Jillian IlanaJanuary 15, 2023Comment

Laurel Lawson On Kinetic Light And What It Feels Like To Truly Fly

Jillian IlanaJanuary 15, 2023Comment

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Background: A white background with the words “LISTEN NOW” written in gold

Foreground: A dark green box with a photo of Laurel Lawson, a white dancer with very short cropped hair, bounds toward the camera: wheelchair high off the ground, arms open and reaching. A mask of delicate gold wire and lustrous pearls covers half her face. The stage floor below her is drenched in blue light; the same light gives her pale skin a light violet glow. A strand of silver barbed wire appears, close up, in the upper corner. Photo Robbie Sweeny/Kinetic Light. . Below is the white text “#82 Laurel Lawson - Kinetic Light And What It Feels Like To Truly Fly”. Below the text is a white line, the rewind, pause, and fast forward symbols.

Jillian Curwin: Hi everyone. Welcome to Always Looking Up, the podcast where no one is overlooked and height is only a number, never a limit. Hosted by me, Jillian Curwin. Each week I'll be having a conversation about what it is like to live in a world that is not necessarily designed for you.

In this week's episode, I sat down with Laurel Lawson. Laurel is a choreographic collaborator, dancer, designer and engineer with Kinetic Light, an internationally recognized disability arts ensemble. Working in the disciplines of art, technology, design and dance, Kinetic Light creates, performs and teaches at the nexus of access, queerness, disability, dance and race. We discuss the founding and creation of Kinetic Light, the importance of designing an accessible artistic space for the artists and performers, and what it feels like to truly fly. Let's get into it.

Hi, Laurel.

Image Description: Laurel Lawson looks over her shoulder with a soft smile. She is a pale white person with short ash blonde hair and bright red lipstick. Photo by Robert Kim.

Laurel Lawson: Hey, Jillian. How's it going?

Jillian Curwin: It’s going well. How are you?

Laurel Lawson: Here in beautiful, temporarily warm Atlanta. So things are great.

Jillian Curwin: Awesome. Happy New Year. This is the third day of January of 2023. This is the first episode I'm recording in the New Year, and I'm very excited to be speaking with you and having you on the show today.

Laurel Lawson: Awesome. Thank you. Let's kick it off.

Jillian Curwin: To start, why don't you tell my listeners who may not know who you are a little bit about yourself.

Laurel Lawson: Oh, gosh. This is always the hard part. My name is Laurel, and I am an artist engineer. So, in practice, that means that I do too many jobs. I work as a dancer and choreographer. I work as a teacher, as a consultant, and strategist. And I also work in what people kind of think of as the mainstream tech world. But most of all, I bring all of those pieces together to create things that I think should exist in the world. So that's pretty exciting.

Jillian Curwin: That's amazing. And we're going to delve deep into a lot of that.

The first question I ask my guests after they've introduced themselves is How do you define being disabled?

Laurel Lawson: Not as easy a question as it seems on the surface, and I've really been thinking, re-visiting this lately. Being disabled to me is not just a question about me alone. Yes, I am disabled. Among other things, I am a lifelong wheelchair user. And being disabled is a commitment to a political identity. It is, is a signal of a commitment to a cultural identity, to our culture, and there's something important there to me that I think is a commitment to community, to our community, which is something that exists in a way no other community quite does. [Siren sounds in the background] Let's pause and let that siren clear. Sorry.

Jillian Curwin: Mmhmm. You're good.

Laurel Lawson: Okay. Picking back up from a commitment to community, and our community is unique in a lot of ways because we may have so little in common across our body minds. To me, it's a commitment to bridge those gaps and to be in community with people who may be, think, move, experience, the world. Nothing like the way that you do. So yeah, I think to me, being disabled can be a lot of things.

Jillian Curwin: I love that. I love that concept and I've never heard of it before. But that being a commitment to different identities and to the community itself, particularly the social and political identities, because I think those are two aspects of being disabled that aren't talked about a lot. Like, I think they're talked about within like the separate communities, whether the wheelchair user community, whether within the little person community, whether in the invisible disabled community, but not as a whole of like, what it means as a whole to be disabled when looking at it from the political lens or from the social lens because our experiences, like you said, are very different. And I think that's an important conversation that needs to be had more within the community and then also with non-disabled society as well. As to kind of like, establish who we are and what our needs and expectations and like, what we're asking for. I think that is, it's an interesting perspective that I haven't really heard yet, so I like that you brought that up.

