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welcome!

This site explores the work of disabled artists and how they are (re)imagining and expanding what dance, access, and embodiment mean.

Glossary

helpful words to know

Before exploring the rest of this website, it's helpful to be familiar the following words. On the other pages of this website, these words are bolded and underlined the first time they appear. If you forget what they mean, you can click on the word, and it will take you back to this section.

  • aesthetics: a philosophical theory about what is beautiful or pleasing to look at; Siebers (2005) calls it "the emotions that some bodies feel in the presence of other bodies" (p. 542).

  • The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA): a law that includes protections for disabled people; these protections include the creation of public accommodations such as ramps and power doors

  • choreography: a sequence of movements in dance

    • choreographer:​ someone who creates choreography; usually they teach this choreography to other dancers for them to perform it

  • disability culture: emerges from disabled people's shared disabled identity and experiences. It is an ever-changing process. It includes the ways disabled people express themselves and create, such as through dance. Like the word culture, disability culture is hard to give a simple definition for​.

  • embody: to feel, sense, and understand something with both your body and mind​

  • physically integrated dance practice: dance spaces "open to people of different forms of embodiment, including disability" (Kuppers, 2011, p. 1)

  • somatics: the mind-body practices that allow us to sense, feel, perceive, and experience the world

    • somatics practitioners: people who help others engage in somatics; they help people better understand the relationship between their minds and their bodies​

highlighted artists

Many thanks to all the dancers, movers, and collectives who inspired and informed this site. Below are short descriptions of the artists whose work I discuss the most:

Image of Alice Sheppard, a biracial Black woman whose hair is dyed orangey blonde and is brown at the roots. She is smiling at the camera and wearing a necklace with large, multicolor beads and a pink tank top. Photo taken by Beverlie Lord.

Alice Sheppard (she/her) is founder and artistic director of the disability arts collective Kinetic Light, where she is also a choreographer and dancer.

Image of Alice Sheppard, a multiracial Black woman whose hair is dyed orangey blonde and is brown at the roots. She is smiling at the camera and wearing a necklace with large, multicolor beads and a pink tank top. Photo taken by Beverlie Lord.

Petra Kuppers (she/her) is a community performance artist and disability culture activist. She is a professor of performance studies and disability culture at the University of Michigan. She is also Artistic Director of The Olimpias and a co-creator of Turtle Disco.

Image of Petra Kuppers, a bald white woman wearing yellow-frame glasses, a deep pink scarf, and a black and white polka dot shirt. She is smiling, and her left hand is on the handlebar of a scooter.

Image of Petra Kuppers, a bald white woman wearing yellow-frame glasses, a deep pink scarf, and a black and white polka dot shirt. She is smiling, and her left hand is placed on the handlebar of a scooter.

Image of India Harville, an African American woman with long black locs, sitting outside in her manual wheelchair. She is wearing a sleeveless green dress. Her service dog, Nico, a blond Labrador Retriever, has his front paws on her lap. He is wearing a blue and yellow service visit.

India Harville (she/her) is a Disability Justice consultant, public speaker, somatics practitioner, and performance artist. She is also founder of Embraced Body.

Image of India Harville, an African American woman with long black locs, sitting outside in her manual wheelchair. She is wearing a sleeveless green dress. Her service dog, Nico, a blond Labrador Retriever, has his front paws on her lap. He is wearing a blue and yellow service vest.

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