AXSChat Podcast with Molly Joyce, Composer

Molly Joyce has been deemed one of the “most versatile, prolific and intriguing composers working under the vast new-music dome” by The Washington Post. Her work is concerned with disability as a creative source. She has an impaired left hand from a previous car accident, and the primary vehicle in her pursuit is her electric vintage toy organ, an instrument she bought on eBay which engages her disability on a compositional and performative level. Molly’s creative projects have been presented and commissioned by Carnegie Hall, TEDxMidAtlantic, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Bang on a Can Marathon, Danspace Project, Americans for the Arts, National Sawdust, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, National Gallery of Art, Classical:NEXT, and in Pitchfork, Red Bull Radio, and WNYC’s New Sounds. She is a graduate of Juilliard, Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Yale, and alumnus of the YoungArts Foundation. She holds an Advanced Certificate in Disability Studies from City University of New York, and is a doctoral student at the University of Virginia in Composition and Computer Technologies. She has served on the composition faculties of New York University, Wagner College, and Berklee Online.

Transcript

0:00

This is a draft transcript produced live at the event and corrected for spelling and basic errors. It is not a commercial transcript. AXSCHAT Molly Joyce

NEIL: 0:07

Hello and welcome to Axschat. I'm delighted that our guest today is Molly Joyce. Molly is an artist and creator and also doctoral student and is doing some really, really interesting work around disability and incorporating attitudes to that into her art and creation. So, Molly, it's fantastic to have you with us, can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be working in this space?

MOLLY: 0:34

Sure and of course, thank you so much for having me. So, I identify as disabled. I was involved in a car accident about this 20 years ago that nearly amputated my left hand and since the accident I've really journeyed from denying my disability to embracing it first and foremost. And I would say that progression largely parallel to the advancement of my artistic practice from music composition to more performance and especially community engagement and specifically with this project, discussed trying to really highlight voices and viewpoints of disabled individuals and specifically around a range disability and around concepts that are key to disability culture, like access, care, interdependence and more

NEIL: 1:24

Thanks, and so you have got an album coming out shortly called,'Perspective,' and it's out on New Amsterdam records in about three or four weeks from now, 28th of October. Can you tell us a bit more about this. I mean I've seen some stuff already, but our audience won't have done so. So, what is it about, what does it contain?

MOLLY: 1:53

Sure, so, the album started a couple of years ago and I had a conversation with the legendary activist Judith Human or Judy Human and she asked why I refer to my left land as weak and this question really struck me personally and I would say almost politically in a way as I knew that oh, I've a weaker left side, when I was asked what had happened or if I had to explain why I couldn't do something, it was kind of a quick and easy way to address my disability and kind get rid of it at the same time or to get it out of the room if that makes sense, not really centre it. And her question really struck me. I don't think she was necessarily saying I had to deny my disability or deny a weakness or call it my strong left hand or something but really we started talking about how weakness is so central to disabled life overall, it got me thinking about, like, wow, I really wonder what it means to people across a range of disabilities, those with vision impairments, and hearing impairments and so forth. It really set this project in motion where I started with that question, of like what is weakness for you and expanded to further concepts and questions related to that, like access, care, strength, interdependence and more and then, so I would sit down with the interviewees, most of the interviews were in person before COVID and some virtual, record the audio for their answers and then, at least for the album version, kind of edit down their answers to highlights and my musical underscoring and also create these accompanying kind of open captions videos, with the open captions, their responses to have that visual output to underscore access as an aesthetic if you will, with the work, with having the multiple sensory outputs but also again really like valuing the captions as kind of the sole visual for the work too and just emphasise the responses and their words.

DEBRA: 3:55

Molly, I am so impressed with your work, and I didn't know about you and look, you're here in Virginia, right down the road from me. I’m excited about the work that you're doing, and I also am very engaged as we all are in this call, really looking at, what does it mean to have lived experiences with disabilities, can we really be proud, and I agree Judy Human has been an amazing leader. She's been wonderful. And that was a very interesting question, why are you calling a hand weak. I mean, but it seems like right now, cos even this morning when I was coming on air because Neil and I had been done another talk for we connect. But I was playing with my signature line and I was like, you know, I really should put in that I'm Billion Strong and you know, but I also wanted to put in my pronouns, but I wanted to put in my pronouns, not because I really need to tell you all that I'm a woman, that I identify as a woman but because I want to honour the people that are working on that right? So, then thinking about what you have been saying and the work you're doing and how you are you know putting it into your music. I want to ask you a question in that, why is it so important right now that we do these things, that we just really dig into, what does it mean to truly be human? Because I mean to me, that is what your work is doing. What does it mean to say Molly, your hand is weak. So, why is this so important right now in the intense times we are all living in?

