Vital Signs
Crip Culture Talks Back
By David Mitchell & Sharon Snyder

This edgy, raw documentary explores the politics of disability through the performances, debates and late-night conversations of activists at a national conference on Disability & the Arts. Including interviews with well known disability rights advocates such as Cheryl Marie Wade, Mary Duffy and Harlan Hahn, Vital Signs conveys the intensity, variety and vitality of disability culture today. Open-Captioned. Contains strong language and nudity.

48 minutes
© 1995
Purchase $199.00 DVD
Order No. QA-230
ISBN (DVD) 1-57295-878-2

Reviews
"Long on humor and leavened with performance art, poetry and anecdote, Vital Signs may be raw, but the content is fresh, fully developed and anything but primitive." Barry Corbet, New Mobility Magazine


"Extremely insightful. This thought-provoking, often irreverent video dispels myths about disability culture. Recommended without hesitation for academic and adult collections." Library Journal

"Filled with engaging, in-your-face eloquence replete with anger, humor, ardor, irreverence, dignity, and creativity." Disability Studies Quarterly

Awards & Conference Screenings
Grand Prize, Rehabilitation Intl. World Congress
Achievement Award, Superfest
Bronze Apple, Natl. Educational Media Network
Bronze Award, Natl. Health Information Awards
TASH Media Award
National Social Science Association

Related Films
Outsider: Judith Scott has Down syndrome, is deaf, and does not speak. Yet after 35 years of institutionalization, with the help of a sister who never gave up on her, she emerged to create a series of sculptures that have fascinated and mystified art experts and collectors around the world.

We Are PHAMALy: Follows cast members of a musical theater group for people with sensory and mobility disabilities, from auditions to their remarkable opening night performance of Once Upon a Mattress.

Acting Blind: Takes audiences behind the scenes as a company of non-professional actors rehearse a play about life without sight. The performers have no problem imagining themselves in these roles: they are blind themselves.

Able to Laugh: An amusing and informative glimpse into the world of disability, as interpreted by six professional comics who have a variety of disabilities.

Voices in a Deaf Theater: Follows a cast of deaf and hearing actors as they prepare to stage The Glass Menagerie. Offers a window into the expressive language and culture of the deaf world.

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