An organization in Rapid City is telling the stories of people with disabilities… through art. They showcase their experiences as song, dance, and theater.
The current theater series at Flutter Productions includes three stories so far. One comes from a 70-year-old man. Artistic Director Heather Pickering talks with him.
Stevenson: “My name’s Oredan Stevenson.”
Pickering: “Oredan Stevenson. And Oredan, What do you do at Flutter Productions sometimes?”
Stevenson: “I do the play. Well just a couple months ago we do a fashion show. March 10th on a Friday. It was a cold night.”
Pickering: “It was, yeah. Oredan has performed in some of our shows. Oredan has been a designer in our fashion show. And Oredan comes and takes music classes and dance classes and deign and play writing classes.”
Stevenson says he moved to a home for people with disabilities when he was two years old.
Stevenson: “I was born in Watertown, South Dakota. I got raised up in Redfield. I stayed in Redfield for 27 years straight.”
Stevenson watches as Pickering picks up a stack of note cards. Geometric images fill one side; the other boasts short paragraphs. Pickering says Stevenson drew his memories… and she transcribed them.
“This picture here is September 18th, 1948. 2 years old. This is the big, tall window in the locked entryway to Redfield. I could look out and see all of the storms coming. This was the first visual memory at Redfield. And this card you can see kind of a purple box with a purple circle inside of it-this is being inside looking out the window at the moon. You could see dogs and cats wondering back and forth in the great big back yard. I was a big fan of the kittens in the dairy barn. I used to go and hold the kittens. Once a cat even had 12 kittens.”
Stevenson’s first memory inspired the scene in the production that's based on his life. He focuses on the move as a young child. Pickering says people with disabilities have rich stories worth of attention.
“Frequently individuals with disabilities are not always present at the table of storytellers. You don’t always hear their voice and see pieces created about their experience."
Pickering says theater is a path to integrate people with disabilities into their communities.
“And let all of those diverse stories and diverse experiences come forward and be heard and really just teach people about perceptions in the world or journeys that people have taken.”
She says that's the mission of their series called Ability.
“What we are in the process right now of doing is collecting stories from individuals about journeys that people have taken in life that have been a major turning point or maybe have been a huge influence for them or have sent their life into a different direction.”
Pickering says Flutter Productions is accepting stories through the rest of May. She says the goal is to select 8 powerful stories. The Ability performance is scheduled for September.