MOLLY: 5:40

Yeah, it's a good question, I feel I want to get back to you in week or something, with a lengthy answer. I would say especially with the point everything on the pandemic, with these concepts and questions, I came with right before the pandemic hit like care, access and interdependence, I think many disabled individuals have written about how the disability community was always valuing these concepts that really you know shine throughout the pandemic, again like care, interdependence, even isolation, is one of my questions and I think that makes it more relevant now to learn from the disabled community what they have been fostering so far. Especially even statistics on how a lot of people have become disabled because of COVID or impacts of the pandemic too, which I think it makes it all the more relevant to rethink these concepts and I would also add to my questions, I love like interviewing in general, or I just prefer usually to listen anyway, I really like these questions, again, I hope they don't elicit a yes or no or right or wrong answer that I've had in each section, interviewees often would contradict each other in a good way, and so that was my goal to highlight the plurality and diversity of disability viewpoints. And just the complications that arise I think in a good way, even around cure and something. And so, I just wanted to stress that as well and to value that diversity rather than stressing we have to think one way or the other about these concepts.

DEBRA: 7:13

And that's what makes me so excited about the younger generations doing that you are this. I am going to say this, and I'll turn it over to Antonio or Neil, but I have a 35-year-old daughter with Down Syndrome and when she went into middle school, which middle school, junior school, whatever you call it, that's a really hard time for people regardless. But I was so worried that once again my daughter is 35, thinking of the generations, I was really worried that she would be picked on and so, really it made my heart feel so good was that she was not picked on. It was almost like she was not somebody that could be picked on. Now, my son who didn't have a disability oh my God, she was picked on and I am sure he gave it out too, right. But the kids almost seemed to know, no, Sarah is off limits, you can't do that, and it gave me a lot of hope. But even since those times, I see the younger generations just being so thoughtful about these things and you are a perfect example of that. So, I just wanted to compliment you on that.

MOLLY: 8:23

Thank you, I appreciate it.

DEBRA: 8:26

Neil, did you want to? I'm sorry, Antonio?

ANTONIO: 8:34

Yeah, but Neil was muted. So Molly, when you were looking and reflecting on yourself, is there anyone that you would see as a reference or someone is that you realise there is someone here that I can read about that helped me to, you know to reflect about my life, about my things and came to my own conclusion, is there someone that somehow ended up being important for you in that process?

MOLLY: 9:08

Yeah, artistically kind of that helped my thinking. I definitely point at Judy Human, obviously, I think she is an amazing mentor to so many people. I guess I feel like she always knows the right question to ask at the right time. Kind of pushes you. It's always questions to that at first to bug you a little bit because you're like challenges my thinking, you know in a good way, it really progresses. At least for myself, my thinking. I would also say artistically, I'm always inspired by such a rich community of disabled artists. Christine Sun Kim, Shannon Finnegan, Jerron Herman, there's many, many examples, especially artists that I would say are really trying to access as aesthetic, as I was kind of mentioning a little bit before which I've definitely not coined that term. I think a lot of disabled artists use it, really trying to centre accessibility facets like open captions or sign language interpretation like, as artistic element in and of itself. Especially in artistic productions are usually placed at the end or compliance accommodation and viewed as not visual or orally pleasing, I always loved that challenge in a way and then I would say, I'm just trying to think about when the project began, I was in a fellowship at Washington DC that was more art and social impact focus and a lot of artists there were doing more I would say interview based projects or having contributions from other artists or other individuals overall. Like, Stephanie J Woods or Ashley Freeby, which I think really progressed my thinking to with interviewing like the disabled individuals as I do. I think to be honest for a while I was quite hesitant about doing more community engaged projects because I wanted to do it hopefully as ethically and organically as possible.

