A CHAT WITH GABRIELLE ZWI
BY KATHERINE CHUNG“Who is Gabrielle Zwi (they/them)?” I was first introduced to Gabrielle Zwi through “Three Dollar Bill,” a track released in June 2023 with their folky-bossa-indie-pop band Friends and Amigos. Gabrielle is based in the Washington D.C. area and besides performing music, they also dabble in acting, serve on Rockville’s Human Rights Commission, and teach performing arts. They teach with several organizations including ArtStream, which supports adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DDs) through “collaborative performance and lifelong learning opportunities”. Stemming from their experience with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other disabilities, Gabrielle’s performances, speeches, and educational work focus highly on inclusion. Recently, they starred in a short film created for Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, titled “Ableist Watching,” a satirical comedy about non-disabled people illegally parking in disabled spots. Gabrielle and I hopped on a Zoom call for Disability Pride Month, where they gave me a look into their unique and creative life.
Accessibility and Dealing with Changes as an Autistic Performer and Event Organizer.
Gabrielle has been on the Rockville Pride planning committee since 2019, and this was their third consecutive year emceeing the festival. They created the Rockville Pride Accessibility Guide, which is posted at the main entrance and other spots throughout the festival, labeled with clear locations of water fountains, seating by the stage, indoor quiet spaces, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, unisex/family bathrooms, changing tables, and information about ASL interpretation for the performers and speakers. “A large number of vendors and tables [at our event] serve neurodivergent or disabled communities… Our celebration in Rockville is only three hours long… a celebration like DC Pride, which spans several weeks and has thousands of participants, is unable to make these events as accessible as smaller pride events can,” Gabrielle says. While the fight to make larger pride events accessible and accommodating endures, Gabrielle continues to make sure Rockville Pride remains just as strong. “We partially focus on serving middle school and high school-age residents who come because either their parents don’t want them going to DC Pride, they might not feel safe, or are just too young for DC Pride events. We have a lot of young teens coming to our Pride but we also have a lot of older senior residents… a lot of our big non-profit tables in the past have come from senior communities and religious congregations,” Gabrielle tells me. “I think that LGBTQ+ seniors are so overlooked, especially when you talk about disability and accessibility. If a pride event wants to focus on being accessible, [they should cater towards all ages of people].”
Image description: Gabrielle holding their ukulele, Spencer sitting behind his drum set, and Avi holding his bass guitar, all perform on the Rockville Pride 2023 stage with colorful balloons in the background
Being on the planning committee, Gabrielle and their band Friends and Amigos have performed at Pride three times… as planned in 2019 and 2022, and quite last-minute in 2023. "We weren’t originally scheduled to perform because we had already performed twice...but one of the other musicians had to cancel shortly before the festival, so my band pulled in for her," they tell me. For the National Cherry Blossom Festival in April 2024, a similar scheduling change occurred, and Gabrielle’s band was asked to fill a slot only a week before the performance. Because of the short notice, Gabrielle and their guitarist were the only ones able to take the stage.
Gabrielle has been performing consistently for the majority of their life, more than anything else. They have very long-standing routines that go along with performance preparation and a lot of the songs that they've been performing have, and likely will, remain on their go-to setlist forever. "One way I kind of self-accomodate is to be prepared for lots of different situations," Gabrielle says. "When I was younger my family and a few of my friends would jokingly refer to me as a turtle because I always had my backpack on. For the Cherry Blossom Festival, I brought my backpack which has almost everything I could ever need for any realistic situation, plus a back-up ukulele– because what if one of my strings breaks in the middle of a set?– an umbrella, tarps to cover the equipment if we needed to because of the storm forecast, my binder of music just in case I somehow forget the songs… and my gluten-free food in case there was nothing [gluten-free] at the festival. In terms of the actual performing aspect of the performance, I feel quite prepared because it’s something I’ve been doing for so long.”
Image description: A screenshot of the Channel R11 broadcast of Rockville Pride 2024 shows Gabrielle speaking on the festival stage and a colleague standing beside them. Text at the bottom of the screen reads R11; Gabrielle Zwi; Co-Chair, Rockville Human Rights Commission. Gabrielle wears a neurodiversity pride pin, a rainbow-shaped nonbinary flag colors pin, and glasses with a floral button-up shirt.
Connecting to Neurodivergent and Queer community through “Galaxy” and other songs.
