0:14 – Intro
Welcome to "Scene Change", a podcast by the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts division. All about equality, opportunity, accessibility, and the arts. Here, you'll learn about the techniques from performers in the know. We are changing what it means to be blind at one stage at a time. Thank you for joining us today.

Lizzy 0:41 – Introducing the guests
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Scene change. I'm Lizzy Muhammad Park, the Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division and the host of the show. We have the president of the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division with us, Katelyn McIntyre, as well as one of our board members, Precious Perez.

Katelyn
Yeah. Hi. It's great to be here with you, Lizzy and everyone listening. Welcome. I am Katelyn McIntyre, the president of the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division, and I love everything performing, I have a Master of Music in vocal performance, and which means that I studied opera, and art song and oratorio and lots of classical music. I also sing jazz and musical theater and other styles, and I play some piano and guitar, I also teach all of those things online currently, which is a whole lot of fun. I love getting to pass on what I've learned to others, and then I also do some competitive ballroom dancing. I've done that in the collegiate circuit. That's actually how I met my husband, which is a wonderful story, and dabbled in some acting and motivational speaking, and I just love the performing arts, all of it.

Lizzy
Great. We're so glad to have you. Katelyn, thank you so much for joining us, and Precious.

Precious
Hi, everybody. This is super exciting. My name is Precious. I am currently studying music education and performance at Berklee College of Music. I am a vocalist and a songwriter. I like to use my art as a form of activism as well. So I've done a lot of different performances, and I've got YouTube and music out on all streaming platforms, all those kinds of things, and I'm just really excited for the opportunity to bring performing arts to other people and build community with the performing arts. So being a part of this division is wonderful, and super excited to be on this first episode of our new podcast.

Lizzy 2:45 – What performing means to Katelyn and Precious
So before we jump into anything more formally about the division, I'd like to take a step back and talk about what performing means to each of you, and Precious, as you know, we're going to start with you. It's interesting, Katelyn, that you mentioned how you met your husband in ballroom dancing, and I know that Precious her entire recital this year, which was really great, was all about her journey to her fiance, Shane, who is actually recording this right now for us in audio editing this episode for us. Because you guys, tell me a bit about how performance has been personal for you guys, and it could be if you want to share your personal stories, whether it's like, it could be an early memory, it could be a recent memory, it could be a time that performing has presented itself to you or maybe an opportunity or a relationship that has been able to build for you.

Precious
Sure. So I think performance and really it just started for me when I was really little. Somebody gave me a karaoke machine when I was six years old, and I used to just like be in my room with a microphone and like it was back when the the machine had like cassette tapes that you could put them in and record, and so I would just put on the radio and record myself singing but I was super painfully shy back then, and then I grew into it. As I participated in choral ensembles and things through elementary school and middle school, I started doing more performances and started writing my own songs in middle school and I kind of used it as an outlet and as a channel for anything I was going through. It was what I was really passionate about, and it was something that I could use to I soon discovered. You relate to other people and connect to other people, and I think that means a lot to me like all of my friends and like People that are close to me are all involved in some way in the arts, and it's a way for us to, you know, connect, and continue to build stronger friendships, and it's just great to be able to use the arts to bring people together and to really kind of make an impact.

Lizzy
That's really true, you know, come to think of actually Precious, I forgot about my first karaoke machine, and it's really funny, because I think that that may have influenced my performance a little bit, too, but I just totally forgot about it. Kaitlyn Did you ever have a karaoke machine or anything like that?

Katelyn
I never did get into it that I know, right? I would have been great. I think we did have some tape recorders around the house, but my mom, let us just record ourselves, you know, over and over the same tape multiple times, which would be really fun to go back and listen to now, but yeah, you know, I had two older brothers, I still have two older brothers, and we were all really into music growing up. So I was kind of blessed to have a little bit of that way paved for me, with my older brothers getting into music first, and I saw that and saw how much they enjoyed it, and we all really kind of started to encourage each other I, I do have memories, and I think there's some video footage of me singing songs that maybe three or four years old and going up to my mom and saying, Can I sing you a song? Okay, you know, ABCDEFG finished that one, can I send you another one? Okay, hot cross buns, hot cross buns, can I show you another one going on. Um, and I, I was really eager to share my music from an early age, but I after that my family and I actually started singing together, which was a wonderful way to, I think, encourage each other, and kind of start that collaboration aspect of performing arts that I love so much. I love doing solo work, but whenever I'm a part of a choir or singing with orchestra, or in a, you know, I've done clogging in a dance group where you're not the only person on stage, you can accomplish so much more than when you're just the only one there. I love that aspect of performing arts. So that was a great starter, and then one other thing I love as well is the fact that all performing arts but musics specifically, in my field really transcends language barriers, transcends cultural barriers, it's, it's kind of an international language that can reach anyone and everyone and singing opera has taught me that as well. Because so much of it is about telling a story, in whatever language you're singing in German, Italian, French, Spanish, you know, you're, you're, you're singing in these different languages, the audience doesn't necessarily understand that, but you're still conveying a story telling a story about love, or loss or joy or sorrow, and then kind of taking that into a more practical or real life scenario. I had the privilege after my senior year of college to go on a trip to Romania, to work with orphans there, and you know, I didn't speak any Romanian yet, and they didn't speak much English, but we were able to use music as a way to connect and to teach them, you know, tell them story is to teach them life skills, various ways that we're able to use music to bring joy and hope and give them encouragement in their daily lives, and so I just love being able to see that that music could really just reach out to a totally different people group than I was from and, you know, still create that connection and that community and that bond. So music is really powerful as, as are all the performing arts.

