Local Band Wheelchair Sports Camp Takes Over Denver Art Museum for a Night of ‘Spectacle’

*Crip [krip], noun (slang). 1. A term used to refer to a person experiencing any form of disability, such as one or more impairments with physical, mental, learning, and sensory. 2. A term used in the disability community to reclaim and redefine the term “cripple.”

Denver hip hop group Wheelchair Sports Camp will be featured this Friday in Untitled: Artist Takeover at the Denver Art Museum (DAM). Colorado local Kalyn Heffernan, who is the founder and powerhouse MC of the band, is just one of many performers of the night. A graduate of the University of Colorado Denver, Heffernan is a staunch activist for queer and disability issues. If that name sounds familiar to you, you may recognize her from her one-time run for mayor in 2019, with the theme of her campaign revolving around access for migrants and the disabled.

Other performers for the night will include: Wheelchair Sports Camp member Gregg Ziemba, Cripple Punk Alliance, Alice Wong, Sam Barrasso & Romy Lopez, and others.

What is Untitled: Artist Takeover?

Untitled: Artist Takeover (formerly known as Untitled: Final Fridays), according to the DAM website, is an “after-hours quarterly collaboration with Colorado-based artists to showcase their work in an interactive and immersive atmosphere for visitors.”

For July, to celebrate Disability Pride Month and highlight the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Wheelchair Sports Camp will provide visitors with an interactive, performance art experience.

The program for the evening includes: “FIX your FACE,” an interactive experience where you get ready for the evening with a little makeup, “Crip Offering,” where visitors make an offering for those who have died by decorating mobility aids or wheelchair parts, and finally, live performance art “Everyone Stairs,” inspired by the “Capitol Crawl,” a landmark protest on March 12, 1990, where activists with disabilities crawled up the 83 steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to push for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The entire DAM building will be open to exploration from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Photo courtesy of press release