Jerron Herman
Jerron Herman is a disabled dancer and writer who creates works to facilitate welcoming. Jerron regularly writes on art and culture and currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Dance/USA as Vice Chair. He’s currently a guest member of disability arts collective Kinetic Light. His awards include a 2020 Disability Futures Fellowship by the Ford Foundation and Mellon Foundation. In 2021 he received the Grants to Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship from the Jerome Foundation. His play, 3 Bodies, was recently published in Theater Magazine May/June 2022. jerronherman.com
Full Interview:
Interview Transcription:
SPEAKERS
Molly Joyce, Jerron Herman
Molly Joyce 00:00
The first question is, what is access for you?
Jerron Herman 00:07
Access is welcoming in the sense that it is a procedure set of procedures and ethos that is evolving to meet people use me to meet people and to bring them safe safely pleasurably into your atmosphere. I love that.
Molly Joyce 00:47
The second question is, what is care for you?
Jerron Herman 00:57
Care is also relational it's based in your assessment of the care receiver, and based in different you know procedures or practices like sometimes care means with means restriction or care means tough love or care means accountability or care means quiet care means soft care means. I think care means contextual.
Molly Joyce 01:47
Third question is, what is control for you?
Jerron Herman 01:55
Control is like this ever elusive idea it is presented as like a rite that we all get the ability to possess kind of the internal and external realities as we want to manipulate and manifest them as we want. And so within the the disabled body specifically it's almost as though control is introduced as like a scarcity. It's not introduced actually in the disabled body. The first thing that you're taught is that your body is that controllable in a weird way and so you go through a set of things to make it controlled. Control I think then is like you know, aspects of pruning and shearing and you know, in the dance community it's known as consistency and organization it's trying to control is trying to stop chaos.
Molly Joyce 03:37
What is weakness for you?
Jerron Herman 03:52
Oh, a weakness is embarrassing. Actually. Only but I guess only in relationship to our as a failure it's it's weakness is often shared it as a failure of your control or have your own ability of your own strength. So weakness is the lack of strength so I mean, but that's only the that's only the first visceral reaction, right? Weakness is like I failed. But, you know, with more wisdom and with you know, more time of reflection, I'm sure that a lot of people would agree that weakness is this truth. You know, when you become or assess yourself in weakness. probably recognize that you're there. Out of some truth, like, either it was the truth of you failing at this beat. So you are presumed weak or that you have been brought to this place because of your activity, which is still it's active, right? Like you might weak after a long run, that doesn't mean I failed at the run and just meant that I had gone through a process that depleted my energy. So weakness, and then that doesn't, it's not necessarily an activity, like, it could just be weaknesses is identified after, you know, being productive, being alive being part of the world. And it's a factor of a measure of expenditure really like you. Weakness is also like, I've expended, I've exhausted some part of me, either willingly or unwillingly. And then the product of weaknesses like that identity with depletion, that it is understood as failures, probably what it's not meant to be, it's a factor of, of, it's a measure of like, you've extended and you've lived, you've put yourself out there, that you've done that. And it's perceived as a failure is probably like, really, not what it's intended for. Weakness is actually just supposed to tell you that you've lived weakness doesn't tell you that you have come up against anything, everything.
Molly Joyce 06:36
Yeah. And then kind of the opposite of that, what is strength for you?
Jerron Herman 07:04
I often think of strength as endowed, like it's given to you, either through like, personal practices of accruing strength, like conditioning, or prep, you know, like, you accrue strength but there's deposit. So weakness is you expending strength is deposit meaning either into you by someone else encouragement, you know, divine intervention. And or, you know, yeah, of course, like pumping iron, like, that's like you investing it's change though then again, like then that's just another way of like, you extending anyway, I think of it as depositing strength is like it because you then as well, like, strength can be you observing your resume your reserves, because there are many times when I feel I have nothing else to give, and then there's a pocket of something or pocket of, of strength, a draw from I didn't realize I had, where I wasn't aware of. Or maybe my mentality changed around the reality that I was in that gave me different different baskets of strength to move forward to go on to keep going. Yeah, I think that's it.
