Petra Kuppers Associate Professor, English Department University of Michigan, Ann Arbor contact

Education

• Ph.D. 'Between Embodiment and Representation: Performing Bodies, Freaks, Filmdance'. Falmouth College of Arts, University of Plymouth, UK, 1999
• MA in Film and Television Studies University of Warwick, UK, 1993 (DAAD Fellow)
• MA in Germanistik, Film, TV and Theatre Studies, Social Anthropology. University of Cologne, Germany, 1994
• Community Dance Leader Certificate, (two-year-long course) Laban Guild, 1999
• Diploma in Health and Social Welfare Studies. Open University, UK, 1998

Honors (Selection)

• Fellow at the Institute of Medical Humanities, University of Texas, Medical Branch, March - August 2006
• Resident at Mesa Refuge, California, July 2006
• Visiting Scholar/Artist at Symbiotica, University of Western Australia, Perth, 2005
• Inaugural Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance, University of Otago, New Zealand, July - December 2005
• Rhode Island Council for the Arts Project Grant, 2005
• New Works Grant, Rhode Island Foundation, 2004
• ECHO Award from Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, 2003
• Gertrude Lippincott Award for best published English-language dance theory and history article (Society for Dance History Scholars), winner 2001, finalist 2000
• UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, Innovation Award 2002 for the creation of an arts educational CD-ROM to use in mental health settings
• Technology Development Award, Davis Foundation, 2002 and 2003
• Selection as Disability Arts Representative, Wales - National Touring Exhibition, 2002
• Named life-time member of the national UK Millennium Awards Fellowship 'for talented individuals who strengthen and enrich their communities', February 2002
• Mind Millennium Award, 2000-2001

Books (academic)

• The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007

Publishers Abstract: The Scar of Visibility: Medical Performances and Contemporary Art grapples with the mysteries of human bodies in art and contemporary culture. Contemporary visual and performance artists have adopted modern medical technologies such as MRIs and computer imaging-and the bodily access they imply-to reveal their limitations. In doing so they emphasize the unknowability of another's bodily experience, and the actual physical, emotional, social effects of medical procedures.InThe Scar of Visibility, Petra Kuppers mines the use of medical imagery practices in contemporary art, as well as different arts of everyday life (self-help groups, community events, internet sites), focusing on fantasies and "knowledge projects" surrounding the human body. Among the works she investigates are the controversial Body Worlds exhibition of plastinised corpses; video projects by Shimon Attie on diabetes and Douglas Gordon on mental health and war trauma; performance pieces by Angela Ellsworth, Bob Flanagan, and Kira O'Reilly; films like David Cronenberg's Crash and Marina de Van's In My Skin that fetishize body wounds; representations of the AIDS virus in the National Museum of Health and on CSI: Crime Scene Investigations; and in the paintings of outsider artist Martin Ramírez. At the heart of this work is the scar-a place of production, of repetition and difference, of multiple nerve sensations, fragile skins, outer sign and bodily depth. Through the embodied sign of the scar, Kuppers articulates connections between subjective experience, history, and personal politics. Illustrated throughout, The Scar of Invisibility broadens our understanding of the significance of medical images in visual culture. Online Reviews: Screening the Past, Disability Studies Quarterly, Metapsychology

 

• Community Performance: An Introduction. Routledge Press, 2007

  Publishers Abstract: Community Performance: An Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible practice-based primer for students and practitioners of community arts, dance and theatre. This book is both a classroom-friendly textbook and a handbook for the practioner, perfectly answering the needs of a field where teaching is orientated around practice. Offering a toolkit for students interested in running community arts groups, this book includes: international case-studies and first person stories by practitioners and participants sample exercises, both practical and reflective study questions excerpts of illustrative material from theorists and practioners. This book can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, Community Performance: A Reader, to provide an excellent introduction to the field of community arts practice. Petra Kuppers has drawn on her vast personal experience and a wealth of inspiring case studies to create a book that will engage and help to develop the reflective community arts practitioner.

• Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge:. London and New York: Routledge: December 2003 - see reviews in Disability Studies Quarterly and Community Arts Network

Publishers Abstract: Disability and Contemporary Performance presents a remarkable challenge to existing assumptions about disability and artistic practice. In particular, it explores where cultural knowledge about disability leaves off, and the lived experience of difference begins. Petra Kuppers, herself an award-winning artist and theorist, investigates the ways in which disabled performers challenge, change and work with current stereotypes through their work. She explores freak show fantasies and 'medical theatre' as well as live art, webwork, theatre, dance, photography and installations, to cast an entirely new light on contemporary identity politics and aesthetics. This is an outstanding exploration of some of the most pressing issues in performance, cultural and disability studies today, written by a leading practitioner and critic.

