading my poem.
In 2007, while sitting at my desk, I had a stroke. Over the next year I had 45 minutes a week of physical therapy, with long gaps while waiting for insurance authorization. After a year I was given half the cost of a power wheelchair and sent on my way.
So in May or 2009, after months of preparation. I went to Cuba, to the Centro Internacional de Restauración Neurológica, CIREN, where I received two and half months of free, intensive medical care, 35 plus hours a week. Here's a picture of me taking my first steps. At the end of my stay, I could walk two miles.
But whether in Berkeley or Havana, one thing nobody ever asked me about was how the stroke had affected me sexually. Like any other affected portion of my body,my sexual organs needed to be stimulated in order to recover their connections to my brain, and remember how to function, but the sex lives of disabled people is such a taboo subject that it doesn't seem to occur to most therapists to even ask the questions. I began to work on this piece soon after my return from Cuba, knowing I wanted to perform in a more physical way, as a celebration of my restored mobility. In the summer of 2010 I took Axis Dance Company's summer intensive in physically integrated dance, and began to create the movements of this story. With direction and support from Sins Invalid director Patty Berne, I created a seven minute dance, to the soundtrack of my own voice reading my poem.
The Text
stroke
stroke
stroke
when it happened the right side of my body disappeared from the map
left only tangled lines. Everything dragged down towards earth
except for my pinkie that curled up and out like a twig.
when it happened my foot was pierced with fire, but cold and swollen
as waterlogged wood. my skin couldn’t bear the weight of my sheets.
touch made me scream and weep.
when it happened my hand was scalded, wracked with spasms,
a dense slab of pain. Five fingers set adrift from my brain
couldn’t cup, grip, press, pinch.
therapy began with holding my right foot in my left hand and squeezing
so it would know where it was. so the crazy screaming nerves would
calm down and remember to be foot.
Therapy was holding my runaway fingers together
reuniting the pinkie with the ring finger, teaching them to be hand.
Therapy was stepping on needles, on burning asphalt, on
glaciers. Ten steps. Fifteen. Try again.
start rubbing the skin with silk, they said,
with wool
with terry cloth
put sandpaper on the toilet seat.
apply texture to the hypersensitive and the dulled.
the arm, the hand, the leg, the foot, the face
no one asked, no one ever asked
about inner skin
about silk and touch and stiff
uno dos tres cuatro cinco
all summer at the gym in Havana
all day every day step, step, step
up down open close
my hand clenching, spreading, uncurling
my foot stepping, bending, arching
walking
strongly
on the earth
but no one asked, no one ever asked
do you feel this?
the injured brain forgets the places it’s lost connection with
blank spaces in the atlas, unexplored oceans
find your missing continents, they said
grasp with your hand, put weight on your foot, touch your face
use it or lose it
but no one asked
do you feel this?
or this?
no one said,
pleasure is a lost continent
touch yourself with silk
how is your clitoris today?
use it or lose it.
stroke, stroke, stroke
No one helps me.
I explore the dry places and the wetlands.
Struggle to clench and release muscles that forgot how.
Rub dry sticks trying to raise a spark.
open, close, open ,close
tracing the tips of nerves that have been sleeping
hoping they will wake up and remember to be delicious
The hand that dives in is still thick as a novacained cheek.
It cramps on the vibrator.
How do I tell which is numb,
the slick, ridged wall or the finger.
clench and release, clench and release
breath
takes me down
breath is a bridge across numbness
closing gaps in the circuits
streaming past burnt neurons
chi dancing naked in the dead places
becomes my instructor
exercise imagination she murmurs,
remember
wet tongue, long finger, velvet cock
breathe them into bound muscle
conjure sensation out of thin air
the imprint of memory
begins restoring the coastline of pleasure
mirages shimmer in the air, forgotten peaks
floating above flesh
breathe them in
breathe them out
become what I have lost
until nothing is missing
stroke
stroke
stroke
stroke
stroke
The audio recording.