Performing Arts Showcase Draws Crowd in San Francisco
By Barbara Duncan (barbaraduncan@gmail.com)
Legendary jazz vocalist and pianist Diane Schuur was the headliner for this year's Ever Widening Circle, the annual showcase of performance artists with disabilities, produced by the World Institute on Disability (WID) and the Corporation on Disabilities and Telecommunication(CDT). Schuur, blind since birth, has been onstage since the age of nine and her ease in the spotlight showed as she drove her accompanying saxophone, bass and drum players to soaring musical heights. Her latest segues into Brazilian tempo and the solos by the first class musicians brought the San Francisco audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to a standing ovation. Several selections were from "Heart to Heart," her latest album.
Charlene Curtiss (in chair) and Joanne Petroff of Light Motion
Held on September 29, the evening performance also featured two edgy comics, C.J. Jones, a deaf African-American who managed to channel the Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin in oral, body and sign language; Fred Burns, who uses psychedelic painted crutches to let you know that his jokes will be counter to your culture; and a spinning, whirling, musically provocative dance by Charlene Curtiss, wheelchair user, and Joanne Petroff of Light Motion, a leading integrated performance company. But, surely, the surprise of the evening was a new talent: 16 year old Emiliano Borgois-Chacon, a local high school junior who recited his bilingual poetry with breathtaking speed and heart-stopping poignancy. Emiliano, who has cerebral palsy, has already won national poetry slams and owes his Spanish fluency to his mother, born in Costa Rica.
Emiliano Borgois-Chacon performing
The evening was co-hosted by Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director of WID and Liane Yasumoto, Executive Director of CDT. CDT organizes Superfest, the International Disability Film Festival held in Berkeley every June. Information via email: Superfest@aol.com
The co-hosts also recognized two longtime supporters of disability rights and culture: Catherine Campisi, Ph.D., director of the California Department of Rehabilitation, received WID's policy & advocacy award; and Victoria Ann Lewis, Ph.D., a performer, writer and director of theatre, received CDT's arts and culture award. Dr. Campisi commented that, "The high level performances tonight remind me that it's true what I have learned over the years - disability is about difference, not about deficit."
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