Laurel Lawson: Yeah, I really feel that that's one of the critical points. I mean, yes, it is absolutely important and necessary that we have our spaces. You know, as you mentioned, there is a comfort in being in a room full of 100 people in chairs. Believe me, I've heard about some of the shenanigans that happen at LPA. Deaf Space and Deaf Culture is a great example of this- how communities of embodiment and communities of access come together and are important and necessary, and in order to move, we have to move together, you know, as, as a movement, as a broader community, leveraging, you know. We used to say 20% and now it's 25%. And frankly, in an era where COVID exists, I think the number is going to be a minimum of 35% within a few years. We, we do have to move together.

And there are, of course, a lot of challenges to that, dealing with everyone's own internalized ableism. Why would I want to hang out with those other disabled people? Dealing with the fact that our children mostly are not born to us. Little people and Deaf folks are, you know, perhaps the exclusions to that in some ways, which is really a powerful way that culture is created by how we raise our children. But, you know, for the most part, wheelchair users, this is why we have to be out there. We have to be in the spaces. We have to be in those medicalized spaces because that's where people are coming in and we have to show them that there is a community and there is a path forward. It's not about, well, let's fix you.

Jillian Curwin: Right. And I think that's so important that it's happening in the little person community. There's this talk of these quote unquote cures and it's like, what are you trying to cure? What are you trying to fix? Because we don't see our…us being a little person as the problem. The problem is the inaccessibility we find in the world around us. The problem is how societies, you know, the stereotypes that have been portrayed of little people carry over, and of disabled people, have carried over into how society treats us, like those are the problems that need to be addressed and need to be fixed, not our bodies themselves.

And you've raised an interesting point that I would love to talk to you a little bit before we kind of really delve into Kinetic Light, but it's just something I haven't thought about, is the fact that, you know, with certain disabilities, there's a chance, like… I know that there's a 50-50% chance that my child is going to be a little person, and I'm going to be able to experience that with them. But for other people with different disabilities, you know, there's more, often there's this higher percentage that their child is going to be non-disabled and, you know, like that's… how does that, as someone who is a wheelchair user like with, you know, like how does that like- um, I'm trying to think of the right way to say this like…Why aren’t we talking about that? Cause I think that is so important that we should be talking about, is the fact that we're raising kids who may not live in our experiences and what are we teaching them?

Laurel Lawson: Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's necessarily, I mean, how to say it. Would it be an enormous privilege to, to have a child with a similar impairment? I can imagine that it might be. I mean, personally, I'm childfree.

Jillian Curwin: Mmhmm.

Laurel Lawson: My lifestyle and being a parent do not mesh, frankly, as, as an artist. I am on the road nine months out of the year. I can't even have a dog right now, which, you know, is personally pretty heartbreaking to me. But yeah, I mean, non-disabled kids who've grown up with disabled parents, you can always spot it. They generally have a pretty good idea of what's going on. I tend to focus more on the other side of it. You know, those disabled kids out there with non-disabled parents. You know, back when I used to coach basketball and run workshops, one of the first things I always had to do, I learned very early on, parents out of the room. Because the kinds of expectations and limitations from their own internalized, ableism that they're putting out onto their kids are just, you know, really, really screwy.

So, yeah, I mean, I am that person. If you've got, if you've got a kid, three, four or five, eight, ten years old, in public, in a wheelchair, I'm going to come up and say hi because I don't know if they've had the opportunity to talk to someone who moves in the world [like] they do. I don't know if they've had the opportunity to see an example of somebody who is happy and out in the world and independent, you know, getting into some of those ickier stereotypes there. But unfortunately, you know, that's what some of these kids are being raised with around those expectations. So, yeah, there's, there are places that it has to happen and I think a lot of that interface is at the individual.

Jillian Curwin: I agree. And I think one of the spaces that you're doing that, which is how I first came across you and the work you're doing as an artist and in talking about also creating accessible spaces, is with Kinetic Light. Can you talk a little bit as to what that is?

