2023 UNIVERSITY SPEAKER INTRODUCTION

SPEECH BELOW ⬇️

Hello
My name is Emily Farraige (Far-A-Grate)
A.K.A Sassy Wheels
My pronouns are she/her/they
I identify as Pansexual

My disability story and my life story is pretty unique
You see I wasn’t born with my disability but I got sick a few weeks after I was born and it caused my disability

My disability affects my body just physically not neurologically
As you tell my speech is hard to understand and I’m in a wheelchair

Growing up with a disability that was so physical but not cognitive was challenging
Society generally thinks that if you have a physical disability you would have a cognitive disability as well
So I almost always had to make room for me for anything that I wanted to do or try

For my whole life I loved performing from being in every musical theatre production in jr high and high school
To imagining dancing in the movie Burlesque since I saw it
I was probably too young to want to take my clothes off in front of people I’ll admit
But you get the point

For private reasons that I’m not ready to talk about publicly
After high school I was very depressed and had no self esteem

My mom said you need to find something that makes you happy and I jokingly said I wanted to be a burlesque dancer

Long story short I found someone who was willing to do private lessons with me and she owns Prairie Diva a burlesque fusion dance company

Not long after after that I met my ex and we began doing shows together and then I got confidence with being a solo act

I been in shows for disabled artists companies like Sick & Twisted Theatre and The AANM (Art Accessabiltiy Network Manitoba) and DisabiliTease Festival
To regular burlesque shows with Prairie Diva and Divine Femmes

I’ll link all of the places that I’m mentioning in the description below if you are interested in checking them out

To be honest I’m still learning about how to be an advocate for my community
I took this course not even 2 years ago
So even though I don’t feel like I have enough educational experience in this subject of disability studies

I’m very passionate about disability and sex
You wouldn’t believe how often people ask me can I even have sex as the first thing that they asked me
It’s a important topic due to the lack of information on it for sex safety issues

That’s why I generally mix in disability issues with burlesque in my performances
Because the first step to change is to make people think about their own ableism
Thank you for listening to me

I’ll put my contact information in the description
Please feel free to reach out if you want to ask me anything that you don’t feel comfortable with asking in front of everyone

I promise I don’t bite
I’m looking forward to seeing you all on Wednesday
Bye

ALL MENTION COMPANIES WEBSITES BELOW ⬇️
Prairie Diva - mfunkdance.com/
Sick+Twisted Theatre - www.sickandtwisted.ca/
Divine Femmes - divinefemmesburlesque.com/
The AANM - aanm.ca/
DisabiliTease - disabiliteasefestival.com/

MY CONTACT INFORMATION BELOW ⬇️
Email - [email protected]
Burlesque Instagram - sassywheels_burlesque
Regular instagram - emily_with_wheels