Leroy Moore (left), friend of Amoeba and the Amoeblog, returns to do another guest Amoeblog. The New York born, Berkeley, CA based artist/activist/educator, who is the founder of Krip-Hop Nation (the global collective for hip-hop artists with disabilities), has been featured several times here on the Amoeblog over the past five years for his work in Krip-Hop and also with Sins Invalid that he co-founded. In July 2008 he wrote an Amoeblog On Being Black and Disabled. Two years ago during Black History Month 2011 he was featured twice both here and here. Then last August he did a guest Amoeblog spot when he penned the popular critique on the Sundance Channel's Push Girls television show. Leroy Moore (left), friend of Amoeba and the Amoeblog, returns to do another guest Amoeblog. The New York born, Berkeley, CA based artist/activist/educator, who is the founder of Krip-Hop Nation (the global collective for hip-hop artists with disabilities), has been featured several times here on the Amoeblog over the past five years for his work in Krip-Hop and also with Sins Invalid that he co-founded. In July 2008 he wrote an Amoeblog On Being Black and Disabled. Two years ago during Black History Month 2011 he was featured twice both here and here. Then last August he did a guest Amoeblog spot when he penned the popular critique on the Sundance Channel's Push Girls television show. 
Now in its fifth year, the unique Bay Area based non-profit arts organization Sins Invalid is building momentum and garnering a following, both within the disabled community and in the mainstream, as it presents its message that people with disabilities are sexual beings too. The disabled are a minority who remain widely misunderstood by the general population. Since 2006, when the performance project Sins Invalid was founded by Patty Berne and Leroy Moore along with Todd Herman & Amanda Coslor as a platform for artists with disabilities to present their own sexual identities (rather than a misinformed mainstream media), the pioneering group has produced a series of works such as acclaimed mixed-media production An Unshamed Claim To Beauty at San Francisco's Brava Theater in 2006. This year planned events include the Sins Invalid Showcase, April 8 -10 at Z Space in San Francisco, and this weekend's Resident Alien: The Sins Invalid Artists In Residence Show tonight (Friday, Jan 28) at 8pm and tomorrow at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco.
As co-founders and persons of color with a disability, both Moore and Berne are quick to make the analogy between people with disabilities and other ethnic minorities and members of the LGBT community. They note that all share that sense of exclusion and misunderstanding from an often well-meaning but generally ill informed mainstream who lack true insight into this "other" world which is "alien" to them -- hence the title of this weekend's Sins Invalid Artists In Residence Show: Resident Alien. "The idea of 'alien' came up a number of times. Lateef McLeod wrote a poem called "Not of This World" that explores that kind of othering, talking about the perception of disabled people as kind of monstrous or alien," said Nomy Lamm, the Artist In Residents' director. "Then, there are two artists, Fayza Bundalli and Redwolf Painter, who are culling a family history around colonization and the impact of colonization on their bodies, which led to their disabilities. The show is about the ways that so many of us in this culture are treated as aliens and not given the same kinds of rights. And yet, it is not about being victims; it's about how we come into our power in that context."
Tonight and tomorrow night at 8PM (Friday/Saturday, Sept. 5/6th) at the Brava Theater at 2789 24th Street in San Francisco will be the third year of one of the most envelope pushing performance projects tackling the topic of sexuality and disability:
Sins Invalid: An Unshamed Claim to Beauty in the Face of Invisibility.
Amoeblog caught up with Patricia Berne, the director of Sins Invalid, to ask her about this most unique performance project and this weekend's two performances that include singer/songwriter Nomy Lamm.
AMOEBLOG: For those who know nothing about Sins Invalid, can you describe what it is?
PATRICIA BERNE: Sins Invalid is a performance project which incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing on artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized. Our performance work explores the themes of sexuality, embodiment and the disabled body. Conceived and led by disabled people of color, we develop and present cutting-edge work where normative paradigms of "normal" and "sexy" are challenged, offering instead a vision of beauty and sexuality inclusive of all individuals and communities. We define disability broadly to include people with physical impairments, who are a sensory minority, people with emotional disabilities, people with cognitive challenges, those with chronic/severe illness, individuals who identify as disabled due to intersex conditions or gender variance, and others who may identify as disabled because their bodies do not conform to society's notions of "normal" or able-bodied.
AMOEBLOG: What are the most common misconceptions on the topic of sexuality and disability?