Books (Poetry)

Books (Editions)

• Community Performance. A Reader (co-edited with Gwen Robertson). Routledge Press, 2007.

Community Performance: A Reader brings together core writings and critical approaches to community performance work, presenting practices in the UK, US, Australia and beyond. This volume offers a complex and comprehensive anthology of key writings in the vibrant field of community performance, spanning dance, theatre and visual practices. The Reader uniquely combines classic writings from major theorists and practitioners such as Augusto Boal, Paolo Freire, Dwight Conquergood and Jan Cohen Cruz, with newly commissioned essays that bring the anthology right up to date with current practice. This book can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, Community Performance: An Introduction, to offer an accessible and classroom-friendly introduction to the field of community performance.

 

• Disability and Performance. London and New York: Harwood Academic Press, Summer 2001. Appeared as special double edition of the Contemporary Theatre Review.

Guest Editor of Disability Studies Quarterly. Changing Images of Disability. 19.3 (1999)

• ‘Dancing Autism: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Bedlam’ Text and Performance Quarterly, 28:1 (2008) 192-205.

• ‘Scars in Disability Culture Poetry: Towards Connection’ Disability and Society, 23: 2 (2008) 141-150.

• 'The Rhetoric of the Wheelchair’ TDR: The Drama Review 51:4 (T196) (2007) 80-88.

• 'Performing Determinism: Disability Culture Poetry.'Text and Performance Quarterly . 27:2 (2007) 89-106.

• ‘Auto-Graphein or ‘The Blind Man’s Pencil’: Notes on the Making of a Poem' co-written with Stephen Kuusisto, Journal of Literary Disability, 1:1 (2007)

• ‘Outsides: Disability Culture Nature Poetry’ Journal of Literary Disability. 1:1 (2007)

• ‘Disability Culture Poetry: The Sound of the Bones. A Literary Essay’ Disability Studies Quarterly, 26: 4 (2006), E-journal.

• 'Moving Bodily Fantasies: Medical Performances and Modes of Communication' Dance Research Journal, 37:2 (2005), 73-88.

• 'Vibrant Agencies: Dance, Disability Embodiment and Phenomenology' Discourses in Dance 3:2 (2006) 21-31.

• 'Community Arts Practices: Improvising Being-Together'. Culture Machine: 8, 2006

• 'Affect and Blindness: Daredevil's Site/Sight'. Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 23:2, 2006, 89-96.

• 'Helen's Eyes'. Women and Performance. 27 (2005), 81-84.

• 'Visions of Anatomy: Exhibitions and Dense Bodies'. differences (2004), 15:3, 123-156.

• 'Space Rules: Techno-Nomad Theatre' Body Space and Technology (2004).

• 'Landscaping: Spacings'. Women and Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory, 13:2 (2003) 41-56.

• 'Korperliche Kommunikation: Behinderung und Tanzsprache (Bodily Communication: Disability and Dance-Language)', Jahrbuch fur Tanzforschung (Annals of Dance Research) 13 (2003), 159-170.

• 'Meeting Content: A Performance Research Collaboration.' w. Sophia Lycouris. Contemporary Theatre Review 12:4 (2002) 53-61.

• 'New Landscapes: Community Art, Video Process and Fantasies of Disability', Afterimage, The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism. 29:3, Nov/Dec. 2001, 24-25.

• 'Deconstructing Images: Performing Disability' Contemporary Theatre Review. Disability and Performance. Vol. 11, Part 3+4 (2001) 25-40.

• 'Memories of Screen-based Reading. A Jumping Point'. EnterText. 1:2 (2001) refereed e-journal

• 'Accessible Education: Aesthetics, Bodies and Disability.' Research in Dance Education. Winter 1:2. (2000): 119-131.

