019: Tiffany & Jerron

Written By Tiffany Yu

Tiffany & Jerron | Disability Art, Dance and Storytelling ft. Dancer & Cultural Critic Jerron Herman

In this episode, we're chatting with interdisciplinary artist Jerron Herman on disability art, dance, and storytelling as a form of advocacy.

We discussed:

  • Jerron’s origin stories

  • Why the New York Times called him “the inexhaustible Mr. Herman”

  • Why he doesn’t call himself an activist

  • Jerron’s current projects

  • Black Lives Matter

  • The 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and disability pride

Show notes

About Jerron Herman

Jerron Herman is a dancer and cultural critic. He recently developed a panel series of disabled artists called Access 2.0: Mapping Accessibility for the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation. His latest works include Breaking and Entering for Danspace Project, Many Ways to Raise a Fist for The Whitney Museum, and Relative for Performance Space New York. He has served on the Board of Trustees at Dance/USA since 2017 and was nominated for a Dance Fellowship from United States Artists. Jerron studied at Tisch School of the Arts and graduated from The King’s College. The New York Times has called him, "...the inexhaustible Mr. Herman." jerronherman.com

Follow Jerron Herman

Transcript

Tiffany Yu: You’re listening to Tiffany & Yu. This is your host, Tiffany Yu. On this episode, I’m joined by Jerron Herman, who is a dancer and cultural critic. Jerron and I met five years ago to this month at New York City’s inaugural Disability Pride Parade. On July 26, 2020, we recognized the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the diamond anniversary. It’s a huge milestone for our community and so Jerron and I reflected on how far we’ve come, how far we have to go within our own disability narratives and stories, and how he is using dance, and art, and storytelling to continue to advocate. I hope you all are enjoying this episode and the end of what a couple of cities have designated as Disability Pride Month.

Tiffany Yu: Hi everyone. It's Tiffany Yu here. And you're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu. Today, I have with me, Jerron Herman. Hi Jerron! 

Jerron Herman: Hi, Tiffany.

Tiffany Yu: Jerron Herman is an interdisciplinary artist creating through dance, text and visual storytelling. He's based in New York City. So Jerron and I met five years ago to this month at the inaugural Disability Pride Parade in New York City. We were watching the main stage and we were standing next to each other. And you turned to me and you said “cool bag” because I had, I had a black, yes. I had a black tote bag with a white Diversability logo. Did I give you a bag? 

Jerron Herman: I don't think so, but you got me plenty of work, different resources, so I'll call it a draw. 

Tiffany Yu: But I remember that because we connected because we both had arms that look different. And so I wanted to start there because disability origin stories are really important. And I have actually come to learn more recently, from an earlier guest named Victor Pineda, that some of us actually have two origin stories. The one is whatever our disability is. And then the second is when we actually took ownership of our disability identity. So I'd love to hear your origin story, however that manifests itself. 

Jerron Herman: Cool. Okay, so origin story one. I was diagnosed with hemiplegia cerebral palsy when I was three months old and my whole personality and all of my interests and sort of outlook paradigm was shaped by that diagnosis because it became my mission to counter everything that was prognosticated really. It was a way in which I needed to include nuance into the diagnostic definitions of how my body would function, how I would function, and what I could contribute to my environments. That led me to the arts, where I felt quite unfettered. It was the place that you weren't predicated on your physical prowess or your physical characteristics to engage in and my creativity was piqued by storytelling and by this mental and this ephemeral game of creating and organizing worlds and other contexts that people could be free. And so that led me deep into the arts. I mean, I'm a true theater geek full on and was really obsessed with Broadway, and musicals, and drama—

Tiffany Yu: You're in the right city for it. 

