Disability Nightlife on The Kelly Clarkson Show (v.165)
Access magic gets some major shine.
Today, I was a guest on The Kelly Clarkson Show (Season 6, Episode 65) talking about organizing that weaves access as artistry into nightlife spaces.
HOW TO WATCH
From Jan. 10 through Jan. 16, the full episode will be available on Peacock, NBC’s streaming platform. If you live in the US, Canada, or Australia and have a cable subscription or live TV platform, you might also be able to catch the episode’s second airing by checking where and when the show airs in your area.
If these options don’t work for you, stay tuned for more clips I’ll share here soon.
SHARING THIS SHINE
Each episode, Kelly and her team uplift the work of organizers holding things down in their communities. Today’s show presents cultural disability organizing to an audience of over 1.4 million daily viewers.
I wanted to take a moment to give a deeper dive into what I talked about on Kelly’s (extremely comfortable) couch. When we understand access as an artistic process, we collaborate across modalities, languages, time, and space. None of this can be done alone.
I hope the context here helps you discover a whole vista of artists, organizers, and access workers who are creating space where disability is expected and cherished.
A LITTLE TIMELINE OF SHENANIGANS
Disability nightlife has been around since disabled people have, which is to say, since ever. This timeline lays out some of the work I’ve done with many collaborators over the last 8 years. But stay tuned for some longer histories of disability nightlife and work that is being done right now across the world in the next issue.
2016 - 2019: PREFIGURING
In 2016 and 2017, my mentor Simi Linton and I shaped a public platform for disability artistry in NYC’s cultural plan, CreateNYC. After it was released, we were talking with Tom Finkelpearl, then-Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs. “There were two groups that were really active in the cultural planning process,” he told us. “Disability arts and DIY nightlife.”
Something clicked. Nightlife should be more accessible than other city systems. And unlike other kinds of organizing, we don’t have to wait to try. This has been called “prefigurative politics,” proceeding as if the future conditions we want are here-and-now.
As part of Gibney’s Moving Toward Justice program, I started developing a long-term plan. I held a town hall with Ariel Palitz, the Founding Director of the Mayor's Office of Nightlife. I started meeting all kinds of rad people in rad spaces where we could throw the party.
In April 2019, choreographer and performer Jerron Herman invited me to score and DJ the premiere of RELATIVE, a work that transformed the inaugural I wanna be with you everywhere festival at Performance Space New York into a crip club of our wildest dreams.
I published an article called “Crip Club Vibes” in an academic journal called Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience. “We need all nightlife spaces to become accessible,” I wrote, “something that calls for a thoroughgoing restructuring of the built environment, transportation systems, and access labor.”
But at the very end of 2019, we learned about the novel coronavirus.
2020: REMOTE ACCESS
As Covid arrived with terrifying force, I remember texting with Aimi Hamraie, a scholar, organizer, and founder of the Critical Design Lab that was a key space for deepening and developing our nightlife dreams. It was time for what our queer ancestors taught us: to come together to mix our grief and rage with dance and joy.
The first event for what would become the REMOTE ACCESS party collective took place on March 22, 2020.
In July 2020, we organized REMOTE ACCESS: Witches N Glitches as part of the Allied Media Conference. Hundreds of people showed up. There were DJ sets by Crip Time (Stefana Fratila) and Who Girl (yours truly), incantations by Aimi Hamraie, moira williams, Ezra Benus, and Perel, and featured choreography by Jerron Herman and Octavia Rose Hingle. Yo-Yo Lin, Pelenakeke Brown, and I debuted a video work called “Glitchual.” There were shows by Alopexian and Lil Miss Hot Mess. We had ASL song-signing from Brandon Kazen-Maddox and excellent captions from Mirabai Knight. Margaret Fink, Sasha Kurlenkova, Charles Eppley, and Cameron French offered what we started calling “access doula-ing.”
The parties started rolling, punctuating conference programs, celebrating birthdays, and leaving evidence.
In April 2021, Yo-Yo Lin designed a virtual world called GlitchRealm where we spatialized the party into literally infinite digital space on a platform called Arium during CultureHub’s Re-Fest program. It featured design elements by Aminder Virdee, Torin Blankensmith, and Finnegan Shannon. DJ Queer Shoulders (danilo machado) performed, as well as JJJJJerome Ellis, Pelenakeke Brown, and everyone who took the mic in a karaoke room held open by moira williams.