• 'Towards the Unknown Body: Silence, Stillness, Space in Mental Health Settings.' Theatre Topics. 10:2 (2000): 129-143. (Finalist for Gertrude Lippincott Dance Scholarship Award, 2000)

• 'Addenda? Contemporary Cyborgs and the Mediation of Embodiment.' Body, Space and Technology. 1:1 (2000) (refereed e-journal)

• 'Korper /Medien: Wahrnehmung, Korperlichkeit und das Bild.' (Body/Media: Reception, Physicality and the Image) Jahrbuch fur Tanzforschung (Annals of Dance Research) 10, April (2000), 227-243.

• 'Moving in the Cityscape: Performance and the Embodied Experience of the Flaneur.' New Theatre Quarterly. Winter (1999): 308-317.

• 'Traces of a Performance' poem/theory/sound, Ed. Alaric Sumner. Riding the Meridian 2 (1999)

• 'Performing Femininity: Frames, Agency and Disability Politics.' Disability Studies Quarterly 19.4 (1999): 330-332.

• 'Fin-de-siécles: Dandyism and Disabled Fashion' Disability Studies Quarterly. Changing Images of Disability. 19.3 (1999) 196-202

• 'Embodiment and Representation in Lesbian Dance Performance.' Journal of Lesbian Studies 2.2-3 (1998): 47-63. (Reprint of Book Article)

• 'Karl May's Image of the Native American and the Traditions of Representation of the Other: A Cultural-Historical Analysis' Jahrbuch der Karl May Gesellschaft. (Annals of the Karl-May Society) (1996): 315-344.

Chapters in Books

• 'The Anarcha Project: Performing in the Medical Plantation’. Advances in Gender Research, Volume 11: Sustainable Feminisms Sonita Sarker, Vasilikie Demos, and Marcia Texler Segal (eds). Macmillan, 2007

• ‘Introduction’ Irish Disability Arts Reader, eds. Padraig Naughton, Katrina Goldstone and Kaite O’Reilly, 2007

• 'Addenda, Phenomenology, Embodiment: Cyborgs and Disability Performance'. Performance and Technology: Practices of Virtual Embodiment and Interactivity . Eds. Susan Broadhurst and Josephine Machon. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

• 'Bodies, Hysteria, Pain: Staging the Invisible' Bodies in Commotion: Performance and Disability. Eds. Carrie Sandahl and Phil Auslander. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press, 2006: 147-162.

• 'Space Rules: Techno-Nomad Theatre' CAPITALS, eds. Maria de Assis and Mårten Spångberg, Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian - Centro de Arte Moderna (Lisboa) (simultaneously published as Body Space Technology journal article), 2004.

• 'Quality Science Fiction: Babylon 5's Metatextual Universe.' Worlds Apart: Essays on Cult Television. Eds. Sara Gwenllian Jones and Roberta E. Pearson, Minnesota University Press, 2004.

• 'Encountering Paralysis: Disability, Trauma, and Narrative' Eds. E. Ann Kaplan and Ban Wang: Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004: 183-201.

• 'Moving Bodies' The Teacher's Body: Embodiment, Authority, and Identity in the Academy. Eds. Martha Stoddard-Holmes and Diane Freedman. Albany: SUNY Press, 2003: 119-122.

• 'Image Politics without the Real: Simulacra, Dandyism and Disability Fashion.' Disability and Postmodernity. Eds. Mairian Corker and Tom Shakespeare. London: Continuum, 2002: 184-197.

• 'Der Korper im Zentrum des Tanzes: Behinderung als Tanzsprache' Weltsichten: Beitrage zur Kunst behinderter Menschen. Eds. Angela Muller and Jutta Schubert. Hamburg: Tiamat, 2001: 182-187.

• 'Fatties on Stage: Feminist Performances.' Bodies out of Bounds: Being Fat in America. Eds. Kathleen LeBesco and Jana Evans Braziel. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2001: 277-291.

• 'The Survival of the Aura: Benjamin's Desire.' Benjamin's Blind Spot: Walter Benjamin and the Premature Death of Aura & ICI Field Notes 5: A Manual of Lost Ideas. Ed. Lise Patt. The Institute of Cultural Inquiry, California, 2001: 37-41.

• 'Towards an Aesthetic of the Moving Subject: Dialectics, Aufhebung, Performance Art.' Differential Aesthetics: Art Practices, Philosophies and Feminist Understandings. Eds. Nicola Foster and Penny Florence. Aldershot, Burlington, Singapore, Sydney: Ashgate, 2000: 141-157.