Jerron Herman: Exactly. I mean, honestly, it was the main reason why I came to New York. I just knew that I could be productive here. And my advocacy for disability was of course engrained, although I did have a very different approach to it. I was going to be a maverick and I wasn't going to associate myself with the typical disability community. I was just going to assimilate into mainstream culture and do it that way, which there are implications and consequences for both, but at the time, I thought that I would have been stymied by being a part of a community rather than bolstered, especially because there was still, in my view, no nuance in what the community looked like. And so although my parents were always encouraging me to meet disabled people and meet disabled activists, especially in the Bay Area, where unbeknownst to me was the birthplace and the fertile crescent of disability theory. So it was a perfect place to have gotten an early education. A little kind of scary happenstance, one of those moments when you're like, what if I had just turned the corner? I did a dance class when I was like 11 at the Alice Center in Oakland, where AXIS Dance Company is— it's headquartered. So, now that I am a professional dancer, I just think that to that moment, I'm like, Oh my gosh, what if I had just— something else had happened that day at that random dance class at the Alice Center for me to have met AXIS Dance, and then what would have been my paradigm after that? So that's a really funny moment. But then when I came to New York, it was about this myopic understanding of art and of being a disabled person in art but by, just by serendipity, I met a choreographer during one of my internships that led me to Heidi Latsky Dance, where I joined the company for eight years. And it was in the company that I was inundated with different visions of disabled people and became more comfortable with the idea of connecting myself to the legacies and the contemporary outlook of disabled people, especially in the arts. And my comfort level grew to authentic friendships and connections, which I think are at the crux of my advocacy now in terms of the welcoming that is supposed to transcend accessibility in our thinking and the kind of welcoming, the kind of access culture that we want to engender, access intimacy, as penned by Mia Mingus. These things are cultivated when you actually know your community and know who you're with. And so, in a microcosm of the dance company, I begat and kind of afforded those ideals by understanding who I was with. And that led me to really understand disability for myself. And actually the 2015 Disability Pride Parade was overwhelming for me because it was first time I think that I really did own it. I mean, I was owning it on stage for the last two years before that, but there was something swirly burley, hurly burly about it from that point on that I was comfortable with the political ideation of disabled. I was comfortable with the legacies that bred that thought, and I was comfortable with pushing, again, the nuance of what it would mean to be a disabled artist. 

Tiffany Yu: Beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing that journey. I reached out to you because I showed up at the Disability Pride Parade in 2015 by myself, Diversability party of one—

Jerron Herman: —but mighty one— 

Tiffany Yu: —a mighty, but petite one. Kind of just reflecting on what the past five years have looked like. I'm hearing this theme around growing up and trying to decide whether you wanted to associate or disassociate from the disability community. Did you think that going to an AXIS Dance Company, when you were 11, dance class, was that a turning point for you in terms of seeing the different types of bodies that could be dancers? 

Jerron Herman: Right. Well, that was the thing. It wasn't an AXIS Dance Company class. It was just a random Saturday movement class that had no distinction or no focused lens on disability movement, or it wasn't even manifested by access because they just happened to be in the same building. It was this like big community center building that a lot of different businesses were in. But having known AXIS for the years I have, that's where they were headquartered. So I just remember like, What if I had actually seen wheelchair dancers as I passed another studio or something? And I think too, when I'm in the studio, maybe at Gibney Dance Center or the New 42nd Street Studios and people are passing me, you know? And what do they think? I think that it would have been just as absorbing and as changing as anything that I have ever been exposed to. That kind of sits in my mind and my brain. The one thing that is different is the opportunities after the exposure. And I think that's the thing that always— it's hard because you can be exposed. I was exposed to so much as a child and I have a breadth of experiences because of my family's kind of atypical offerings, but then the opportunities I had to write or to act or to dance, they were special and they had to come through some means of creativity.

Tiffany Yu: So you're with Heidi Latskey dance for eight years. I remember going to many of your performances, the most notable of which was called On Display, and I'm curious what dance represents to you and what dance and disability means to you. 

