I recently attended a violin/ conducting performance by Itzhak Perlman at the Seattle Symphony. Perlman has long been one of my heroes when it comes to living well with a disability and taking advantage of his fame to be an advocate for the rest of us crips to boot. He once said something like, "access is not about getting in; it's about getting in with dignity."
At the performance in question, Perlman played three violin pieces and conducted two symphonies. I thought that, as a violinist and conductor, he lacked fire (although not sweetness) that night, that, at 70, he might be feeling his age. One thing that interested me in particular was the choices that I perceived Perlman, who had polio as a child, making in order both to ensure his ability to perform well and to safeguard his own well-being.
In order to conduct the symphony, he had to ascend and descend a podium with three steps. On the top of the podium, he had a chair waiting for him from which he could conduct the orchestra and be seen by all its members. Because of the stairs, instead of using a scooter to get back and forth from the stage door to center-stage, as he has sometimes done, he used two crutches. He had to make the journey back and forth along the stage quite a few times, and the whole process looked painstaking and exhausting. No wonder he rearranged the pieces on the program in order to minimize the number of trips! I wondered what the public spectacle cost him in terms of self-consciousness, or whether he has been doing this for so long that he is simply "over it". Maybe it helps to be a world-class musician and know it. Only he could tell us, I guess.
The man next to me remarked during intermission that he believed Perlman's choice to use the crutches was "planned to be part of the affect." What did he mean by that, I asked. "Well, people have empathy for him, so they clap more." I patiently pointed out that when playing the violin and not conducting Perlman can use the scooter, but when he is expected to ascend three steps to reach his conductor's perch, crutches are his best alternative. What I was thinking was, "Great. Perlman has to struggle with not being able to walk on to the stage like other performers (instead of having the luxury of just thinking about his imminent performance). He's not offered a podium with a ramp. He makes the best choice he can under the circumstances. And then he gets blamed for trying to get more applause by looking pitiable. How long will it be before people with disabilities can escape the pitiable/ overcoming hero dichotomy that society has set up for us? Under such circumstances, how can we come to a place of simply being ourselves?" I'm still working on this one in my own life.