The Axis Dance Company in Oakland, California, is made up of seven dancers. Four of them have physical disabilities and perform in wheelchairs. New York Times writer Bruce Weber says the collaboration among dancers with and without disabilities delivers a powerful message:

Sympathy is irrelevant. Forget what isn’t here, and pay attention to what is. Recognize the chairs for what they are and not as substitutes for what they are not.

From the New York Times:

A group of disability advocates has sharply criticized the casting of Oscar-nominated child star Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) for the role of Helen Keller in this winter’s Broadway revival  of “The Miracle Worker.” The Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts says the role should have been given to an actor who is blind or deaf.

Producer David Richenthal said that casting a star as Helen was essential to securing a $3 million investment for a commercial production, and that his research did not turn up any well-known young actresses who were deaf or blind. He said he would consider casting a deaf or blind actress as Breslin’s understudy.

From the Washington Post:

Tim Page, author of “Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger’s” and a Pulitzer Prize winning music critic, answers readers’ questions about Asperger’s syndrome and its effect on his life.

Some excerpts:

“The diagnosis was helpful in a lot of ways — mostly in explaining some of the things that had proved difficult, sometimes even impossible, for most of my life. And I didn’t exactly “give in” to the condition, but being aware that I had it helped me make smarter choices.

“… I also admire the radical new autism activists, such as Aspies for Freedom, who believe that autism and Asperger’s should be considered “differences” rather than afflictions. I have some mixed feelings about this –  although I do think some of the things I ended up doing were enabled by my Asperger’s Syndrome, I still wouldn’t wish it on anybody, for I’ve felt pretty unhappy a lot of my life. Still, I love their punchy, radical spirit — and who knows? Perhaps the depression and anxiety that seem to accompany most cases of AS wouldn’t be there if we didn’t always feel so strange.”

From CBS News (with video) and the CBS Early Show (with video and blog):

Artist Stephen Wiltshire, 35, is drawing a detailed panorama of New York’s Manhattan skyline from memory. He has autism.

Wiltshire flew over New York City in a helicopter on Friday. That 20-minute viewing from the air provided the memory for a 20-foot panorama of the city that he is drawing throughout this week at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute.

(Photo from CBS News)

From Newsweek:

A landmark ruling by the Justice Department last year is forcing museums around the country to reexamine the way they make their facilities accessible to people with impaired vision. Increasingly, museums are concluding that they must expand accessibility to include the whole museum experience, not just ramps and handrails.

Kareem Dale, the president’s special adviser on disability policy, has taken a personal interest in the matter, convening a meeting of museum directors to discuss best practices and backing a website to aggregate accessibility information on public venues across the country. Dale is partially blind.

To be sure, many museums are already doing more than the bare minimum. The actual question of how to bring the visual arts to those without sight may seem both impractical and impossible. When we think of visiting museums, we tend to think of quiet, meditative places, where we keep our hands to ourselves and our voices down. But museums at the forefront of accessibility are beginning to offer touch tours, tactile maps, and extended verbal descriptions. Some are even incorporating scent into their educational programs.

From “Fresh Air” on National Public Radio:

Music critic Tim Page didn’t find out that he had Asperger’s syndrome until he was 45, three years after winning the Pulitzer Prize. He writes in his new memoir, “Parallel Play: Life As An Outsider,” that the diagnosis helped him to accept parts of his nature that were “not very changeable.”

Page says he acted out when he was young and constantly struggled to understand social norms. He found a refuge in the repeating patterns in music.

“I have this theory that Asperger’s syndrome has been hugely important for me with music, because it was the first world that made any sense to me. I didn’t really understand what was going on around me, I didn’t understand what people really wanted me to do. I was a very lost little kid. But my mom had this record player ….

“It allowed me passage into a world where everything made sense and where I felt this profound sense of being at home in the world.”

Related posts here.

From the New York Times:

When playwright Rebecca Gilman adapted “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” for the stage, she changed a key element of the Carson McCullers novel, giving speeches to a character who is deaf and mute throughout the book. The change makes it difficult for a deaf actor to play the role.

Now that the play is being produced in New York, deaf actors and deaf theater groups are protesting the artistic and casting choices behind the character of John Singer. A coalition of groups has asked that Henry Stram, the hearing actor who is playing the part, be replaced by a deaf actor.

“A hearing actor playing a deaf character is tantamount to putting a white actor in blackface,” said Linda Bove, a deaf actress and board member of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts, an advocacy group for minority, disabled and deaf artists.

Director Doug Hughes said he would not fire Stram but was sympathetic to the deaf actors’ concerns. He offered to work with them on a future project.

(Photo from the New York Times)