Laurel Lawson: So, Kinetic Light is a grand experiment. A while ago now, it seems like yesterday and also forever, I was visiting Alice [Sheppard] at her house. I think it was Thanksgiving and this was after, you know, we had already made work together. You know, it had been clear for a long time that we would have, we would have work to do together. But on this particular visit, I came in and, and every surface was covered with books, art books. And when I say every surface, I mean the tables, I mean the couch, I mean the floor. Like, I got to the threshold of the room and then I had to get out of my chair and crawl on the floor, picking my way amongst these, you know, giant books of, about Rodin. And Alice has the gift of becoming deeply, deeply absorbed in a topic. So she had seized on this idea, this viewing of Rodin's sculptures as not incompletes, not grotesques, but as disabled bodies. Which was that interesting little hook that eventually led to Descent. And she had found Michael Maag, who I think actually came up with the name for Kinetic Light, and we were off. And, you know, it came from, literally the three of us in this really, really grimy like, unbelievably dusty studio in Oakland to yeah, you know, where we are today with three evening-length shows and starting to dream about the next.

Jillian Curwin: That’s amazing. And I think going into...before we kind of delve into how you designed, how all of you collaborated to design Kinetic Light and that experience, I think what’s so important why, you know…What resonated with me with seeing this performance for the first time, and experiencing it when you were in New York, was one, the importance of creating a space for not just the artist but for the audience that was truly accessible. I have never been in any space that cared so much, and made clear to, for everyone in that room what, you know, that disability was welcome and that it was a place like…The care and that it was, they weren't looking for kudos, they weren't looking for congratulations. They're like, this is just how it's going to be and to, to like walk into that, I had never seen that before in any other artistic space. And so coming in, because I, my friends invited me, they're like, “Hey, do you want to come to this show?” And that was all the description I got. I said, yes, that was all what I was told was like, “Hey, we're going to see this cool show. Come with us.” Okay. So, for that to be how you're welcoming, you know, as some… I'm 27 and I had never felt that welcomed as a disabled person in an artistic space before, as an audience member. And then to see the art that you guys, the artistry, the dancing and everything that, you know, took place on that stage, you know, you talk about like how you will go up to someone, a little kid and say, hi as a wheelchair user because they've never seen that. Like seeing that I was, I like took like a couple days to process what I had seen and like what… to understand the impact of that. And again, I'm 27, like I'm a grown up and I still like, that was incredibly impactful. So I can't even imagine for the younger audience members who saw what you guys had created, and you can tell how hard you worked and the care again from just creating, making sure that the audience felt comfortable in that space and knew that they were welcome like, how do you start? Because again, like coming from seeing like other artistic spaces, like they're not accessible. So, how did you start with creating this space before getting into even just designing the show?

Laurel Lawson: I mean, there's really an imperative there that we're not going to present work that our people can't come to. That is, I think, that's a responsibility. I really do. I know Alice feels the same way, that it would be immoral, it would be unethical of us to, to present work in an inaccessible space. And unfortunately, not everybody shares that perspective, but it's, everything is kind of coming from that starting principle. And, you know, that certainly does not mean we're not perfect. It is, it is not possible for access to be perfect. Access is complex. It is evolving. It is relational. It is a conversation. I often say access is aspirational, but we can work our butts off for it.

So I come from a background, actually, of hospitality. I grew up in a restaurant and, you know, was actually working in the restaurant very… as a child. So, beginning with maybe that seed of things, when I am working with venues, when I'm working, especially with their front of house teams it's like, this is not something special, this is not different, this is hospitality. I don't care what you think your job is, you are hospitality professionals. And that is where we begin. And then, you know, kind of blowing open this concept of hospitality means everybody. So that is really important to us. Some of it is, you know, some of it’s kind of obvious. Like the bathrooms. We always have to talk about bathrooms.

Jillian Curwin: Mmhmm.

Laurel Lawson: We often, we will bias towards having intermissions in a show where other people might run the show all the way through. Because if you need to pee, really, you know, you're sitting there thinking, please let the show end. Please let the show end. Please let the show be over now.

Jillian Curwin: Right.

