This year’s Disability Pride Festival, held at the end of July, featured several disabled musicians, artists, poets, and performance groups from our area. Among them was MahataMmoho Collective, a dance group that began a grant-funded project at this year’s festival, and will share the results of the project at next year’s festival. WBFO’s Emyle Watkins sat down with founder Megan Rakeepile before their performance at the festival to hear about how dance can help our community rethink care and equity.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
PLAIN LANGUAGE DESCRIPTION: Every July, the disability community gathers for the annual Disability Pride Festival in downtown Buffalo. This year, the festival featured many disabled poets, artists, musicians, and performance groups. MahataMmoho Collective, a dance group, performed. Their performance started off a year-long project that will end at next year’s festival. The project is focused on care in our communities. Next year’s performance will include what they learned over the year of working on the project. WBFO’s Disability Reporter Emyle Watkins spoke with the founder of MahataMmoho, Megan Rakeepile, about the project ahead of their performance at the Disability Pride Festival. They discuss how dance can be used to think about care and accessibility. They also discuss how the dance group has made their performances more accessible.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript provided by a contractor and may be updated over time to be more accurate.
Emyle Watkins: Hi, I'm Emyle Watkins. This is the WBFO Disabilities Beat.
This year's Disability Pride Festival, which was held at the end of July, featured several disabled musicians, artists, poets, and performance groups from our area. Among them was MahataMmoho Collective, a dance group that began a grant-funded project at this year's festival, and will share the results of that project at next year's festival. I sat down with founder Megan Rakeepile before their performance at the festival to hear about how dance can help our community rethink care and equity.
Emyle Watkins: Megan, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today at the Disability Pride Festival. I'd love to hear what you're up to today at the festival.
Megan Rakeepile: Well, I'm so happy to be here, so is my company, MahataMmoho Collective. Today, we are in the process of creating some work. We've been awarded a CARES Grant, and talking about care, and how we can use our art form, which is dance, to create accessibility and care physically. Sometimes we hold certain traumas in our body. What we're going to see today is how do we recognize it, how can we heal from it? Because sometimes, what we can say verbally doesn't mean that we're not still discovering that physically. That's the presentation that we're going to have.
With the CARES Grant that I got, we're going to start deep diving for a whole year, and incorporating people from the community, from the disabled community. From people who probably feel like, "Wow, I didn't know that I could have been a part of it." Then next year, we will be displaying what that means, that journey together. Yeah.
Emyle Watkins: That's really wonderful to hear. Describe to me what this performance is like.
Megan Rakeepile: This performance is really going to be an observation of not something that you see, which is dancing and twirling. It's more a couple of pieces that I have put together. At first, it really is about what is it to just be your true self, and not dictate to what you're supposed to be, the expectations and the standards. And in finding the freedom, and then what is that absolute freedom? But then, community, and connecting, and finding the connection with one another. What does that look like?
A lot of this is going to be exploratory. There have been certain prompts that I have given my company members. When these movements, they have to come from a place of honesty, because sometimes you don't know what to do. In dance, you think that everything's choreographed, but sometimes we also have moments where that honesty comes in. What does it look like in your uncertainty? We'll be seeing some of that.
Also, I have my drummers here today, which I feel is very important when we're doing community work. The drums hold a very sacred place for people, as a whole. A drum call, it calls the community in. The vibrations brings in and sets the tone of what's happening. This is also going to be different. Not only when we're drumming there's going to be some interesting sounds that the drummers are going to make outside of what we're used to hearing. And using the drum in a very creative way that people don't expect. Because sometimes people are like, "Oh, okay. That's how it's supposed to be," and that's it. Yeah.
Emyle Watkins: Something that struck me as you were talking about that, especially as someone who's both neurodivergent and physically disabled, is just being disabled, people have a lot of expectations of you. There's also these ideas around, especially being neurodivergent, how it's okay to act. We mask as neurodivergent people to appear more normative. It kind of sounds like this dance might also be a reflection of the community in that way.
Megan Rakeepile: Yeah.
Emyle Watkins: Tell me a little bit more about the thought process.
Megan Rakeepile: The thought process for that is showing what it's like to discover that you realize that you have been masking. Or you realize that the space that you've been in has limited you. Then stepping out of that, and finding bravery of, "I can find my voice, I can find who I am, but I can love who I am." It's okay. It's okay that I might not be able to do what the next person is doing, but sometimes we're all on that same journey of finding acceptance and inclusion.
Really, that's what it's about. When we talk about the disabled community and the disability community, sometimes we feel like, "Oh, well that art form, it's dance. I can't do it because my anxiety." Like you said, neurodivergent. "I can't do it because maybe there's too many people." We can create spaces like that, where maybe the first thing we do is have a discussion and ask, "What do you need?" What you're going to see is these discussions about not only what their selves, but what do we need from each other to create safe spaces?
I think that's also important, is that we need to show in the art world, because that's where I stand on, is that in the art world we can say, "Hey, this is for you, too." And that we believe that we need to open up the doors because eventually, evidently as we get older, our hips, our legs, we lose our eyesight, we lose our hearing. Does that mean that then all those things are gone or do we continue to find ways to create accessibility? That's the whole thing is, with this piece, you're going to see what does it look like to create accessibility?
Emyle Watkins: What are some ways that your dance troupe has made things more accessible? I may have heard that sign language is part of that.
Megan Rakeepile: Yes, yes. I do have two company members. One, something had happened to her and she became permanently deaf on the right side. Another company member, through just her art form, she learned how to do sign language. She shared with me, she's like, "Well, I learned how to have a conversation." In working in the theater and the dance world, sometimes we assume, because we don't see the physical disability, that there isn't. It goes in and out for her. She has shared with me, "Okay, if we're doing a process that I'm closing my eyes," she says, "it's okay to touch me so then I know to open my eyes."
I've been very blessed to really say that I have worked with someone that's like "Hey, I need something," and I was able to provide it. I was like, "Wow. What if I can provide it in other ways?" What if I had the opportunity to work with people that want to dance, or want to create work or collab with me, and they feel afraid because they don't feel like where would they fit in? This is really a kickoff to saying, "Hey, I want to work with you. I want you to know that we can do this together. And that whatever it is that you need, do not be afraid to ask because it's not a hindrance." It isn't. That's how you create diversity.
We think of diversity sometimes is just because of our skin tone. But diversity means in all ways. Between culture, between accessibility of it being a disability or not. It's okay to ask. I think I want to create a space, and help the arts community continue to create spaces. Because it's not like we don't have them, but I also want to help be an advocate, and create safe spaces for all people. And let them know that don't feel like you can't be a part of something, because you can, and it is okay to ask.
Emyle Watkins: You can listen to the Disabilities Beat segment on demand, and view a transcript and plain language description for every episode on our website at wbfo.org. I'm Emyle Watkins. Thanks for listening.
