Disability Visibility with Heather Friese Banet and Owen Charles-Paul Bersot

00:02 My name is Heather Fries Benet. I am 24 years old. Today is February 25, 2023, and I am speaking with Owen Bersot who is my partner. I am recording in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

00:19 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Owen Bersot Today we'll be speaking with Heather Fries Benet, who is my partner, and an emerging choreographer who has an emphasis in her work on disability justice and creating inter abled dance spaces. So in the past year and a half or so, Heather has been working on and has released a film project which details the chronology of her life experience. And so today, for the purposes of this interview, we won't be focusing quite as heavily on the past and the historical context of Heather's life, but more so the present circumstances of her life and the future that is to come. So if you're interested to learn more about the past and the history, please check out the full length film. All right. Hello, Heather.

01:23 Hi.

01:25 So we just drove here a pretty significant distance today to conduct this interview. Can you tell us how you're feeling after that drive today?

01:36 Yeah. So for those who don't know, I have a chronic pain disability and it makes traveling and mobility very difficult. And so the question of how am I doing after a drive is a very, very relevant question because I don't always feel amazing after drives. So, yeah, I'm feeling okay today. I'm in pain for sure. Right now. I'm actually lying down on the studio floor with some pillows and a heating pad while we speak just to help ease the pain.

02:10 Sure, sure, yeah. Those seem like very responsible ways to manage the experience in your body. So I know we're all very curious to know about the. Well, to some. To some level of detail about your film and about the role that dance plays in that and the role that dance takes in your life currently, today as well.

02:40 Yeah, absolutely. So my film started as my senior thesis project and I decided to work on it for about five or six months after graduation to put out a full feature film, which is an hour and 50 minutes. And in that film, I dance lying down. Because of my disability, being in seated positions and standing is very difficult. So I am lying down in the film. And I produced and directed 12 dance videos in the film. And you can find that by visiting my Instagram page. It's just my full name, Heather Fries Benet. I am now dancing daily. I still dance lying down. I am doing choreography for the local Ann Arbor queer choir called Out Loud Chorus, which is a really exciting adventure for me. I also Am creating more dance videos now that the film is over. And so you can find those also on my Instagram, but also on my YouTube.

03:53 Wonderful. Thank you for sharing all of that. And just again, for all of our listeners out there, the name of the film which you can find on Heather's YouTube channel is pain Raised Me.

04:09 Oh yes, thank you for mentioning the name of the film. That is quite important.

04:12 Yes, certainly, certainly don't want to leave that out. Wonderful, wonderful. So now with all of this in mind, that being the present conditions of life, how life looks from day to day, and with a little bit of a sense of what the film is about and what your history is like, what about, what about the future? What comes to mind when you think about the world five years down the road for Heather, or I would say Anne, the road even 20 years down the road for Heather.

04:51 These are great questions. First, I'd like to start just grounding a little bit more in the present moment, what that looks like for me. So I do work a 15 hour a week job in human resources which I enjoy very much, but I am not able to work more, more than 15 hours because of my disability and because of the chronic pain that I experience. And in time outside of that, I do spend that time dancing. So what I can hope the future looks like is greater capacity for work that I love to do. I would love to be able to financially support myself with a dance career and that is something that I have started already, but that will slowly emerge, hopefully throughout the next five years. I really hope that I'm able to apply for funding, whether that be a grant or some other form of funding so that I can bring dance to the disabled community and low income communities. That is very important to me. And also to bring somatic movement, so slow movement where we contract and release the muscles. Bringing that modality to people with chronic pain is something that I hope to do in the next five years. Now, 20 years down the line is another question altogether. You know, I always say that it is my dream to be a dance therapist. So maybe in the next 20 years there is another higher degree of education that I pursue. But at the moment I have no idea what that looks like. Exactly.

06:32 Right. Yeah. Well, a 20 year, a 20 year plan is certainly an extensive thing to put into, into your mind. So I think, I think we all understand having those kind of long term visions be a little more, a little more nebulous in the current moment. But nevertheless, it seems like, particularly for your discussion of the five year plan ideas that you have a really interesting intersection of modalities coming together in your practice, which is very compelling. And I think they represent a toolkit that will serve humanity and its unique needs at this challenging juncture in our history in a very powerful way. And of course, I'm very curious to see how those. Those things unfold over time.