In addition to Aimi and Kelsie Acton’s loving practice of documentation and archiving, REMOTE ACCESS parties would go on to be chronicled by disabled writers and scholars including Alex Dolores Salerno, danilo machado, and Lisa Prentice. In 2022, we were recognized with an United States Artist award.
2021 - 2024: LINCOLN CENTER
When Lincoln Center began re-opening their stages, Director of Accessibility Miranda Hoffner understood the essential role of disability artistry as public life grappled with the pandemic. Miranda and her fabulous team invited me to DJ a silent disco for a Big Umbrella event for neurodivergent kiddos.
It was the first time I had heard of a project called Music: Not Impossible that developed a vibro-tactile suit to translate audio into vibrations through a vest and other contact points. This would become a blueprint for parties we’ve thrown in Lincoln Center’s Summer for the City Festival each summer.
In 2022, we organized the first “Evening of Access Magic” with an installation of The Society of Disabled Oracles oracle deck, tarot reading with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson (Temperance Queer Tarot), a ritual by Nocturnal Medicine, ASL from Brandon Kazen-Maddox and the Up Until Now Collective, party choreography by x. Ezra Benus and Jezz Chung did coziness audits that help inform low-stimulation space and dance floor seating.
As some moved from remote spaces back into venues, many nightlife spaces have tried to put Covid in the past. There is no “post-Covid era” when the ongoing pandemic affects everyone, and especially immunocompromised and disabled folks. As we’ve moved this work into in-person gatherings, we’ve used various approaches to mask adherence at parties. We have a lot more to learn and try.
In 2023, I curated a series of events called “Cultivating Access Ecologies.” An interactive workshop focused on late-breaking access tools, with contributions from Una Osato, Rebecca Cokley, and Pato Hebert. We held 2 silent disco parties featuring work by DJ Nico DiMarco, Jerron Herman, DJ Crip Time (Stefana Fratila from Crip Rave), JJJJJerome Ellis, and Syrus Marcus Ware. We had live audio description by Madison Zalopany. All events also occurred in a virtual world designed by Bianca Carague.
That year, the party was covered by NPR and The New York Times.
And in 2024, “An Evening of Access Magic” returned with a performance by disabled pop star Austin Halls, poetic captioning by danilo machado, more party verbal description by Madison Zalopany, more ASL song-signing from Candace Davider and colleagues, and an anti-ableist dance lesson by Jerron Herman and me in the tradition of Adrian Piper’s Funk Lessons.
2025: The Kelly Clarkson Show
We’ve just started and already daytime television has given our work a major boost.
“A wild blur of joy” is how I’ve described the whole experience of being on The Kelly Clarkson Show. When we sat down on set, the last thing Kelly said to me before the cameras rolled was “…and if we fuck it up, we’ll just do it over!” It was a simple and great example of how everyone from Kelly’s team made sure I was ready to represent this work.
I told Kelly how I could sense just how many happy artists were working on her show. Meeting artists’ access needs begins with safe and supportive working conditions.
In the work I’m doing with my colleagues at Creatives Rebuild New York (many of whom were in the audience), it’s important to stress how art takes work! So if you happen to be in the NYC area on Wednesday, Jan. 15, we are launching the Art Takes Work campaign in Times Square at 5pm ET. RSVP and learn more here.
ROLL CREDITS
Saadia van Winkle and Erinrose Mager are the comms strategy team of a girl’s dreams. They got me on the show and supported me at every turn. When I called Dom Rubio with the news, they immediately jumped in to find my look and be my stage mom backstage. Tilly d Wolfe from Vers BK helped style the outfit, with garments by Lizzy Gee, Elias Gurrola, and Prince Peacock. Cyler Daigle beat my mug into perfection for the cameras. Kelly’s team, especially Laura Palmer, Juliana Zatarain, and Olivia Prunier Herman. To all of you, thank you.
And thank you to all the collaborators over the years, especially Jerron Herman who was in the studio for the taping and did energetic steadying I can still feel. My partner, Cameron French, is my personal access magician whose care and love astounds me daily.
Great post & exciting!! You look amazing!!! Thanks for the history!!💜💜💜
Wow that's so cool, congrats! And if I may, you looked FANTASTIC, great outfit and so joyful!