Laurel Lawson: If you're not actually watching like, you know, selfishly, we as artists don't want that. We want you to be able to pay attention and, you know, participate in what we've worked so hard to put out there for you. So, we always have to talk about bathrooms. We have to think about how many stalls, how many all-gender, how many for wheelchair users and larger folks. What is the routing? How long? Like just, just the pure logistics of it, for a really concrete example. And then that extends into those other pieces of how we think about audio description, how we think about, this piece I'm working on intensively now, of the haptics. But more than that, it is about the community. It is about the way that people are welcomed in and when it's possible for us to connect with and bring in local community organizers and advocates to help to supplement venue staff. Those are the shows where things tend to run really smoothly, and we were able to do that for both the Chicago and New York premieres of Wired. So that was really, really amazing to have disabled artists, advocates, organizers, academics, you know, come in and be in the space. And that's not something that has a model in the arts world. You know, this is really, we're spending probably, I would say easily ten times as much time working with venues and working on these elements of the container before we can even talk about the show.

Jillian Curwin: And when talking with them and, focusing on New York, because that's just where I was. And again, being in that space like was there any resist…Like, did you meet resistance from the venue? And if so like, could you go into a little detail as to what it was and how you worked around that problem? Or that resistance?

Laurel Lawson: Without going into any real specifics? I will say that there is almost always resistance. And that's because if only because we are introducing these things that are completely new. You know, there's a, there's a lot of inertia. Venues are very experienced in presenting art. And there are, you know, behind the scenes, there are patterns and models for this. We already break a lot of those patterns because of the scale of the work that we're doing. We do not fit, you know, there's like a template of you load in this day, you tech this afternoon, you rehearse this morning, you perform this night, you perform this night, you move out, you're gone. We don't fit that model because, you know, Wired for example, let's just say it takes more than one morning to build that truss structure.

Jillian Curwin: I am sure. I can't even imagine. Can you explain what Wired…? Yeah, no. Go ahead.

Laurel Lawson: Probably, back up on that. The, the truss structure can be built in a morning, but then there's lights, there's motors, etc., etc., etc. It's big and complex.

Wired is an aerial meditation on barbed wire. It is an evening-length work entirely created and designed by disabled artists and designers. It is a work that features three disabled dancers on stage. And one thing that I think is worth mentioning in this context we're talking about, is that Alice and I made a[n] intentional choice that we would always fly in our wheelchairs because, after all, what good are wheels in the air, but the point that we're making is that these are our bodies.

Jillian Curwin: Right. And how did you, before we get into the meaning of that. Because I think that is something that a lot of people don't understand. I'm just curious with the design, like, how did you design the apparatus to be able to do that? Like did you, how much did you have to figure out versus how much did you know would be possible? Like, how is that process, the choreographing and design process like?

Laurel Lawson: Starting out, we knew almost nothing. You know, we are not the first artists to be rigged in our chairs. We are the first people to do it this way. And so, it has been an immense amount of experimentation. We are supported by amazing professionals. And a lot of it started out really with just working through, you know, in the very, very early stages using what is considered conventional equipment. You know, very light climbing harnesses which, if you've seen those, you know, they… it goes around your waist and it goes around your legs and well, you know, one little problem with that, that relies on the integrity and strength of your hips to hold you in there.

Jillian Curwin: Right.

Laurel Lawson: If, for example, my hips were to become dislocated, I am, you know, okay, not only in some small amount of pain, but I'm dead in the air. And I'm also not being held securely in the harness. So we were going, and as well neither of us could, you know, move very well because, again, that's, that's reflecting this kind of non-disabled body where that is where all your power and control is coming from. But my power and control all comes from my upper torso, through my, through my chest and upper back and shoulders. So, yes, we had to really, really, I mean, work from the basic principles…And so much of this happened over the course of 2020 when we were able to bubble the whole company up together and just really dig into this ,and go through the painstaking experimentation.

The same thing for dancing through it. It was really having to work through, to create the technique almost before we could even create movement on it. And, you know, I would not call myself an expert aerialist, nowhere near at this point. It's something that we're exploring further. But, yeah, this has been, this has now been a process of years. Oh gosh, when did we start? Oh, 2018, maybe.