Lizzy 8:49 – What brought everyone to the NFB PAD
You're exactly right. When you say that, you know, the performing arts, connects people across language. I know for my senior solo, which, at Bryn Mawr and the acapella group that I was in each senior is allowed to pick a song that they want to sing, it could be something special to you, it could be something that you know, you just sound good singing or whatever the case may be, you don't always get to have a solo when you're in an acapella group, but your senior year, that's your time to shine. I ended up choosing a song that I would always dance to and sing when I was in Spain, and it's a really popular reggaeton song by Marc Anthony, (Spanish) and I just loved that song, and what happened like the reason why I ended up singing that one was because the housekeeper at the school that I was attending. She said, You know what she's like, I love how you're here and you're just taking advantage of everything, and you don't care like you're not letting anything stop you whether because honestly when I got to Spain my Spanish was not good was really kind of like but I just went for it anyway, I wasn't really worried about that, and, and I always tell people I'm like, I'm like, I'm sorry, if you don't understand me, my Spanish isn't good, but I need to practice. So I'm going to keep talking to you in Spanish. You know what I mean? Like, even if I'm struggling, even if you're struggling, we're gonna get through this because I'm gonna pretend like I don't speak English, and that's honestly what I did, and a lot of situations, and good attitude is that she said that, um, every time she was here, that's what she said, Lizzy, whenever I hear the song, I think of you, and she said, Do you know the song? She would like, you know, sing it to me? Will you sing it together? And I ended up memorizing all the words, and it was, Oh, she loved music. So I was memorizing all the words, and when I got back from my, my senior solo, and they said, you know, What song do you want to do? I was like, alright, we're doing this song, and they were like, We don't speak Spanish, and I was like, well, we're gonna figure it out. Like, you know, you know, even though you guys don't necessarily know what you're saying, I was like, sing it sing. It was feeling, you know, these, here's what the words mean, you know, no matter what the day brings, I'm going to, you know, have fun, I'm going to enjoy life, and that's what the song is about. So we're gonna sing it, and we're all gonna have fun doing it, and they're like, all right, you know, so it's just, and the audience loved it, you know, but I just think it's really powerful. When you say it doesn't, you know, it doesn't really matter what you're performing art is, you can always connect with other people through that, and speaking of connection, we are all a part of the Performing Arts Division, Katelyn's president, as I said, Precious is a board member, and I'm the Vice President. So I'd like for us to discuss, you know, what drew you into the performing arts division, and, you know, connecting with blind people with the Federation through the performing arts? Just you know, and everything along those lines.