ANTONIO: 11:03

So, during your process of creation and then developing and trying to make things accessible, do you see any barriers, do you see that no, well sometimes it's not as easy to do this type of work, sometimes it's complicated to do that. Do you feel that sometimes there are still a few things in terms of tools and resources that are still a barrier to make content accessible?

MOLLY: 11:28

Definitely, where to start, how much time do you have? I think one thing is for practising disabled artists like myself, it's not always built into artistic budgets so having that conversation or trying to find external funding for that, not to be all about the money I think but it's just a little bit awkward a disabled artist too because you're so grateful to have opportunities but you're also trying to serve your community and I really want to stress with the artistic production and then one more thing I would add to with some of my projects, like I think you can have maybe overstimulation, like if you have sign language interpretation, open captioning, audio description, like All I Ones, which I've done, in a more recent project which is exciting and fun, I think but it's a balance of, you know, is it too much stimulation in a way too or trying to find balance or sometimes just choosing to prioritising the audio description for example, in certain moments. Which again, I just find an interesting challenge which I love exploring as well.

NEIL: 12:30

It's super interesting and I had another question and I'll probably circle back to that, but as someone that is ADHD and is easily distracted.

MOLLY: 12:43

Yeah.

NEIL: 12:46

I think that often you know that sort of cacophony of things going on can really be challenging and I think some of the difficulties we have when we are trying to deliver access for all is that actually there are often conflicting needs. So, I guess one of the good things about electronic media is that we can imbed this stuff and enable it to be switched on or off with user choice, like closed captions like audio description tracks etc; like you can configure stuff to yourself, I have even got an app called My Noise, which I really love. It's a sort of random noise generator thing which helps sort of give you white noises in the background to help you sort of focus and so on. And I love playing around with this and the tempos and randomisations and so on and it's a great example of a sort of neuro-inclusive bit of art tech. Going back to your questions with Judy and the things that or the question that Judy asked and that started you on your journey, what are the other sort of epiphanies that you have had along the way because you said it was a journey. Have you really sort of changed your mind more than once, for example because I certainly have. I have changed my views multiple times about things as I've learned more where there are really key points in your understanding of your own lived experience and others during this journey.

MOLLY: 14:48

Yeah, definitely, I would say a lot and even prior to meeting Judy and that conversation, so, for a long time I would say I have a weaker left hand, I didn't have a lot of terminology for it, even going way back I used to wear like long sleeves all the time or cover it up that was why I really wanted to do more music composition, I think and that I didn't have to engage with it that much directly although of course, now that I say that it's lived experience it's always with you, you can't just it off or on and then in graduate school I discovered disability studies or independent study and then it was more intuitively that I discovered it or I was more looking at other disabled musicians and then I was thinking about my own disability but at first I was just calling it an impairment and then one of my friends a few years after that really pushed me, he said you're so interested in disability arts, and like do you identify as disabled and so, that really progressed my thinking to that. And then I would say having further conversation with Judy, actually she would look at my bio and she would say, where is disability in your bio or something. I am not saying she was telling me exactly what to do or being too prescriptive, but I think trying to encourage me to be more public about it and even terminology, like saying nondisabled as well for in that really progressed my thinking too. Yeah.

NEIL: 16:15

Okay, another think that has been sort of an epiphany for me or something that I had to think about quite a lot is the sort of idea that having accepted a disability identity is, are we disabled enough? You that sort of you know, do I feel guilty assuming the identity, are there people more disabled than me that deserve the identity more and then there's that whole sort of pity party thing going on and sort of, how does, you know, you said you covered up your arm and you know and you look at me, you wouldn't think I have a disability, so there is that whole aspect. How did you cover some of this sort of idea of unsurety, I'm trying to think, lack of confidence in identity in some of the work that you are doing?

