What we can do with Choreography and what Choreography can do with Us

Nicola Conibere, Catherine Long

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

This chapter takes the form of a staged conversation between Conibere and dance-artist Catherine Long. The voices of Conibere and Long are attributed to pseudonyms in an act of extending their discussion about the politics of visibility and disabled experience: one of the authors would be considered disabled and the other non-disabled, but because the reader does not know which words belong to which unseen body, the potentials of those words is extended. Conibere and Long propose that choreographic practices have the potential to host the capacities for disabled bodies to be generative in means other than educational or as political symbol, but that this is rarely drawn on. They suggest that the prominence of modes of performance and performance programming drawing on existing models of integration serve to fulfil political narratives of inclusivity – a gesture that can compound disabled bodies as signifying incapacity. They discuss works and propose models through which the generative potentials of disabled dancing bodies might offer different experiences of visibility.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDance Disability and Law
Subtitle of host publicationInVisible Difference
EditorsSarah Whatley, Charlotte Waelde, Shawn Harmon, Abbe Brown, Karen Wood, Hetty Blades
Place of PublicationBristol and Chicago
PublisherIntellect
Pages380-414
Number of pages34
ISBN (Electronic)978-1-78320-870-8
ISBN (Print)978-1-78320-868-5
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2018

Keywords

  • Choreography
  • Dance
  • Disability

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