Jillian Curwin: Oh, wow.

Laurel Lawson: 2019, certainly. To start these experiments, to start playing with it. I mean, Wired was originally supposed to be a 2020 premiere. I'm very grateful that we had those extra years on it, actually, because what we had, what we were planning to put out there in 2020 is nowhere near what the show is now.

Jillian Curwin: Okay. And what was, during this process, because I feel like a lot of it, like you said, was like kind of figuring it out as you go into kind of, again, creating this vocabulary and these movements like, what was the most challenging part of that process? And on the flip side, what was the most rewarding part?

Laurel Lawson: Oh uhh, challenging? Flying is really, really hard. Flying is an intense physical challenge because really, everything changes when you no longer have the ground to push against. And that has required actually just a lot of compensatory training. For example, I have a lot of scoliosis. You know, if I'm not constantly pushing against the ground, you know, holding myself in a position, then it's really easy for me to sort of just start zhuzhing off to one side into that curvature, which is, which becomes very painful over time. So when I'm in the air and I don't have the ground to push against, and it took me a long time to realize that that was happening and that I had to really, really work when I was out of the air to, to compensate, to prehab-rehab, that kind of stuff. These are things that happen no matter what. I mean, this is true for all dancers. And no matter what kind of work you're doing, I think because we are working in this physical medium and we're doing it for a lot of hours a day, that means we have to spend a lot of hours a day in recovery, in training. You know, this is not just like, you know, you're going out and exercising for three or four hours a day. This is, we're actually doing things that aren't necessarily beneficial to our bodies.

So, yeah, along with that, flying requires for the, for the movement that we're doing, for the work that we're doing, flying requires a lot of core strength. You know, we're swinging through the air, we’re, we're doing partner work in the air. So we have to be really, really stable and confident in a lot of those positions. And that has been immensely, immensely difficult.

And just for fun, I'll throw out there, I'm scared of heights. You know, my least favorite moment in the show is right before we get started. It's that moment where we are just waiting and we're dangling. You know we’re, we're 18 feet in the air and we're dangling from this little quarter inch cable. And I know it's safe. The equipment is inspected every single time we go up on it. And, and still, you know, just still hanging out in the darkness, 18 feet in the air. My least favorite moment. And then it's, you know, then it, then we're off and everything's fine, rewarding.

I mean, flying is also fun. It is, aside from the fact that it is an immense privilege to be able to do this work, to to be in this kind of infrastructure, and to be supported and bringing these kind of wild ideas to life. I mean even, even as a senior product designer in tech, you know, there aren't all that many rooms I can roll into and be like, hey, this thing I just dreamed it up. Let's do it and, you know, even, even in tech, which is the business of creating something out of nothing, people tend to give you weird looks. So that, that is a privilege and a joy. And, you know, the, the artistic fellowship that we have is, is really amazing.

Jillian Curwin: I love that. Can you describe what it feels like, not just even as a disabled person in a wheelchair, but just, you know, to experience that? I think we all dream about when we're little but never get to really experience. And you get to do it when you're on stage. Like, what does it feel like to fly, for you?

Laurel Lawson: Oh, I think the difference between those dreams and the reality is the, that in the dream, somehow it was always effortless.

Jillian Curwin: Yes.

Laurel Lawson: The so…. Yeah. So for me, I'm actually not going to talk about the, the flying, you know, the, the swooshing through the air so much as the bouncing. Where I have the most fun is on bungee. And Alice is actually going to say the same thing. Bungee is so much fun to be able to just boing, boing, boing you know, off the ground, in the air. It's like all the best parts of being on a trampoline without that splat at the end. You know, it's still, it's still hard. It's still physically taxing, but it's fun.

Jillian Curwin: It looks so fun seeing it. I was like, how do I do that? Like, how? Like, how do you come up with that? And just, like, watch like, you can feel like, sitting in that audience like, you felt the joy coming like, emanating from the stage in your performance during that, cause it was absolutely amazing.

What did you hope, or what do you still continue to hope as audiences are coming to see you, that they are getting…? Seeing you, seeing a company of disabled artists in chairs flying across the stage, you know, flying in your chairs across the stage. Like, what do you hope that they are leaving the theater feeling, thinking like, what are you hoping resonates with them?