Katelyn
Yeah, you know, for me, so I got involved with the National Federation of the Blind. About six years ago, in 2014, I grown up with a really positive blindness philosophy, my parents read future reflections, and so I, which is a magazine, put out by the National Organization of Parents of Blind Children, and so I was raised, really knowing that blindness didn't need to be a limitation for me, it didn't need to be my defining characteristic. You know, it's a characteristic a part of my life, but not the only characteristic, and so, I was honored to receive a national scholarship in 2014, and went to my first NFB convention, and was just totally blown away with the 3000 blind people tapping canes and filling the holes of the hotel and Convention Center was so excited to just meet so many like minded people who knew that they could reach for their goals and reach for their dreams, no matter what. You know, what they were, whether it was becoming a lawyer, or a music teacher, or an economist, or a stay at home mom, whatever it was, blindness did not have to hold us back from reaching our dream. So I just love that, and, you know, I saw the event on the calendar for the Performing Arts Division, and I just thought, hey, great, I'm gonna go meet some other blind performers, and I went, and I got pulled in, I was immediately hooked. Elections were being held, I thought, why not? This sounds like an amazing opportunity to start giving back to this amazing organization that's already reached out to me and given me a boost with the scholarship. So I, Lizzy and I actually got elected together onto this board. Lizzy is also a scholarship finalist from 2014, and I just have never looked back, since it's been an amazing community of like minded people to share ideas about, hey, you know, how, how would you go about making sure that I can memorize my blocking comfortably for this scene? Or have you ever tried learning guitar? You know, what, it's a great community to ask questions of other blind people who've been there who have created alternative techniques for different performing arts, but you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time. So I love that about our community, and just really, it's been empowering for me, I, you know, thought I was already a pretty independent and self sufficient person, and maybe by some standards, I was, but there's always more to learn, and even just in the last years of being a part of this community, I've learned more I've grown more in who I am as a performer, as a blind person, being confident to not let blindness hold me back from achieving my goals, whether it's on stage or screen or, you know, just in daily life of being a confident blind performer, and so I just, I love the community we have I love that we have dancers and comedians and musicians and actors and people doing audio engineering, and just, you know, it's we want to be a really welcoming place, and I think we've been able to achieve that. So We'd love to have you join us if you if you haven't done so already.

Lizzy
Yeah, so true, we do have a lot of different styles performance in our division. So there is literally something here for everyone, and just when you think that there's no one else who does your performing art you never, I mean, at our meeting, there was, there was a Native American flute player who said, Oh, I'm probably the only blind one, and literally, we had two others. So you just never know, you might think that you're going to be the only person who's doing a certain performing art, especially as a blind person, and next thing, you know, voilà there's two you know, two or three other, so how about you Precious?

Precious
So I think like I started noticing the presence of the Performing Arts Division, when I started coming to national conventions in I think it was 2013, or 2014, and I would sign up for the talent shows and perform at the talent shows, and I, for some reason that the schedule, the way the schedule worked, every time I planned mine out I wasn't able to go, there was always a conflicting meeting, but I think there was a point where I was like, I need to go to these meetings and see what they're about. Because, you know, performing arts, this is the division that, you know, this is my field, this is the division that matches what I'm doing, you know, and so it just I went, and I realized, like, I think the first year I didn't, you know, run for anything or anything like that, but then I realized like, well, I can actually do more than I'm doing because like I'm doing stuff with my state division with students and things, but I haven't found something that I feel like I can really make a difference with. Because part of my purpose with my career and with what I do is to break down stereotypes of blind performers and kind of show the world by example, that, hey, we are capable, and we can do this, just as well as anyone else can, it doesn't matter that we can't see. That's not a factor in this, and so when I realized that this was a place where I could go and help make that happen, I was like, Yes, I want to be part of this. We're bringing together blind performers, and we're changing what that means for people, and really showing them that you're not the only one, there's a way to make this happen. There's a way to do this as blind people and you're not alone. So it's a community, and it's also a collective effort to change perceptions, which is really, really cool.

Lizzy 17:35 – Debunking myths

You know what, you're exactly right. When you say that, we're changing, essentially, you know, the performing arts and the way that shapes around blindness, and I'd like to take this time to debunk some myths that are out there. If either of you can think of some off the top of your head, so you can kind of like spit ball here. I mean, there's so many things, and hopefully, we get a lot of excited listeners, and you know, you know, various people who have, honestly, I kind of want people who have misconceptions of blindness and people who don't know what, what we're all about as a federation, because this is a great chance for them to learn. If there any, you know, sort of myths that, you know, people have out there that say like, like, oh, well, a blind person could never do this performing art or blah, blah, blah. You know, I think this is a good outlet and channel for them to hear what those myths are, and they may, there may be miscon- misconceptions and myths that they don't even know that they're holding, you know, that are out there, and I'm gonna know Do you guys know of any have you and I know that Precious. You're at the Berklee School of Music. Just really great school, and I know, Katelyn, you went to Carnegie Mellon, even when it comes to getting into schools, I don't know how easy or hard that was for each of you, and what challenges you will have to face as far as that goes, but Precious will start with you.

