Crip Tips TV offers fresh pandemic perspective

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This article was published 24/02/2021 (1773 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Take it from those who know, it’s not easy to live in lockdown.

A new virtual theatre project offers its online audiences the chance to learn pandemic coping strategies from folks with disabilities who have mastered the art of living with limitations.

Debbie Patterson, artistic director of Sick + Twisted Theatre, launched a five-part weekly video series called Crip Tips TV earlier this month with funding from Safe At Home Manitoba.

“I think people with disabilities have some skills for staying home that probably all of us need right now,” she said.

“We’re using that lived experience of disability to help everybody stay home and stay safe during the pandemic.”

“I think people with disabilities have some skills for staying home that probably all of us need right now.”–Debbie Patterson

The first video features Patterson, who lives with multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair to get around. Subsequent episodes showcase interviews with other disabled artists.

“With this web series, I’m interviewing other people with disabilities who have a lot of experience staying home. I’m noticing that a lot of folks are feeling really frustrated and have just had enough — and yet there are people with disabilities who stay home all the time,” said Patterson, a Wolseley resident.

“For wheelchair users, it’s very difficult to get around right now when there’s snow on the ground. Come fall, you start preparing yourself emotionally and psychologically for the winter, when you know you’re not going to be getting out.”

The interactive episodes encourage people to stop longing for how things used to be or looking ahead to the horizon and, instead, to fully embrace the present moment.

The themes run deeper than delving into distractions, she added.

“We want to move beyond just ideas of things to distract yourself and explore more existential questions that come up when you’re forced to stay away from everybody else and when you’re forced to give up things that you love doing. With MS, it’s a progressive thing so I gradually had to give up a lot of things that I really love doing,” Patterson said.

“But when you stop doing something, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a hole in your life that just stays a hole. You fill it up with other things — and there are things you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.”

“Even though we’re running out of patience with this pandemic and this lockdown, we can still choose to lean in.”–Debbie Patterson

She encourages viewers to email their questions, as well as their own pandemic survival tips, to criptipstv@gmail.com

“We can offer advice like an advice column,” Patterson said. “They can also offer their own tips about new things they discovered through the pandemic, new ways of being and new ways of living their lives.”

Episodes are posted on the Facebook page and YouTube channel for Sick + Twisted Theatre, which is a disability theatre company.

“It’s all about encouraging people to make the most of this time, to recognize the gifts of this time and to lean into it,” Patterson said.

“Even though we’re running out of patience with this pandemic and this lockdown, we can still choose to lean in. This web series is dedicated to helping people develop the tools to do that.”

For more information about Sick + Twisted Theatre, visit www.sickandtwisted.ca