MOLLY: 17:23

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I neglected to add I think before I was really identifying as disabled, when I was saying impairment it's because I was doing a lot of research and going to events but didn't think I was disabled enough, like you were saying. I wasn't a wheelchair user, didn't have a severe enough impairment. Didn't want to claim that for someone that it meant a lot and I don't get disability benefits for example or something. But then I think I started reading I think especially in Simi Linton's book, Claiming Disability. I realised that it's really like an identity audit claim or at least to engage with and learn from, but I think my thinking on this is always changing, not necessarily maybe around my identity but what qualifies as disability. Like, I think one of my interviewees, in the project, Peter Whirly, who is a Swiss activist, states I think in response to the cure question is to have disability is to be incurable and I think that's an interesting working definition for me because it's like definitely in my case, I'll never be, 'cured,' but then of course, temporary, disability and that's what really excites me overall about disability is that it does range from like visible to invisible, congenital to acquired, temporary to permanent. So, I just always feel like there's more to dive in there. At least for myself, like artistically and intellectually.

NEIL: 18:49

Excellent and likewise, we have been doing this series of interviews for eight years and we are still learning, and ideas have definitely evolved, and thinking has definitely evolved during that near decade now about identity and what constitutes disability, you know, the language of neurodiversity, for example and neurodivergence was extremely uncommon at the beginning. We have done loads and loads of work on it and interviews on it, you know in the last few years. So, it is a fascinating topic and its sort of microcosm of greater society in many ways. So, when you’re producing your art and you're asking the questions of people, what is generally their reaction? Are they surprised by the answers that they give? Because sometimes I find that I'm surprised when someone asks me a difficult question, I'm surprised by what comes out.

MOLLY: 20:03

I would say yeah, with most of the interviews too I try not to, unless they ask to give the questions beforehand because I really want that off the cuff, answers are very spontaneous or their first reaction. I would say a lot of them, I think I get a lot of like laughs I would say or how do I say, like weakness that doesn't exist for me, or cure or something like that. I don't know if they ever say they are really surprised but it makes them think of the concepts hence the questions. I think it's a deeper interview than they except too or something like that. It maybe forces you to be more introspective about these concepts, yeah, if that makes sense.

DEBRA: 20:51

I think right now, while we, as society, are digging into what does it really mean to be human. I mean we have artificial intelligence, when I do not believe we really understand what it means to be intelligent as a human species, just me, I'm not as confident but, when one thing that I have seen is I would like to see people being nicer and kinder, especially over boards because I know when I first started talking about creating Billion Strong you know, us come together, we are over a Billion Strong. I had an Americans, because I am also American like you are Molly and I had Americans saying, well, what are you going to do protect us, you know, because we are so tired about being discriminated against, by the way we are tired about being discriminated against but I said that's not what Billion Strong is going to do, there are other organisations that do that, but that's not what we are going to do. But I think, I hear people when we are in these identity conversations, the language conversations, I hear people that really want changes, Americans, I hear a lot of westerners, really getting so mad when people with disabilities in other countries use what they perceive to be the wrong language and for example, I'll ground the example in the UAE, the United Arabic Emirates, they have chosen to the use the term,'people of determination,' when they are looking, right as you can imagine that's not very popular in the United States or UK. It is the kind of thing that culture and in that region is that people with intellectual disabilities like my daughter with Down Syndrome, they embrace that with pride. So, one thing I am hoping that we do when we're talking about identity across at world as advocates is that we understand that people in other cultures think differently than we do and then we use that as an opportunity to dig into identity even more. I think we use it and there is also an opportunity there. So, I was just curious what you thought about that?

MOLLY: 23:09

Like about language in terms of identity or?

DEBRA: 23:13

Well, I know probably you don't like that language. I'm just going to assume. Most Americans don't like that language.

MOLLY: 23:21

No, no.

DEBRA: 23:23

But the point though do cultures have the right to decide? I mean I think it's a very complex problem and I obviously don't except you to know the answer Molly, but I do think it's just think something worth noting because I see a lot of times, once again probably being American, but America being very cut and dry, no, you have to use this language.

MOLLY: 23:47

Yeah, right.

DEBRA: 23:48

They say to people somebody autism. They're like, no you are identifying wrong.

MOLLY: 23:54

Yeah.

DEBRA: 23:56

I mean in that angle; I was just curious because I know you have seen that too.