• 'Vanishing in Your Face: Embodiment and Representation in Lesbian Dance Performance.' Acts of Passion: Sexuality, Gender and Performance. Eds. Nina Rapi and Maya Chowdhry. New York, London: Haworth Press, 1998: 47-63.

• Just Try Having None: Transmuting, Transcribing, Transfixing, Transfiguring, Transforming, Transcending Pain (performance review) Theatre Journal. 59:2 (2007), 303-305

• ‘Revisiting the Hospital: Disability Culture, Non-Confessional’ Valparaiso Poetry Review: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. 8: 2 (2007), essay in poetry e-journal.

• ‘Re-Reading Siegfried Sassoon: Everybody Sang’ Arabesques Review. 2: 4 (2007), essay in e-journal.

• 'Writing from the Personal to the Communal: Community Poetry Exercises.'in: Best of the Pedagogy Papers 2007, AWP. http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/exemplarypapers_07.pdf , 30.

• 'The Poetry Slam'. Disability Pride Parade Chicago Website, History Section.http://www.disabilityprideparade.com/history/Parade06/petraspoetryslam.php

• various articles on communityarts.net, for instance, Canoes in New Zealand: Coastal Mappings.

• 'Sirens: Performance Technology, Community Dance, and Disability Embodiment'. Congress for Dance Research, 2005.

• 3 Entries on Medical Theatre, Disability Dance (1500 words each) and Art Therapy (400 words) Dictionary of
  Disability Studies, Eds. David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, London: Sage.

• 'The Staff of Oedipus. Transforming Disability in Ancient Greece', Disability Studies Quarterly, Winter 2003.

• 'Aesthetic Access, the Public and the Community' Effecting Change Proceedings, 2004.

• 'Aesthetic Access: Disability Arts' Shifting Aesthetics Proceedings, University of North London, 2003.

• 'Placing Our (Disabled) Selves: Everyday Practices, Map-Making and Embodied Syntax', Congress in Dance Research Proceedings, November 2001.

• 'Looking Beyond Good Practice: Evaluation and Recording Community Based Arts Education.' (with Anna-Marie Taylor), 2001 - A Spatial Odyssey: Papers form the 6th International Conference on Lifelong Learning and the Arts. Nottingham: Continuing Education Press, 2001: 216-225.

• 'Geschlechterbilder' (gendered images in contemporary body art), SexchangeSex festival, Switzerland, website research area (August 2000)

• 'Digital Video Technology and Community Performance Work: Aesthetic Considerations.' Community Dance: Concepts and Issues. University of Surrey, August 1999: 29-36.

• Journalist and foreign correspondent for general market publications in Germany and UK, including bi-monthly column 'Letters from London' and survey articles on early horror and sci-fi films for Moviestar and Television (Professional Sci-Fi/Horror Magazines, Germany)

• 'Silent Dances.' Laban Guild Movement and Dance Quarterly Magazine May (1999). (Report on research work in Vienna's Screendance archives funded with a Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship)

• 'Early Cinema and Pornography.' Books in Wales May (1995).

• 'Cultural Politics and the Position of Dance Theatre.' Ballett International/Tanz aktuell 11 (1993).

• 11 Entries, Critical Dictionary of Film and Television Theory. Eds. Roberta Pearson and Philip Simpson. London and New York: Routledge, 2001

• 5 Entries, Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories. Ed. Lorraine Code. London and New York: Routledge, 2000

• 8 Entries, St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Eds. Tom and Sara Pendergast. St. James Press, Gale Research, 1999.

• Researcher for the German section of Encyclopedia of European Film. Ed. Ginette Vincendeau. London: British Film Institute, 1997.

• 8 annual reviews of the annual Creteil International Festival of Women's Films, Paris, co-authored with Cathy Fowler, Screen, 1993-2000.

• Reviews of academic books, UK, French and German conferences, exhibitions, film and theatre festivals and events for the on-line newspaper American Reporter.

• Reviews of visual art, film, installation and performance events for the feminist journal Everywoman.

•  Keynote at Quandaries in Health Care, Aspen, Colorado, September 2008

• Keynote at Portland Disability Culture Festival, May 2008

• Keynote at Dance Under Construction, UC Berkeley, April 2008

• ‘Touching Time’ Disability Studies Graduate Seminar, UC Berkeley, April 2008                         

• ‘The Anarcha Project’ Public lecture and workshop, Miami University, Ohio, February 2008

• ‘The Anarcha Project’ Southwestern University, January 2008

• ‘Acting Out: A Workshop on Bodies, Words, Myths, and Performance’ Invited Workshop, Modern Languages Association, Chicago, December 2007

• Plenary Speaker: ‘One Future of Disability Arts: Our History’ Society for Disability Studies, Seattle, May 2007

• ‘Disability Culture and Community Arts’ Keynote, Arts for Social Change, Tramway, Glasgow, April 2007.