Molly Joyce 08:47
And the next question is kind of a controversial question. What is cure for you?
Jerron Herman 08:55
Well, this is when you were doing that project before another set of like interviews or with the disability, with your CUNY. Oh, yeah. The certificate program. This is that question and I like had a week with it. I was like, Oh crap, this is really hard to answer.
Molly Joyce 09:19
I forgot to tell you that you don't have to every question too.
Jerron Herman 09:33
Okay, cure. I think I have two answers for cure. One is cure or at least, the an abridged body, if you will, is unsick and nondisabled, healthy apex, right? It's like a foundational promise to think about like, in the way that we are even brought into the world to just deteriorate? Why would we even assume how where do we even come with cure? When we are declining from the minute we are born? So oftentimes, it's like, what are we going back to? Or what are we trying to repair? And? And for what, to what degree? I mean, there's still a depreciation regardless of where wherever you have recovered. So the scale is very narrow, right, the scale of what cure does is very narrow and unhelpful. Ultimately, nevertheless, and this is very this is really, really difficult because their cure is, cure is impossible, I would say cure is impossible. That's one answer, cure is impossible. And so what it is that in this categorical, our whole, is actually piecemealed factors of recognizing weakness dipping into weakness, understanding strength, understanding care, understanding self preservation, understanding limits and boundaries, that coalesce into practices that will make the your body whole or your body functional. And maybe exceptional. I'm learning this exactly right now. Like, there is a reality of my body that is fighting against a sense of cure as the arbiter for anything I can do. Like in terms of like, if I were to, if my body were to be cured to X, then I can do X things like I'm living in this body without cure, and doing these phenomenal things. So what's, how am I supposed to think about that? Similarly, or maybe that's an early I don't know, stop there. By gears and possible, curious actually a set of practices and principles on top of each other, that create wholeness for that individual and for that body. But now that I'm thinking about it, with regards to, let's say, rehab, right. There is a template for a functional body - 10 fingers, 10 toes, 20/20 vision. I don't know what the standard for hearing is actually. Smell, taste, height, weight, BMI, like they're very. Yeah, they're very thresholds. That, you know, we don't have to necessarily function through, but they're there. You know, I think it's really like going back to consequences and realities, like, you can do whatever you want, just you won't get the consequence of this thing that is already in place. So it's really like you're abdicating even the rules of which we have engagement. Like, no one's forcing you to have to do that. Or be there to, you know, think about cure. But if you want abs you'll have to do this. You know, if you don't want cancer, you do this or you don't want so there are certain levers of engagement that we're all on and all refusing to also engage. Ah well so that itself also is a set of practices and principles maybe it's like this these two pillars there's like the cure pillars with all the levers of like, doing the typical things. And then there's like the, where my body is today but anticipate the other levers and and what it is. And those two things are always thinking about the big grid of like, electrical socket, like you know, the Yeah, okay, that was a ramble. Why do they go on for so long?
Molly Joyce 15:35
No, I love it so much so. So, like so much about, like, dipping in and out of cure, like as you like, or so I don't know or to get and then power brought to this world to deteriorate, deteriorate or something? You're like, like, we're also brought to build or obviously when you're born, you're not born as adults? I don't know. You're saying Great. And the next question is what is interdependent for you?