As an original songwriter who is both queer and neurodivergent, a lot of the lyrical content of Gabrielle’s songs references their personal experiences. There are several songs that they’ve performed that are written about one thing but Gabrielle embraces the subjectivity of music and loves it when people have other perspectives. The last time Gabrielle performed at The Garage, someone asked them about their song, “Galaxy.”
Gabrielle started writing “Galaxy” as a coming-out story. By the time they finished the song, it had themes of being in the closet and masking their sexuality and autism. “I had someone ask me at the open mic, ‘Oh, did you write that song about being autistic?’ I gave no intro or description of the song during that show so I responded, ‘Actually, I wrote it about being in the closet, and it kind of ended up being about that too’. I think it is really interesting that as a singer-songwriter, there are so many different ways songs can be interpreted.”
Image description: Gabrielle looks down at their ukulele as they play a song at Sykesville Pride 2024. Behind Gabrielle is Spencer playing the drum set, and a backdrop of many trees with green leaves.
Photographer: https://mdduckman.smugmug.com
Teaching on the Neurodivergent Spectrum.
As a past volunteer for ArtStream myself, I was excited to speak with Gabrielle about their experience there as a Teaching Artist. ArtStream is a theatre organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland, founded by five innovative women who wanted to bring the arts to people with I/DDs who were typically underrepresented. Knowing that children benefited from the creative, playful, and joyful possibilities of performance, the founders of ArtStream were convinced that adults in non-traditional settings would too. Gabrielle grew up participating in musical theatre programming; being diagnosed with ADHD and other disabilities at a young age, and with ASD later in life, Gabrielle recognizes the importance of programs like ArtStream that serve people with I/DDs to have some educators and role models who know the experience of having– and performing with– I/DDs firsthand.
“I think [being an educator at ArtStream] is a really special addition to the other teaching roles I have. A lot of the adaptations I make for myself as a performer and a student were learned from the wonderful disability or autism-specific programs I have been a participant in, like The Miracle Project, and Queens Theatre’s Theatre for All Program; it’s important to bring all of that into my work as a teacher,” Gabrielle says proudly. Among other examples, Gabrielle and I discussed costuming adaptations (like velcro stickers for closures), always having a tentative schedule to the extent of accuracy possible and announcing changes to it, establishing a system of w:arning words” for sudden changes in lighting and volume levels, adapting choreography for chairs, walkers, and proprioceptive differences, printing lyrics in large and dyslexia-friendly fonts, and of course selecting material to highlight students’ special interests and skill sets. Gabrielle and their partner also offer one-on-one neurodiversity-affirming music lessons, tutoring, and other educational services through their business A to Zwi.
Wrapping Up.
Gabrielle recommends ongoing and evolving education on the topics they mentioned and highlighted some other creators and advocates they look up to. “Elizabeth Bonker who I’ve worked with through the Flutie Foundation, and my friends, Ara Bakhtyar, and Juliette Gudknecht from the neurodiversity group that I was in during university. Oh, and the whole cast of How to Dance in Ohio on Broadway,” Gabrielle answered. They also shout out their good friend Trevour Jackson Carpenter (he/they), a DC-based concert and lifestyle photographer who is also queer and autistic.
“There’s this book that is out now called ‘Healthy Chest Binding for Trans and Non-Binary People Practical Guide’. I did a lot of research and editing for this book, and it’s my first time having my name in the acknowledgements so I’m excited about that,” they say. The book is by Frances Reed, a DC-based speaker, researcher, and author. “There’s no book out there that is an instructional comprehensive guide to doing chest binding. It’s this big 300+ page examination about binders, stretches, and physical therapy post-surgery.” The book was among others at the Rockville Pride 2024 Authors’ Table, a first-time addition to the annual event this year.
On August 3rd, 2024, Gabrielle and their band Friends and Amigos will be performing at Stars of the Spectrum Music Festival, the largest-to-date concert specifically by and for the autism community. On August 7th, they will open for Adin Boyer (2023 American Idol contestant and Autism Self-Advocate) at The Garage in Montgomery County, MD.
Gabrielle Zwi can be found on Instagram @gabriellezwi and their website can be found here: https://www.gabriellezwi.com/music
You can find their list of upcoming performances on this Facebook post and this Instagram post.
Image description: At The Garage, Gabrielle sings into a microphone with a wide smile while playing ukulele, and Levi goofily stares right into the camera while playing guitar. There are motion-blurred Christmas lights all around them, and the wall is covered in reflective road signs.
Photographer: https://www.instagram.com/emcaptures.photo/