Laurel Lawson: I mean, what we're hoping resonates is the work itself. This is not work about disability. This is not, you know, we're not, we're not making pieces that are like, this is a story of how I embraced disability and came to love myself. This is not identity art. And yes, it is work made by disabled artists. Disability is a critical context in our work. It is not ignorable. So mostly, what we're hoping resonates, are the messages and the themes of the work itself. I firmly believe that one of the differences between art and entertainment is that art should make a change. Art has…

Jillian Curwin: Yes.

Laurel Lawson: A conversation. Art should leave you a little bit different than before. And that's not... I have to head this off at the pass. I am not devaluing entertainment. Entertainment is amazing, and important, and we need it. And entertainment and art crossover. Blend. Art can and should be entertaining. Seeing things presented as entertainment can absolutely be art and we need both. And that's how I personally create classification there. Good art, great art should leave everybody changed, both the artists and the audience.

So yeah. I hope that, I hope that people have thoughts about the work, about what's being communicated in it. And I recognize that we cannot ignore the more, you know, surface level impacts that this is the first time most people have seen anything even remotely like this. So, for, for that non-disabled audience member who has never seen a disabled dancer before, yeah. You know, we recognize that they’re going to have thoughts and feelings about that. And on the whole that, I think it's a good thing that is a part of why we are, we are doing things. I mean, there are absolutely strategic decisions and reasons why we might choose to do things one way and not another, you know?

Jillian Curwin: And, you know, looking ahead to 2023, you know, what are you working on now? What's, what does the future have in store?

Laurel Lawson: Oh, let's see. I mean, of course we have, we have a lot of performing coming up. Wired has just premiered, so that's now ready to go into touring. So this is a stage where there's kind of a lot of, a lot of back and forth, a lot of getting it out there and figuring out what presenters might want to bring us, and a lot of administrative work. We are planning a lot of further exploration, you know, further development of our technique. So your studio time, training time, of course, our Lincoln Center debut is coming up in February. And as of today, I think there's still a couple of accessible seats left for those shows. The oh, most of the seating sold out very quickly, but, you know, not going to complain about that. And this is, that show will be Under Momentum which is, which takes place entirely on what we call the mini ramps, ramp Legos, or the ramp kit originally designed by Sarah Hendren, as, you know, modular, portable ramp elements. So those get moved around the stage, actually, in between sections. So we're putting those ramps in every kind of conformation you can imagine, and maybe can't imagine ramps to go in.

Um, yeah. I mean, I'm, I personally am moving into a lot of R&D time. We premiered our use of haptics as an entry point for work with Wired. I've been working with fiber fusion labs out of Canada for a little while now and dreaming up some ways to really utilize a haptic interface as something that is aesthetically meaningful. So I'm concentrating pretty heavily on that, which is actually some hardware development as well as the kind of aesthetic. What does it mean to make a language? To make an artistically communicative language out of the way that we perceive vibration? So, yeah, there's a ton of stuff coming up.

Jillian Curwin: Wow. That all sounds incredible. I'm kind of at a loss for words. I will be as soon as we stop recording trying to see if I can get a ticket to see you at Lincoln Center.

And I think the work that… I'm trying to think of how to say this right. Like, you know, we talked about like, when you're going up to a younger wheelchair user and like seeing, you know, introducing yourself and, you know, you're doing that on such a huge stage. And I think that's so important for disabled audience members to see because again, we all, regardless of whether we’re non-disabled or disabled growing up, we all dreamed of, you know, big things for ourselves. I saw myself on a stage but never thought it was possible because I didn't see myself on stages in the sense that there were no, really, little person actors on Broadway, which is the place I love and want to be, but often and still do find inaccessible. So to see that, to see you like, watch again, go back like, watching that performance and just listening to you and hearing all the work and that again, the access is a key point. And like you said, it's aspirational, but it's something that you're striving for and like I want the industry as a whole to be like listening and watching and saying, we can like we can do this. We don't have, you know, there shouldn't be excuses anymore to not make art accessible for both the artists and for the audience.

