At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn't great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months.... We paid them all to twiddle their thumbs while the team perfected the story into what became Toy Story. And if they hadn't had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is, and there probably would have never been a Pixar.

I tried to get funding to shoot this film and couldn’t—nobody wanted to touch it, you know?

I have generally had few setbacks and few obstacles. I have been very fortunate in that things have been handed to me rather than my going out after them. There are a few roads that I didn’t take that I maybe could have. When I was a graduate student, maybe a second-year graduate student, I worked frequently at the Illinois State Library in Springfield, and one day, the director of that library called me into his office and said, “I have some news to tell you that is still very hush-hush, but I’m resigning from this job. I’m going to the Chicago Historical Society, and I’m going to recommend that you be appointed in my place.

I realized that the biggest obstacle was my mind. It was the biggest obstacle, and if I could get out of the way of myself, I would grow. So every time I had that attitude, I changed it, and I’d say, “You can. Today you can, and take it one day at a time, and today, I’m going to get up and I’m not going to think about the other six days of this week. I’m going to get up right now, and I’m going to go to the gym, and I’m going to learn about my boxing, and I’m going to be in the moment.” You know, in anything, you hit a wall, and then you have to break through it, and I just had to get out of my own way.

What I think you’re asking is, “Does it change the movements on stage if you have people come and watch it?” I would say, yes it can, but not always. Not every comment will lead me to go back to the stage and change something… but it can. Often you don’t know how stuff is landing, so it can be helpful to get a viewer’s perspective. Since I’m in the piece, I’ll never be able to see what it looks like from the outside.

Laurel and I collaborated with director Katherine Helen Fisher and other talented artists on the dance film REVEL IN YOUR BODY and that continues to screen all over the world

I do not consider Kinetic Light’s work radical. It is not radical to imagine a disabled audience as primary and to make the work accessible to that audience. It is not radical to situate a work within disability history, culture, and traditions. Non-disabled artists do that all the time.

My dance heroes include Kitty Lunn, one of my first teachers, Marc Brew, current Artistic Director of AXIS Dance Company, Judy Smith founding member and Artistic Director Emerita of AXIS, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar the founder of Urban Bush Women. They are all innovators and activists in their own way.

When stuck, go to someone else’s show—in a different discipline

Do it. It is the hardest thing you will ever do and it will bring you immense joy. You won’t be alone, there is an entire community here for you.