MOLLY: 24:01

Yeah, I think it's obviously very complex as your saying, at least for disability or myself, I've always tried to really respect what the individual wants or how they want to be identified even if they want to identify more as a person with a disability versus disabled person and etc, etc. So, that's why I feel it's really up to the individual. It was interesting though our friend progressed our thinking, I'm a person with a disability and then he was like you probably wouldn't say a person who is a female or an artist who is female or something and it also brings up another conversation, especially with female composers, they usually say female composers but they don't say male composers or that need to add that addendum in a way. But at least in regards to disability that progressed my thinking how I really wanted to be disabled artist or something or just putting that first and foremost, not trying to add it on at the end. But again, I think it depends on the culture and individual. I'm going to look up that the Emirates, I think that's very interesting, and I think language is fluid and flexible in a way.

DEBRA: 25:13

Right. I think what is so interesting once again it is about identity. What is identity and I prefer the lived experiences type identity language as opposed to first person or you know, I do like I am choosing to these days to say I've lived experience with ADHD, I've lived experiences as a mother of a daughter with Down Syndrome. I've lived experience as a wife, widow now. There are a lot of different ways that we have lived experiences that we can honour. I just love digging into that these topics in a different way. But I think your music and your composing really lends to these issues that we are talking about around the world, so compliments.

ANTONIO: 26:05

Debra, the English language is something that unites us all. However, I'm Portuguese, I'm from a different culture, people, there are cultural nuances that can only be expressed in their own language, and sometimes when I'm expressing myself in English my brain is in the context of my own culture, so sometimes they are things that don't really fit when I speak in English and I might even say things wrong but because I'm expressing in my own cultural context. So, it's very difficult and so, I think it's very complicated for someone that is native of English language to somehow judge others who are trying to speak their language, others ignoring the social cultural context of where they are from.

NEIL: 27:06

I think it's a fair point. I mean we go back to,'persons of determination.' I think it's an interesting euphemism because I think many euphemism can be just there to hide disability, to sort of brush it into the background and I think there is a slight difference with this one, I mean still role my eyes when I hear it a bit because I'm a conditioned as an English speaking westerner, to think that it's based on the medical model. But it's an acknowledgment. There is an acknowledgment in there that there isn't in some of these other euphemisms. There is an acknowledge that the world is not accessible and that we are determined and that we have effort, and we have value, and I can understand that in the original language that probably translates better and that probably does resonate better. But, when I think that where the problem is, is when the euphemism actually gets in the way of acceptance of disability then it's something that we have to probably gently challenge because a lot of these euphemisms are really there because people are still afraid to claim their identity, wouldn't you say Molly.

MOLLY: 28:39

I definitely agree or even say, Judy and I talk about this a lot, even afraid to say the term disability. I feel like I've been on so many panels that are more music context, I would say or I think they don't have to address it and they address the panel like people of different abilities or different and you're like, why can't you, I don't totally understand why they can't just say disability because I think they think it's offensive maybe but I'm not an argumentative person. So, I try to address it if I can or politely hopefully, but if fascinates me that you wouldn't say that with other identities, especially today in 2022 or veer around the word in a way and yeah, it's just fascinating to me.

ANTONIO: 29:28

I think I just want to share something, when I was a kid, I had to go to orthopaedic hospital, and I had to use some special boots just to correct to do some correcting in my life. And in hospital, there is a lot of people with disabilities working as employees, manufacturing the boots, doing the orthopaedics, doing the work and when I was a kid I was always, I was never looking them as different from me, they were just people there working there to produce my boots. And that was it. I was not making any difference or establishing any difference between me and them they were just people who were there you know, helping me to have comfortable boots. Just probably a perspective of a kid and the way we see the world and then we grow up and create all these barriers and all these things around us.

NEIL: 30:31

Absolutely. One last thing before we close and I have to thank My Clear Text for keeping us captioned, go and check it out. Go and checkout perspective, Molly's album. You can find it, I'll say it slowly, Smart URL.IT/perspective album. Check it out and you can also find it on Band Camp, YouTube, Spotify etc because I think it's a fascinating project. Thank you for coming on talking to us about its Molly and I hope you'll enjoy the exploration of the topic that we can have on Twitter as well.

DEBRA: 31:13

And also, just before we go and thank you so much, Molly. Also, her, I'm sure you can find it on her website so, it's mollyjoyce.com just because we want to make it easy for you to find it, buy it, please give her positive reviews, we need this work to be seen. We should all get behind you know supporting each other. And the album is newamrecords.com also.

MOLLY: 31:43

Thank you.