(upbeat music)
I first saw my uncle dancing.
(gentle music)
Once I saw him on stage dancing, I was like,
"Now that is what I wanna do."
I think I remember, like, a journal prompt in middle school
where they say like, "What do you wanna be when you grow up
or aspirations," some kinda journal prompt,
and my mom still has it, that I wrote that
and I'm gonna be a professional,
and I'm gonna show them.
I was not really raised to acknowledge
or to honor my eyesight,
and it wasn't until the eyesight got to diminish
as I got older. You it started affecting my everyday life,
like running into things, not being able to read menus,
things of that nature,
where I began to acknowledge it for myself.
It was not something that I was really aware of.
No one taught me.
I just did it for survival.
So when people see you navigating,
which for them seems effortlessly,
but in reality, I'm doing and have done a lot of work
to be able to move in the world in such way.
I find that a lot of people think
that visual impairment only means blindness,
when there's just so many different variations.
So when people see glasses,
the assumption in my experience has been that,
oh, now Kayla sees 20/20.
(chuckling) I do not see 20/20.
Just the indication of glasses
that I can see better than what I actually do.
(gentle music)
Often, if not just about always,
and particularly when we're talking
about the intersection of race and disability,
it's important for other young Black girls and Black women
to see themselves represented so they can identify,
and maybe they are disabled
and they are not identifying disabled
because they don't wanna be a part
of a continually marginalized community.
But to know that
and it's something to be proud of,
and it's painful and it can hurt,
but it's also beautiful and expansive.
I consider as many people as possible
into the creation of the work.
So I use a lot of audio description or movement description.
That's what's exciting to me
about access in artistry, right?
So like if I'm working with a group of dancers
who are also describers,
the work is present and alive to the people
in which I'm working with in that particular space.
My thing now is I create experiences,
not necessarily dances.
Sometimes that is like the beginnings of my work.
I don't actually start with embodiments.
I start with descriptions on paper,
and then create from the description.
So it's a part of the access
for blind and visually impaired individuals like myself
is a part of the creative process.
And sometimes I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm playing, right?
Sometimes there's like a stretch
between access and artistry.
But I think we're just at an exciting moment
where more folks are creating,
more disabled artists are creating,
that gives us the space
In the dance field, from my experience,
you can really be siloed
and everyone's kinda, like, off doing their own thing,
but it's really nice to have folks
that kinda like move and journey with you through the field,
and it's really necessary.
The traditional blackout dancers take places,
that's not happening for me.
(gentle music)
But the care and I can trust and be eased
that someone is gonna take me and guide me
and put me where I need to be
for the lights to go up or people checking in.
"Kayla, how's this light for you?"
It's not just getting to the studio and make a dance.
It's really like access, care, and love
through the journey to making the final product.