Wheelchair Sports Camp & Gaelynn Lea

As part of the 2nd annual Michigan Arts Festival, the U-M Arts Initiative, with partners The Ark, Booksweet, and the Disability Network Washtenaw Monroe Livingston, will offer a free concert and discussion by artists Wheelchair Sports Camp & Gaelynn Lea. After the concert, Booksweet will offer sales of Gaelynn Lea’s 2026 memoir, IT WASN’T MEANT TO BE PERFECT. The artists will be present for a signing. Wheelchair Sports Camp is certainly not your average act. Hailing from Denver, CO, fronted by Kalyn Rose Heffernan – a wheelchair-using, profanely queer and tiny rapper, with a very distinctly high-pitched sense of humor. Backed by her gimp Greggy on drums, the band combines fantastic beats with an absolutely face-shredding live show. After playing shows everywhere they could, the band expanded into performance art, museum takeovers, politics, prison tours, permanent installations, theatre, film, and now the release of their newest album, “oh imperfecta” on Alternative Tentacles Records. Gaelynn Lea has carved out a singular place in contemporary music since winning NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016. With her haunting songs and cinematic arrangements of live-looped fiddle tunes, she has captivated audiences around the world and gone on to compose the original score for Macbeth on Broadway. Her work moves fluidly across genres—she has collaborated with Michael Stipe, The Decemberists, Wilco, LOW, and Pigface. In 2026, Algonquin Books published Gaelynn Lea’s debut memoir, IT WASN’T MEANT TO BE PERFECT. Her book is a warm, witty look at music, disability advocacy, and the complicated but beautiful life of a touring artist. Gaelynn is one of the leading public voices on Disability Culture and accessibility in the arts. This program is sponsored in part by Neil and Annmarie Hawkins and U-M Student Accessibility and Accommodation Services.