07:38 If I could just spend one moment speaking to specifically what the modalities are that I work with. So I already mentioned somatic movement. And so in addition to that, there is a modality called NIA dance that's n I a dance, as well as improvisation, choreography, and lastly, psychosomatic awareness. So developing mind, body awareness and connection.

08:06 Beautiful. Beautiful. I think that having more information, more. A little more depth about all of those things is something that we could all benefit from. But given the fact that we don't have time to do a deep dive into all of those fascinating topics, I would certainly be curious to hear a little more about anything at all that you'd like to share in terms of how you see those different pieces coming together in your work.

08:38 Well, I think the first thing to note is that the dance world is in need of lots of change. And so we see a lot of ableism or discrimination against people with disabilities happening in the dance world at large. And so when you take a disabled choreographer like myself, the work that I do and the work that other disabled choreographers do has the potential to really make waves and really make shift in the dance community at large. And so I hope that I can introduce dancing lying down to many, many more people in the world. I think that we should be able to be sick and still dance if we choose to, and to be chronically ill and dance if we choose to, and to have chronic pain and dance if we choose to. And I think that is a message that I want to spread, is that you can be in bed, you can be in a chair and still dance. And dance can provide so much for you, regardless of your circumstance.

09:48 I think that's a beautiful message and one that I'm sure many people will take to heart. I think that we can all share some common ground in loving the experience that we have in a body and seeing it for the gift that it truly is. And I think that having people like you who understand the right to that experience that each of us does have is indispensable. And. Yeah, so that's beautiful. Thank you. So, in a similar theme, continuing forward here, and feel free to backtrack if there's anything that you would like to elaborate on in more depth, of course. The question that I think has certainly been on my mind, and I think yours as well, is that of religion and spirituality and how, especially when we think about the future, how these broader themes of meaning and purpose and existence, how these sorts of questions have an impact on our journey in life. So I put the question now to you. How do your religious and spiritual understandings of the world impact your relationship to dance and work and disability?

11:13 Absolutely. Thank you. I think I'd like to start with talking about the importance of rest and how I see rest intersecting with my spirituality. So a few years ago, when I found myself way more disabled than I had ever been via a dance injury that I have yet to recover from, I found myself resting more than I ever had. And for me, that rest space was a space and is a space where I connect with what I believe in. And for me, I call that spirit. And I think that when we slow down, we see signs and we feel compelled to go in certain directions that maybe we can't notice or feel when we're going fast. And so when we dance lying down, we are connecting to a rest space at the same time as rejuvenating ourselves. And we are able to have a unique relationship with spirit while we dance and while we rest at the same time. I think that dancing is spirit manifesting itself in our bodies, and I think that that's beautiful. And I think that everyone can develop their relationship to spirituality and dance in the ways that they choose. But for me, those two are definitely inseparable.

12:45 Beautiful. Yes. I think many. Many would agree with you both in the current moment, the current historical moment, and across the wider frame of human history. I think that many would agree on the kind of inherent inseparability of dance and spirituality. There is no doubt in my mind about that. Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful words. Well spoken. And once again, I think a very timely message for us all. It's. It's certainly given the world that we live in today, it is easy to feel disconnected from our bodies and indeed from spirit or source or whatever descriptor you choose to attach to that sort of experience. Yeah. Wonderful. So I would be interested to touch more on this question of rest and if there's anything specifically about. I don't know if you mentioned by name already, but Tricia Hersey is someone who I think has some special significance for you. So I'd be interested to hear more about the ways that Tricia Hersey's work has impacted yours. Your own.

14:16 Absolutely. I think that most of my REST work is inspired by Tricia Hersey, who is the NAP bishop or she founded the NAP Ministry, and she preaches that rest is the way for us to not only rejuvenate, but also to fight political forces that are coming against us. And I think that she also discusses the importance of imagination for our liberation as a people. And I think that when you combine rest and dance, you can find imagination. You can be lying down and imagine yourself dancing. An exercise that that we do in dance sometimes is to have people lie down and just talk about the experience of imagining dance. And what that looks like is a true coming together of rest, dance and imagination. And that I think is very much inspired by the work that Trisha Hersey does.

15:35 Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for that, Heather. This has been a wonderful foray into your life story, where you're at in the current moment in 2023 and where the world will take you. I know we'll all be watching your trajectory with eager eyes. Yes. Thank you so much.

16:00 Thank you so much for having me.