Jerron Herman: Yeah. So I walked into dance as a baby learner. I mean, I was 20 on top of never really knowing dance vocabulary and I was the—not the sole disabled member, but throughout the maybe five years and then the transition with on display happened. I was a consistent disabled member. There would be a flux of other disabled artists that would come through, but I kind of stayed in the main cast for the longest. That led me to actually assimilate to dance vocabulary and culture and history sooner and primarily I was more interested in the aesthetic, trying to grasp that in my own body. I was very interested in its legacies, like how Heidi Latsky, even the man who introduced me to Heidi, Seán Curran. She and him were in a modern dance company called Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance company, which was very radical at its time. And is still, I mean, Bill T. is a very towering figure, and then he himself, Bill T. comes from like a Judson era legacy of Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton and Simone Forti. And so there's this tracking when it gets to me and my identity wherein I think that there have been embodiments and vocabularies and practices that actually make sense that disabled people should be in dance especially with our post-modern sensibilities, our attention to different bodies, our acceptance of minutia as movement, and then also I guess what you call the expansion of community work and community involvement, so that the practice of dance doesn’t have to look as elitist as it has been and that the process of making work can be way more inclusive. Of course my experience has been that disabled-led creators and disabled-led companies tend to push that inclusion beyond what is often comfortable for the venues that want to produce them. And so that's been the next phase I've been seeing wherein, and not to diminish anything that physically integrated dance companies have done, but when it's not in your bones, it's not in your bones. It's the conniption of access in spaces, how to devise that, how to devise ASL interpreters, and captioners, and audio describers, how to include possibly tactile information for low vision and blind folks. And a whole host of other accoutrements that would actually make disabled people welcome in your disabled-led creativity. ON DISPLAY was a—

Tiffany Yu: —provocative.

Jerron Herman: Oh my gosh. It was provocative. It served a really awesome moment.

Tiffany Yu: I've been thinking a lot recently about discomfort. There is something around a disabled body that I think causes people who don't wear those identities to feel uncomfortable. And I've been having a lot of conversations recently around how now that we've moved to a virtual first platform, there has been a little bit of an equalizer where I can show up passing as non-disabled and am the same size square or rectangle as everyone else. And interestingly enough, my response to that is that I actually do want you to see my splint. I want you to see my arm, and I want you to feel what it's like to feel uncomfortable because that's how we have felt our whole lives. 

Jerron Herman: Right. 

Tiffany Yu: And I think that to me is what was so provocative about ON DISPLAY. Because there's a quote I really like from Harry Winston that says, “People will stare. Make it worth their while.”

 Jerron Herman: That's the spirit of ON DISPLAY for sure. 

Tiffany Yu: I want to take a break here and then when we come back, I want to talk about what post-Heidi Latsky Dance life looks like for you because I know you've got a whole suite of really incredible projects that you've been working on.

[break]

Tiffany Yu: And we're back from the break here. This is Tiffany Yu on the Tiffany & Yu podcast in conversation with Jerron Herman, who is an interdisciplinary artist. Before the break, we were chatting about the eight incredible years that he had with Heidi Latsky Dance. I wanted to ask you, the New York Times called you “the inexhaustible Mr. Herman.” What's the story behind that? 

Jerron Herman: So that was from a show called Triptych, which was a big feat of our energy. I mean, when I started with Heidi's company, that was the second piece that we had started. I had done a revival of GIMP right before, and then we began this long 3.5 year process of developing Triptych. So by the time we got to the premiere, I think we were all fired up and ready to perform. And it's special I think because I value being inexhaustible. I value being seen as raring to go and uninhibited. And that piece was the first time I was able to showcase a variety of functions and of abilities that I accrued over the years that I had been developing with the company. What is referred to in that quote is my duet with Greg Youdan, wherein he and I are the same person, essentially. I love your analogy about the boxes and being same, because that was what we were playing with. We were playing with this idea of, can you notice or not notice the differences between us if our arms are codified? And that was really successful in kind of starting a narrative on, Well, what are the implications of erasure? If you erase what is distinct, and why does it matter, or even what does it do in sanitizing both of those people? Within the exchange, it's like, Greg had to subdue himself in order to meet me. And then at a certain point I had to let him go and just do what I do. And I think as well, like my performance philosophy is just to be as abandoned as possible. And so I think that's what endeared me to Heidi who is just equally as abandoned in her performing. 

