Exploring hidden disabilities with Power Street and 12x12

Last month, the Leeway Foundation and Intercultural Journeys launched a brand-new series focused on arts in progress and artist/audience dialogue: 12x12 Performance. On second Wednesdays from May through September, the Philadelphia-based Leeway grant recipient artists will perform 12 minutes of new work, followed by 12 minutes of exploration into the artist’s practice, 12 minutes for audience questions, and then a 12-minute break before the next segment.

Hidden disAbilities

On Wednesday, June 13, performer Gabriela Sanchez, founder and managing director of Power Street Theatre Company, shares The Hidden disAbilities Project. When Sanchez was invited to participate in 12x12, she wanted to work with artists from Power Street, and her piece will feature Erlina Ortiz, Corem Coreano, and Karen Smith in addition to herself. Christina May directs.

The idea to explore hidden disabilities emerged from the artists’ work together, sharing three very different perspectives on the complexity of what it means to live with a disability that may not be immediately recognized or understood. One of the artists in the piece has a learning disability (dyslexia), one lives with a chronic illness, and one has a mental illness.

These may not at first seem like conditions that are connected, but “we wanted to imagine what it would be like to give our disability a voice,” Sanchez says. “What would the perspective of the disability be? What would it have to say? How would these disabilities interact with each other?”

Speak the truth; confront the stigma

From these questions, the ensemble has created the 12-minute-long piece that they will share in 12x12. Audience members will become part of the world that the artists create. “Each day we work on this experimental piece is different, contingent on how we as the artists are feeling about our disabilities that day,” Sanchez explains. “What’s consistent is us speaking our truth and unpacking the stigmas about disability that have been imposed on us.” Sanchez is excited about the format of 12x12 and appreciates the structure given to her to use as a basis for experimentation.

She is very grateful to the Leeway Foundation and Intercultural Journeys for their support of her work as an artist and for the opportunity to share this emerging work. After 12x12, she’ll bring the Hidden disAbilities Project in a longer form to the Interact Theater Company’s JUNE-A-PALOOZA Festival of readings at 7pm on June 22 at the Drake Theater.

Part of Sanchez’s mission with the Hidden disAbilities Project is to create dialogue about living with mental illness and other kinds of unseen disabilities, and to educate and share resources with the community. There will be information at both performances about local groups and agencies that support people living with various kinds of disabilities and mental-health challenges.

12x12: Gabriela Sanchez is coming to West Kensington Ministry (2140 N. Hancock Street, Philadelphia) on Wednesday, June 13, from 7 to 8:30pm. Tickets ($12 or a pay-what-you-can donation) are available online. To learn more about the whole 12x12 lineup, check out the schedule here.