Laurel Lawson: Yeah. I mean, we're not, we're not going into things that were built with disabled consultants. You know, we're going into the built environment that is there. We're going into these venues. It is about hospitality. It is about people. It's about attitude. It's about, you know, just understanding what it really means to provide an equitable experience, that it's not something that gets adapted after the fact. It's not day of. Perhaps someone asks for an interpreter. It's, of course, we have interpreters, and that's publicized, and that's out there. And people don't have to go through that layer of extra effort, you know. I think the thing that totally escapes people is how much extra labor do, we do on a daily basis to find out if we can get somewhere, if it's going to be accessible when we get there. The, you know, literally the sitting outside the door, because you can't get in, level of inaccessibility. And that is really…Yeah, that is, this is not hard. It's, it's just really not. It takes some work. It takes some thoughtfulness. And a big part of what I do is work with organizations, work with people to facilitate that kind of change in thinking, and for the organizations that are prepared to commit, that are willing to say, okay, this is important, we're going to learn how to do this. The kind of transformation that can bring inside an organization is really amazing.

I remember one place we went on tour actually in the fall and talking to the presenter afterwards. Um, a, a local CIL had turned out in force, a Center for Independent Living. So we had an audience, it was probably 50% disabled folks. It was incredible. And you know, she was, the presenter was in shock. And I just asked, you know, how many members of this audience have you ever seen before? And she said, none of them. You know, there's, you know, two donors and a couple of students over there, and that's it. It's like, well, now you know how to do it. Appealing to the business side of things, which I kind of hate doing because we shouldn't have to. And it works, you know, you could have this audience, you know, you could have this audience at your other shows. Would you like to sell out consistently? You know, it wasn't, it wasn't that hard, was it?

Jillian Curwin: Right. And as you said, we'll show up if a space is accessible and we feel welcomed, we'll show up.

Laurel Lawson: Yeah. I mean, I hate to say it, but it's kind of low hanging fruit, right? If it's accessible, if we can get in, if you don't have to call ahead, if you don't have to ask and be made to feel an inconvenience for asking for an accessible seat, if you can go to the bathroom, for an interpreter, if there will be audio description, whatever. We will come and be pretty damn loyal.

Jillian Curwin: Exactly. It really, it's really that simple. One day. One day they'll….

Well, I mean, you're again, like your start, you're changing it. One day, it'll be a universal... I have to believe it, that it'll be a, you know, a change will happen.

Laurel Lawson: I hope so. I mean, this is, in some ways, we've chosen the kind of battering ram approach which has taken a lot of work. There's, there's a lot of work to this behind the scenes because that was the, that was the approach we, we thought would work, you know, as Alice, Michael, and I have all had long careers in the performing arts prior to coming together to do this. And that was what we needed in order to learn as artists, as designers. Uh, and to figure out how we could, how we could be the wedge. How we could, how we could insert that crowbar in the door of these inaccessible, and frankly inhospitable, spaces and make space for our work. And knowing that doing so makes space for everyone else to come in the door after we've…

Jillian Curwin: After you've kicked it down..

Laurel Lawson: Crowbarred it open and…

Jillian Curwin: Exactly.

Laurel Lawson: Jimmied the hinges behind us so it can't be slammed shut again.

Jillian Curwin: Exactly. I think that's something that, you know, is important. It's not just getting the door open. It's keeping it open for others to come behind you.

Laurel Lawson: Yeah. I mean, that is that is actually a really deliberate part of our strategy that we're we've chosen to go maximalist, and I mean, in part because we can make really amazing work that way, and we're working to make that space, and we're working to make a space that's bigger than us because we need everyone else to come into the space with us.

Jillian Curwin: Right. I love that.

Who do you look up to?

Laurel Lawson: Oh, gosh. I would say I look up to hundreds of people in different ways. I don't know if I can pick. I'm sorry that I'd have to, like, sit down and start making lists. I look up to so many disabled people, you know, my, my mentors, and teachers, and friends, advocates and organizers. But also, you know, other artists, other people working in the field. Yeah. I mean, no, really, I'd have to, like, make a… I have to make a whole list.

Jillian Curwin: It's all good. I love that answer though. I love that there's so many people that you look up to.