Tiffany Yu: And what does that mean “as abandoned as possible”? 

Jerron Herman: Yeah, in dance, I feel the extension of my body. I feel in the leaps or the pliés or twists or the turns that I use even the rigidity of, say my left leg, or the waves, the hyper mobility of my right side to, as they say, eat up the space. I mean, I think, a marley dance floor is your opportunity to transcend the physical environment. It's your moment, though it's constrained, like there's nothing better than dancing a full phrase off into the wings, for example. It's this necessary need to fly. And I've been always interested in just exerting all that I am in a moment. I think it's important and I think it shows your fidelity to the movement and actually respect to the movement if you really do perform it in a way that just you leave nothing left. And so in that way I do become inexhaustible because in general, I don't want to reserve anything or leave anything in the tank when performing or even in a state of creativity because, why? You know, there's a sense of, in my creativity, that I've been waiting for so long for moments that I can express myself. So I'm thirsty for it. And, that's my response in performing. 

Tiffany Yu: Yeah. I love the words that you use. A lot of what you said also resonated with me. I mean, I think first of all, this is why I love disability origin stories, because everyone has a very different one. And I also think the context of parenting and the environment that you grew up in really matters a lot as well. And a lot of what I've been talking about now is how can I fill my space, which I think is your equivalent to being a bit abandoned. So in my research for this, I saw that you don't call yourself an activist. And is that still the case today or has your relationship to that label changed? 

Jerron Herman: Yeah. No, it really hasn't. I even made a piece about it. So last year for ADA 29, I was graciously invited to perform at the Whitney Museum. And I presented a work called “Many Ways to Raise a Fist.” And it was supposed to reflect on my burgeoning understanding of protest culture and of its intertwining legacies among other marginalized communities, and especially the disability community. In my practice in general, I love to define and really sink into the definition of words and why we place meaning, or even what meaning is placed on them, and whether or not they are useful anymore. So my critique is really like, Is the usefulness of this word as charged or as important as we think it is? And then I go into a piece about that. And protest for me, in conversations with other people I'm in community with, just really has been— or even activism, has really narrowed and again, not included nuance enough for the people that it could be a container for. So, we can definitely hold several ideologies at once, but I feel that protest doesn't have to look singularly like marching and doesn't have to look singularly like posting on social media. But that again, knowing who you're talking to and knowing your community is a way in which you can advocate for them and push things forward. So the piece was like, What if joy could be a protest? And what if actions that are for rest and are for peace are also protest? So, that led me to feel like, I still don't really think of myself as an activist. Also, I think that it's often too tied to disability identity as like an a priori understanding of disability that, if you are disabled then you are an activist, and I want to give that a little bit breath too, because, just because you're Catholic, doesn't mean you're a priest. It’s like the idea of like, you have to be the apex, you have to encompass a lot of things at the same time. I want to push against that a little bit. And, I think that also, other people in the disability community are better suited to be activists than I am. I feel like I'm a storyteller. And then I see this graph—this infographic about like the many ways you can serve your community. And storytelling is one of them. And there's also an organizer and the nurse and all these other components of being part of a community, so I don't think it's my role. Still, I don’t think it’s my role. 

Tiffany Yu: Yeah. I think that's powerful. So you talk about being a storyteller. There's a quote on your website it says, “From an early age I wondered: what could I contribute to society, to creativity? Now an artist, I'm unflinchingly contributing all of me. What part do you want?” Beautiful. Can you talk to me a little bit about what advocacy and what does storytelling look like for you these days? 

