Despite years of discrimination and oppression and despite a history that is as appalling as the histories of other minoritized groups, there is no performing arts context for disability face. And even though exaggeration of certain physical aspects of certain impairments, there (perhaps fortunately) has not been a systematic reworking of these localized moments into a "tradition." Any attempt at disability face would look like a party costume. And that's kind of the impression I get when I see non-disabled types acting disabled roles.Other posts by Wheelchair Dancer on the intersection of race and disability include this, this, this and this.
So, over to you. What would disability face look like? Would you be able to distinguish disability face from disability drag? What would disability drag look like (and here I really do mean *drag,* as opposed to *dress up*). Could PWD with one impairment drag another? Could you drag your own impairment? Or would it have to be non-disabled people dragging disability? When does drag become disability face?
Could there really be a set of performances of disability in which we can separate an actor dressing up as disabled in order to create, with some degree of verisimilitude, a disabled role (because you *know* there are no disabled actors who can do this kind of stuff) from someone in disability face? Would it have to be literally a "face" to be disability face?
Cross-posted at Alas, A Blog
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