Precious
So there were, you know, there's been a few blind students at Berklee. Now, there's more of us than I think there has been in the past. They have a really great program at Berklee for blind students, which is a whole lab where we can learn how to use like ProTools and all these things that everybody uses from a blind professor who knows all about the technology aspects, and that was really what drew me to Berklee because I applied to other schools and everything, and some of which I would have had to build from the ground up as far as accessibility and like they were willing, and that's, that's half the battle. Most times like people have to be willing in order for you to get what you need, but the thought of having to like, win reinvent the wheel was not something I wanted to do, and they had already started that, and they had a program for that. So that's really what made me think like, oh, wow, this is this is really cool. Like I want to go here. They eliminated the sight reading portion for me because the like they don't have a Braille embosser in their student access Office. I mean, they have it in the lab, of course, but a lot of the visual aspects as far as like auditioning for things and whatever, they kind of just don't do that, and I remember like during orientation, everything was print, like the schedules, the pamphlets, everything, and that was not helpful, because obviously, like, I can't read all of those things, and they had a placement test, and they're like, Yeah, I don't know what to do with this. Like, there was just a lot of miscommunications and like disorganization as far as where we should go to get what we needed in these things, and I think the hardest part at Berklee, for me has been, I've had some professors that have said, I don't know how to teach you, I can't do this. I don't know how to help you. Even when I laid it out, there was one professor, I laid it out for him, I said, this is what you need to do. I need, you know, you to tell me a timeline to get these music, PDFs converted, because otherwise I'm going to fall behind. He said, Well, this goes with the flow of the class. So I really can't help you with that, and it was just know, it was It was wild, and so I was like, Are you serious, like, this shouldn't be happening in this day and age, but there are still few professors that will say that and will not teach you because they think that they can't or they're, you know, it's their own biases and their own perceptions that make them think that it's way harder to teach a blind student. Like it's way more work than it is. When really it's just a different way.

Lizzy
Exactly, and I think it's a total cop out to to say that, well, this goes with the flow of the class. So I don't know. I mean,  have it. I mean, do you know if you've ever taught that class before? Because I feel like that's

Precious
Oh yeah

Lizzy and Precious overlaps

Precious
Yeah, it happened twice. That was the second time. The first time was this, this harmony professor that said, I walked in my first week, and he said, Can you tell by my voice that I'm surprised to see you here, and, you know, it was the most uncomfortable class I had to sit through, and then at the end, I was telling him like, hey, we can resolve this, like, I can go figure out how to make this work. It's fine. He's like, I don't feel prepared to teach you and went over everybody's head and talk to the chair to get me switched out of his class. So

Lizzy
Wow

Precious
Yeah

Lizzy
I'm speechless right now.

Precious
Like, it's just so like, you just wouldn't think and like

Lizzy
You know, the thing about the Federation is that we always kind of like figure things out, you know what I mean? Like, we're very big on like, not, like pitying ourselves and things like that, and this is totally not about pity. This is just about injustice, you know, just the fact that you're going to a class as any other student would, and somebody's saying, I can't teach you know what I mean? That's just so just like, the feeling that goes with that. is just, it's horrible. It's terrible. You know, what I mean, I've had, I've been fortunate in the major that I was in, it wasn't a super visual major. So I didn't have any personal professors who have done that, but I do know that accessibility was brought up at different, like, faculty meetings and things like that, and like when those kinds of things were brought up, like there have been professors there who said, Oh, well, I'm glad that she's not taking any of my classes, because, you know, you know what I mean? Like.

Precious

Another thing to me, is like music education. I'm the first music ed student at Berklee, they've never had somebody go through that program. There so essentially, I, the way that it worked was you kind of go and you talk to the chair beforehand, because you're not allowed to declare until second semester. So I went had a meeting with the chair, and the first thing he said was, so you know, this is a lot of work, right? And like, do you have somebody that can help you do X, Y, and Z? And I just went, I'll figure it out, and in my head, I was going, you have no idea who you're talking to? Because I have all the staff in the world, so I will. I do have, like, restrain myself sometimes. There were two meetings had before they said, Okay, this is your interview time and I walk into a room. It's the entire faculty, and I'm getting questions like So how are you going to manage a classroom? How are you going to do this? How are you going to do this? And my answer was, we'll figure it out. Like, I'm not the teacher, I don't know how to do these things yet. I'm coming to y'all because you're supposed to teach me these, and so we'll find a way to adapt that so that I can get the same out of these classes as the other students are, but you're not just you can't say no, you can't turn me away from this, and I had to prove myself, I had to, you know, it's a lot of weight to carry around when you're the first person to do something, because then you feel like you have to do it perfectly. So it's been, you know, an uphill battle with that, and you know, now I'm at a really good place with the department and with the faculty, and everybody's aware now, and it's super rewarding to see, but it was just, it's been, it's been a journey. For sure, there were times where I was just wanting to throw in the towel

Lizzy
But you know, what, what's that quote about?