Jerron Herman: Yeah. No, that's so keen. WITH, yeah, The Disabled List started by Liz Jackson has been a wonderful resource in terms of just having a database of folks that, If you'd like a perspective on X here's, the person, Y. Liz has been a great friend and a comrade in all things kind of ideological. And then I still do work with the National Dance Institute and their burgeoning physically integrated dance classes and programs, especially the DREAM Project. I just finished curating a series of access culture talks with the Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, which was exciting for me and I was able to bring together some artists, disabled artists and institutions and talk about what welcoming would look like logistically in a policy way. And then last year, I had the biggest solo performing year I've ever had. And so now I'm just kind of sitting with those pieces. I made three different works in like eight months and it was the wildest thing I ever did. No one should do that.

Tiffany Yu: Not recommended.

Jerron Herman: Not recommended at all, but it was lovely. And I think I was just frenzied and ready to try something different. And now I have three new pieces that I'm continuing to dissect and disseminate and do different things with. And then I've been working with Kinetic Light: Alice Sheppard, Laurel Lawson and Michael Maag. Their new shop of just interrogatory art making. We're developing this new piece called Wired, which details the gender and racialized and historicized legacy of barbed wire in America. And it's a lovely piece that I'm super excited to be part of. And then I'm doing a little bit of, I have in me a— I don't know if you would call it a historical, sociological project where I want to think about my body as a fulcrum for discussions on geographical phenomenon. So I'm using, again, the power of definition to assert a perspective on our world. Hemiplegia to me also connotes hemispheres. And I want to start to think about how hemispheres narrate different things in our culture and how maybe the movement on my body and on my hemispheres can translate about some truths that we deal with and just uncover those things. So is that a map project? Is that an essay? Is that a scholarly text? Is that a dance? I'm moving through those things, what the container would look like. But I do know, and a couple of friends have encouraged me, that it's time to really dip into my interdisciplinary practices. How text, how movement, how voice do operate together to create a new container. That's what's on the horizon, Tiffany. 

Tiffany Yu: Yeah, not much going on. We're recording this during July. It's the 30th anniversary of the ADA. I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that we are living in a pandemic and we are living through what I am calling, inspired by my friend, Nicole Cardoza, a civil rights revolution. And so I thought I'd start by checking in on you and hearing how you're feeling around Black Lives Matter and around Black Disabled Lives Matter. 

Jerron Herman: Right. So I was actually troubled by it for a couple of reasons. I think these are the times when, again, I'm all about definition. So I need to know who the voice is, and I'm in favor of Black Lives Matter as a concept, as a thing to name. There are various conflicting, and rightfully so, critical questions for the group that disseminates it, as it pertains to the Black community as a whole and what they do for the Black community. So I think in relation its relationship to the conversation around police brutality, it's furtive and it's necessary. But it's niche. And so, that comes out because of the ways in which we have to specify Black Trans Lives Matter and Black Disabled Lives Matter because people aren't being included. And so that's the conversation for me is the extent of the movement. Because if you think back to the Black Power movement or the civil rights movement, there were a lot of ties and economic empowerment, redressing, education and policies. And so I wonder if policies is what we should be focusing on, or is it the heart of a man, the heart of a woman, especially as it pertains to racism? Because my prejudice against disabled people was one of ignorance until I met them. And so could a policy have eradicated that? Possibly, but as well, I think that there's this quality of the movement that isn't being discussed and it's the authentic engagement of one person to another, or the curiosity from one person to engage with another. And that can't be diminished because as an artist as well, like that's what I want. I want someone to be curious from the get go about who I am and what I want, what I do and what I say. And we just leave ourselves a little bit vulnerable to people smiling in front of your face and then not doing anything behind your back or not doing anything. Yeah. You know, like they'll walk away and not do anything. I mean, the performative activity of like say Mayor de Blasio or in his administration in New York City is telling of a neoliberal identity that does not support active action in the way of advancing people's lives. And so, I think to a certain extent, the movement is— I love the sentiment and I agree with it 100%. And I think that everyone does. And it's curious that there was a unilateral and uniformed discussed with how George Floyd was killed. And that, I mean I have not heard of a dissenter to his killing and the way that it was handled so that gives me a little bit of hope and a little bit of pause about the severity of the actions after. And I guess, at the base of me though, I'm like, if you about revolution, then be about it. And let's not take corporate dollars.Let's not take the paternalism of corporations or even other white people. Like if you really are about it, then you have to separate yourself from the comforts of the society. And if you're about liberation, liberation is so different from justice and it's so different from equality. And it's so different from equity. Liberation is the full eradication of differences and of respective powers. So that would actually include your oppressor. And what does that mean, you know? Because you don't just recapitulate the wheel by putting in an older oppressor or a new oppressor in an old wineskin. I remember I was at a talk Toni Morrison was giving and she said, matriarchy isn't the solution to patriarchy. And I love that because it isn't just about another frame of person entering in, like that doesn't guarantee justice, this doesn’t a guarantee success. And so we do need to go a little deeper than just what's on the visage. And so that's what I hope for the movement and that's what— I mean, that's what I'm going to do in my work is assert these truths and strengthen it from its sides because I think the core of it is good but yeah, we gotta strengthen the sides. 

