Chapter 8: More than Therapy: Conformity and Resistance in an Organizational Narrative of Disability and the Performing Arts

Despite the legacies of many talented artists with disabilities, art programs for people with disabilities are consistently framed as important because of their “therapeutic” value. Such framing is a well-established way for organizations to garner support from publics drawn to images of disabled people as tragic victims and such programs as heroic in offering help. Some non-profit art programs, however, resist this narrative.

Data come from the organizational web-site of a community-based non-profit disability centered arts education organization that takes active steps to challenge traditional tragedy narratives. Data show how the organizational narrative does this by affirming the value of disabled artists and by casting as villains the stigma, discrimination, and misinformation surrounding people with disabilities.

While this organization constructs a narrative that portrays society and art spaces as victims in that they miss out on the contributions to art that people with disabilities can produce, the organization nonetheless must also offer to community stakeholders and potential donors reasons for its existence.

This examination highlights the ways in which this organization navigates the competing demands of fund raising and disability advocacy by constructing organizational narratives that affirm people with disabilities while still articulating the value of the organization to the wider community. This suggests the complex work narratives do and the tensions that can arise when narratives serve multiple purposes for multiple audiences.