Jerron Herman 16:18
Interdependence is is surrendering to your neighbor. I mean that, I actually do mean the word surrender. Because there's a way in which you can engage neighbors and community members, that you never have to like, come out of your own power. But interdependence is like, you gotta come out of your own power in some direction in some way, to the point that it is you are mutually respond responsive to each other. They need you as much as you need them. You need them as much as they need you. It's a very scary place, I mean, the closest I've come to really understand that is, as our duet is breaking in into, which felt like, the, the middle of the, like, if you're in between beds, you know, and this is like this. If you were to move a little bit, you fall, you hold it both have to hold in such a way that let that buoy you. And it's so tenuous, and so so precious, it's very, very exact. It's an exact kind of pressure, just enough to where yeah, you have to surrender to this idea that someone's got to. And their skills are not your skills, your skills, enough their skills, their complement complimentary. And yeah, I've been having I just had this really awesome conversation with Dustin Gibson, recently where we were talking about the role of organizers and activists versus the role of, or not even versus, but in tandem with the roles of artists, and that they cannot do the same thing, and that they do not do the same thing. And that the organizers need the artists nourish, what artists produce, organizes will fill and feel so that they can do their work their work then in corporates and you know, inspires policy change and societal change, which then the artists interpret. We interpret and we we, contextualize and celebrate. So if these things in this world that artists will use a spot for what we will create that is reflected back to the organizers and activists and, and so and footsoldiers, if you will, that creates more change. And so there is this really nice circle that I will call interdependence.
Molly Joyce 20:34
Great. And then the last question is what is assumption for you?
Jerron Herman 20:44
Assumption is like untested back which is a fact in your mind, if it's proven or not, is when it becomes a fact. But it's, you know, it starts in your mind is like, this is a thing, this is a reality? I haven't tested it for myself. So therefore, you know, it's it's in my own kingdom of reality. Yeah, that's all it is. But it is born out of your own power born out of your ego, your independence, your own personality, your own sense of it's a reflection of your culture, a reflection of your, of where you are, it's a reflection of, of a lot of things. It might even be a blockade to, to feeling displaced, I would say, making sense of something else, before testing, it is kind of a defense mechanism. For your own preservation, you assume things because you need it to be real, to some degree. As the right it's right, before you get a confirmation of it being real or not. And even if it's, you know, I think assumptions aren't inherently bad. You'd kind of you know, similarly to like storytelling, you got to kind of like, throw it out there to like, see how deep it goes? Or, or where where's the residence? And I think part of one of the things that is possibly keeping all of us from kind of fully embodied life, is this fear of throwing it out there? Like, maybe that's the wrong maybe assumption isn't what I mean, in terms of what needs to be thrown out there. But I do mean, in terms of like, we have to throw out some markers throughout some, some questions into the atmosphere to recognize where we are. And that couldn't be assumptions. What do we think about this? Maybe that's questions, maybe questions is willing to throw out there, not assumptions. So I'll go back to assumptions. Assumptions. Yeah, are rooted in our culture and our understanding of the world, in relationship to whatever stimuli we are engaging with at the moment. But yeah, I would say they're their guards against, you know, feeling displaced mostly.
Molly Joyce 24:10
Yeah. What's also interesting thing, like you said, I don't even know if I'm interpreting this correctly, but holding us against or like embodied experience, fully embodied experience or something or full embodiment. That's what he said.
Jerron Herman 24:24
Yeah, and why I don't think that assumption does that, I think that we fully feel ourselves when we assume we are, we are feeling ourselves when we assume things. What I mean, is that the holding back of assuming anything, is actually not I would say not living extended, like, you have to, I wonder like, how much of how much do we have to experience if stuff that we don't like about ourselves? Or our like, selfishness anyway? Yeah, primarily our selfishness, like, how, how willingly? How willing are we to like, go into that crisis of thinking about ourselves to then recognize where we need to step back? I think that's what I mean. So, yeah, people, I mean, people do that already. But I think it's actually kind of healthy to recognize, you know, where your limit is, personally, in that societally placed, like, you know, you don't want to be selfish about this aspect, you know, you want to be selfish or guarded about this aspect or, you know, you don't want to go as far as this place. You can go farther here, and I think that happens all the time. It's a nice, I think, yeah, it's probably healthy to think about your ebb and your own flow.