Tiffany Yu: Yeah, what you made me think about is again, similar to our earlier conversation around advocacy and what it looks like for you and how for each person within the disability community it's different. So I think everyone might have a different relationship to Black Lives Matter. But there is always action that you can take no matter what level you're at. So all of that said, though, there's still work to be done. Like you said, I feel hopeful that we have made some progress forward that I don't think we can turn our back to this. Even if it's just a small step and there still corporate dollars involved, something has shifted. So I want to segue to ADA30, which is, now we've had 30 years of our rights protected by law. We still have rampant disability discrimination. We still have problems with intersectionality and even racism within our own community. 

Jerron Herman: Well, you struck me when you said about your Zoom meetings and how you can present as non-disabled, because it really is my experience. Like my not using assistive devices does erase the legibility of disability and that's when I find the compounding, intersecting hardships of being Black, of being a Black man, and of being a disabled Black man. Because people don't understand or don't see, and only see fear in respect to, what is his arm doing? Well, you know, what's his lurch, what's it about, what's going on as a means of self preservation? And to a certain extent, I'm still upset about it, but I understand it. And I understand that people can be prejudiced. I understand that people can not get it initially. And I think one of the things that I am hopeful about is that ignorance isn't forever and that personal connection actually is the fastest way to full understanding. And I know that's not prudent and it also isn't effective in the way of like, not everyone can have a group of friends that have varying disabilities and then get to understand the needs. I would not be an effective artist, doing work, and and welcoming folks into venues that I perform had I not had disabled friends, and that was key for me as I was entering into a solo career. 

Tiffany Yu: I'm curious to hear from your perspective, what your dream is for the ADA that hasn't been realized yet?

Jerron Herman: Is it one that the government can give, is the question? So the one that the government can give, I think that there does need to be a harsher and more direct consequence to inaccessible spaces. That can no longer be sufficient. One example was New York City's expansion of the subways or the revitalization of them and that none included a wheelchair or that some are going to have elevators and some aren't. I think about how cost effective a ramp is, like that there isn't necessarily this cost benefit. It's just like, just do it. And there's another way, there's creative way to do it. although. In tandem, there was a cab program that was fairly successful. Oh, Tiffany, this is really hard for me because as much as I say, okay, if we had more representation, for example, in places of power, but that doesn't also—that doesn't only mitigate what happens. There needs to be ownership from both sides from the non-disabled community and from the disabled community. The dream that I want though is the expansion from compliance to welcoming. This contradicts exactly what I just said, but punitive action— that we don't just rely on punitive action as a means to progress, but that our sense of welcoming actually is more expansive. And because I experienced life without assistive devices or even I look at our transportation placards as erasing me as well, because I don't use a wheelchair. So even with that, we need to expand our notion of who's in our community. And if we do that effectively by expanding welcoming practices. Because we look at ramps, everyone loves a ramp. I mean, no one denies that a ramp can be for them. And that’s the curious thing about design and about how access is so fluid. So I think our practices and our policies of welcoming and how we look at it from an individual level or from a moment that isn't— because the government has a way of just sending a block of aid and it not being very distinguishable. Or the way that it's disseminated isn't met with care. And so I would say how can the government put people in place that would disseminate this block of aid in ways that also effectively communicate care to the community? 

