{"id":31,"date":"2008-06-03T16:08:04","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T16:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp\/?p=31"},"modified":"2008-06-03T16:08:04","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T16:08:04","slug":"i_am_my_one_and_only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/2008\/06\/i_am_my_one_and_only\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am My One and Only"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\">by guest blogger <a href=\"http:\/\/www.automaticheartbreak.com\/\">Corey Dargel<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"RemovableParts.gif\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/RemovableParts.gif\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;\" height=\"194\" width=\"257\" \/><\/span>In September 2007, my piece <i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.removableparts.com\/\">Removable Parts<\/a><\/i> premiered at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.here.org\/\">HERE Arts Center<\/a> in New York City.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>(A brief synopsis:&nbsp; <i>Removable Parts<\/i> is an hour-long music-theater piece that utilizes the real-life phenomenon of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whole-documentary.com\/thefilm.php\">self-amputation<\/a> as a metaphor for the desire to escape physical, emotional, and psychological pain.)<\/p>\n<p>The reason I mention it here is to talk about something that happened in one of the post-performance discussions with the audience.&nbsp; Two people in particular, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.similinton.com\/about.htm\">a well-known expert on disability<\/a>, took issue with what they called a &#8220;lack of authenticity&#8221; in the piece.&nbsp; They suggested that the two performers on stage (me and pianist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supove.com\/\">Kathleen Supov\u00c3\u00a9)<\/a> did not have the experience necessary to fully understand, or fully appreciate, the issues that disabled people have to face.<\/p>\n<p>Putting aside for the moment the fact that none of the characters in <i>Removable Parts<\/i> are actually supposed to be disabled, what really upset me about these comments was the implication that empathy is not enough.&nbsp; It didn&#8217;t seem to matter how much reading I had done, how many people I had interviewed, or even how many people in my life happened to be disabled.&nbsp; Only first-hand experience of disability would give me the right to explore the subject in my music.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Doesn&#8217;t this kind of academic cordoning-off of &#8220;other-ness&#8221; discourage people from exploring things beyond their own life-experiences?&nbsp; Apparently, the noblest quality for an artist to possess is an utter lack of curiosity.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by guest blogger Corey Dargel In September 2007, my piece Removable Parts premiered at HERE Arts Center in New York City.&nbsp; (A brief synopsis:&nbsp; Removable Parts is an hour-long music-theater piece that utilizes the real-life phenomenon of self-amputation as a metaphor for the desire to escape physical, emotional, and psychological pain.) The reason I mention [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}