Mouthwater: A Disabled Dance Festival Launches in Seattle

September 19, 2024

Mouthwater: A Disabled Dance Festival started as a deeply personal dream for co-founders Saira Barbaric, NEVE Mazique, and Vanessa Hernández Cruz, and fellow curators Mx. Pucks A’plenty and India Harville. “Throughout time, our communities were often seen as either undesirable, objectified, or as a deficit,” the curators write in a joint statement. “We wanted to create a hub that shatters those perspectives of Disability, especially in the dance field.”

Their shared vision of a platform for Disabled artists and performers becomes reality from September 23 through October 13 in Seattle. The first week comprises “incubating spaces” for artist participants, focused on training, community-building, and resilience. Public performances follow for the first two weeks of October, ranging from experimental installations to classic cabaret.  

The festival emphasizes queer, trans, and BIPOC Disabled artists through a diversity of movement styles, training modalities, and abilities. Among the first-week offerings, Urban Jazz Dance Company, which consists of a mix of professional Deaf and hearing dancers, will perform and facilitate a workshop for other artist participants. Burlesque performer Jacqueline Boxx will lead “Energy Flow,” a workshop that teaches participants tips to magnetically hold space at center stage. Photo shoots, additional workshops—including one on anti-burnout practices—and an open stage social to share works in progress are also on the docket.

The second two weeks feature performances from festival curators and other invited artists. “The Disabled artists and companies we curated are bringing work that they choose,” Hernández Cruz says. “This is an important element of Mouthwater; the freedom to create whatever our hearts desire without any expectations.” Hernández Cruz will share her solo Soul Seeker; Barbaric’s Grow Green Man performance and party will take place at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, perched above Puget Sound.

Barbaric initially received funding from the Mellon Foundation to research, create, and tour the festival. Velocity, a Seattle standby for contemporary performance, stepped up to help realize the event through its Made in Seattle platform, which provides multi-year support to local artists developing new work.

Velocity executive director Erin O’Reilly isn’t surprised that something like Mouthwater is happening in Seattle, where, she says, people follow artists as leaders. She stresses that the curators guided Mouthwater from the beginning. “They’ve amassed an incredible team,” O’Reilly says. As a result, the curators haven’t relied on Velocity as much as past Made in Seattle artists. Even so, O’Reilly says that Mouthwater’s­ ambitious scope is a first for the platform.   

As for the name, “mouthwater” refers to a juicy future in which Disabled artistry thrives. “I believe Mouthwater Festival has the potential to be a transformative force in our city,” says Barbaric, “and set standards for a more vibrant norm within the arts community.”