Tiffany Yu: It's a big, heavy question. The ADA just didn't happen overnight. And for those of us who have watched Crip Camp on Netflix, and if you haven't, please do, you see these teenagers meeting at camp, which then paved the foundation for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which then paved the way for the ADA. I love how you touched on it from an internal and external perspective in what I will call a loving disabled gaze, in terms of how can we within our own community see each other fully. And then to the external world, I don't want to be seen as a liability. I don't want to be seen as litigation. I don't want to be seen as a burden. How can I be seen in your words, from a welcoming, care perspective, that really centers disability and humanity. So appreciate your thoughts there. 

Jerron Herman: Thank you. 

Tiffany Yu: Five years ago, first when we met, also when there was a Disability Pride Parade in New York, but it was also when New York City Mayor de Blasio had declared July Disability Pride Month. I'm curious to hear from you, what does disability pride look like for you and what are you proud of?

Jerron Herman: I mean, first, the month is curious. I would love more history. I would love this month to be about us finding the people who have been erased from history books, from even our anecdotal understandings. There's so many folks who haven't— if I just go into the arts, have not had long careers, but they had really paved some fantastic ways for me. And I don't know their names. So pride month for me is actually history and it is theory. I need to be very versed in that. But what I'm proud of and who I'm proud of, are my contemporaries, my goodness, and my betters. So working with Alice Sheppard, who's a dancer-choreographer, has been an illuminating and energizing experience. Her passion and vision for disability community and communing has been really exacting. Then there's Ezra Benus, who's a visual studio artist. There's Shannon Finnegan. Actually I'm a part of a cohort and extended residency of folks who are just amazing workers and artists, Madison Zalopany, Kevin Quiles Bonilla, oh my goodness, so many folks. And then it's the other dance artists. It's Mark Travis Rivera, it's Dan Daw. It's Yo-Yo Lin. It's so many folks who are in— and also musicians, Molly Joyce and Jerome Ellis, people who we have— at least in the arts now I was telling you this. We have someone for every silo, for every genre to talk to us and give us perspective. And I think that's where our power lies and that's where I know that we can expand and do more when we have real footholds in everything. I haven't even mentioned the tech people and the policy people, but that's I guess more so than just them leading the charge, it's like they're creating the containers. And I think that's really important because it's about the containers, it's about who can fit into what you're making. And I'm really proud to know some people who are thinking critically about what it means to be excellent at what you do and how your excellence can actually bubble over to help and to generate other people's activity.

Tiffany Yu: And I'm proud to know you and to see the journey you've been on over the last couple of years of really coming into your own power and your own voice and your own space. So if people want to follow you, where is the best way to do that? 

Jerron Herman: Sure. Oh, and I just have to say, Tiffany first, thank you so much. That's such a lovely thing to say. I'm like verklempt right now. So, I'm at @JerronHerman. J E R R O N H E R M A N, across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and my website is www.jerronherman.com. And I answer my emails.

Tiffany Yu: He does. He responded. I said, do you want to be on my show?

Jerron Herman: Well, I already know, like, you know, I'm coming for a Tiffany Yu experience. 

Tiffany Yu: For the Tiffany Yu experience. I love it. Well, thank you Jerron for being on the show. We'll close it there and happy ADA30 and Disability Pride Month. 

Jerron Herman: To you as well, my friend.

Tiffany Yu
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