Um, where can my audience members who are listening, who want to see Kinetic Light or want to follow you, like, where can they do that?

Laurel Lawson: Well, we’re on the web and on Instagram and Facebook. KineticLight.org on the web. @kineticlightdance on social. But the number one way, if you want to come see the company and please do, definitely sign up for our mailing list because we always announce ticket sales there first and shows tend to sell out pretty quickly. So that is absolutely the best way to, to get in to see a show. And I am also all over the place online, but mostly for the pretty pictures you can find me on Instagram, @worldsoflaurel.

Jillian Curwin: And the pictures are gorgeous. I must say.

Laurel Lawson: Thank you.

Jillian Curwin: Go follow. Go support. Go check it out. If you can go see them, please do. It is an incredible experience the moment you cross the threshold and enter the space.

Laurel, thank you so, so much for coming on, for talking with me. It's been an honor. I'm so excited for people to hear your story, to learn more about Kinetic Light. I do kind of an icebreaker at the end. I think it's more fun that way. I think they make icebreakers more enjoyable. So what I have are five categories and I just want to hear your favorite in each one, starting with favorite book.

Laurel Lawson: Oh, you keep asking these hard questions. I'm going to go left field with this one. Terry Pratchett, Weird Sisters.

Jillian Curwin: Okay, next one favorite TV show.

Laurel Lawson: Great British Bake Off.

Jillian Curwin: Yes. Favorite drink.

Laurel Lawson: Probably the politically correct answer here is coffee, but the real answer might be a Manhattan.

Jillian Curwin: I think they're both absolutely correct.

Favorite piece of advice you've ever given.

Laurel Lawson: Oh, bother. Are you allowed to have a favorite piece of advice you've given? I mean, that actually...

Jillian Curwin: You’re the first person to ask me that and now I’m questioning...

Laurel Lawson: Like, I think that just actually broke me a little bit. I might have to sit with that question a little bit like that, that feels a little arrogant.

Jillian Curwin: Oh, I've never had that question. But now that you say that...Wow. Wait. We can circle back…We could circle back to the last one, which is the flip. Which is the favorite piece of advice you've ever received.

Laurel Lawson: Oh, um, hmm. I mean, I don't know about my favorite in terms of, like, advice that I like, but in terms of, to just quit procrastinating, do it, you know. It'll suck the first time you do it, but that's okay.

Jillian Curwin: Got it.

I’ll rephrase, then, a little bit, to what has been the most…What is your go-to advice when someone's coming to you, a new artist is, an upcoming artist is coming to you, what is the advice you give them?

Laurel Lawson: You know, it's probably going to be that same, that same idea that you're going to make some sucky work in the beginning. And that's okay. That if this is something that you need to do and like, there are so many easier paths in the world to being an artist, this is not, this is not the easy road. But if this is, if this is what you are called to do, then you just have to get in there, be thoughtful. You know, think about what you're doing, think about who you're impacting. Think about how the work that you're making is going to live in the world. But yeah, if you have to make then you make.

Jillian Curwin: Love that. [Siren sounds in the background] There’s now a siren on my so we're going to let that go by.

Laurel Lawson: Oh well, it happens.

Jillian Curwin: It's New York. It's all the time. [Siren continues to sound] Oh my gosh, it won’t end. Okay. I think, okay, we're going to just, we're going to go with it.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. This has been an amazing conversation. Please go follow her. Go check out Kinetic Light if you can. Again, if you can go see them, please do. It is an incredible performance and experience just all around is just it is it is an incredible work of art that you should experience if you can.

The final, final, final, final thing I just have to ask of you is to remind my listeners in your most badass, most fierce voice possible that hey is just a number, not a limit.

Laurel Lawson: Height is not...

Jillian Curwin: You’re good.

Laurel Lawson: Height, height is just a number, not a limit.

Jillian Curwin: Always Looking Up is hosted by Jillian Curwin, and edited and produced by Ben Curwin. Please make sure to rate, review, and subscribe and follow on Spotify so that you never miss an episode. Follow me on Instagram @jill_ilana and the podcast @alwayslookingup.podcast for updates and check out my blog JillianIlana.com for more content about what it is like to be a little person in an average sized world.

Thanks for listening. See you next week.