• The Anarcha Project. Diaspora Talk at the Center for African American Studies, University of Texas , Austin , March 2007.

• Creating Space: Community Arts. Public Lecture, Putting Memory in Place invitational workshop, University of Indiana , Bloomington , February 2007.

• 'Local/National/Global Disability Cultures.' Keynote at Alternative Dramaturgies informed by a Deaf and Disability Perspective Symposium II , Liverpool Hope University, UK, 2006.

• 'Re-Visioning Health: Reclaiming Agency Through Art Practice' Workshop Leader at Against Health: Resisting the Invisible Morality Conference , University of Michigan, 2006.

• 'Dramatising Pasts: Finding Disability Culture' Keynote , Alternative Dramaturgies informed by a d/Deaf and Disability Perspective Symposium , University of Exeter, UK , 2006.

• 'The Olimpias: Approaches to Disability Culture', Artist's Lecture, Institute of Medical Humanities, UTMB, Galveston, April 2006; Art History Department, Humboldt State University, California, February 2006,; College of Education, University of Otago, October 2005, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, August 2005

• Keynote Address at Alternative Dramaturgies, University of Exeter, March 2006

• 'Disability Culture' Keynote at AGM of Dunedin Disabled Person's Assembly, October 2005.

• 'Disability History: Difference and Resistance'. Research Seminar, Anthropology Department, University of Otago, September 2005.

• 'Community Performance' Tertiary Dance Conference, Auckland, NZ, July 2005.

• 'Memory and Disability Dance', Muhlenberg College, March 2004

• 'Disability and Contemporary Performance', UC Santa Barbara, October 2004

• 'Aesthetic Access' Engrenage Noir, Montreal, September 2004

• Beauty and Disability' Brown University, March 2004.

• 'Disability and the Arts: Difference, Embodiment and Community', Washington University, Bothell, February 2004.

• Summer University: Disability Studies. week-long seminar, Bremen University, July 2003.

• Aesthetic Access, the Public and the Community. Keynote at Finding the Spotlight: The Future of Disability Arts. Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. May 2003.

• Dynamic Embodiment - Pembroke Seminar Roundtable, Brown University, March 2003.

• Re-Imagining Disability in Everyday Life: Community Arts Approaches. Wayland Collegium Lecture Series, Brown University, February 2003.

• 'Disability and Performance' Faculty Research Seminar, Brunel University, September, 2002.

• 'The Promise of Play' panel, Boston Center for Social Therapy, Boston, February 2002.

• 'Phenomenology and Performance: New Media', Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in European/Post-colonial Cultures: Film/Performance Research Cluster, University of Manchester, May 2001.

• 'Counternarratives: Performances of Disability', University of Illinois at Chicago, April 2001.

• 'Opening Up or Closing Down? New Media and Participatory Arts' ReMote: Technology and Creativity in Wales, Lampeter, UK, September 2000.

• 'Cool or Celtic Welsh? Marketing Welsh Identity in the British Art Scene' Keynote at Axis Conference, Swansea, UK, September 2000.

• 'Der Korper im Zentrum des Tanzes (The body in the centre of dance)' Keynote at Weltsichten (Worldviews) Arts and Disability conference, Hamburg, Germany, September 2000.

• 'Korperlichkeit und Geschlechterbilder: Zwischen Bedeutung und Prasenz' (Body Image and Gender Image: Between Semiotics and Embodiment). Keynote at SexChangeSex, Berner Tanztage, Bern, Switzerland, August 2000.

• 'Art Work with People with Recurrent Severe Mental Health Problems', Keynote at Arts for Active Citizenship. Research Seminar to Investigate the Benefits of Participation in the Arts, Swansea University, Wales, February 2000.

• ‘The Anarcha Project: Touching Time’ Disability History Conference, San Francisco State University, August 2008

• ‘Tiresias’ Society for Disability Studies National Conference, New York City, June 2008

• ‘Disability Poetry’ Invited Panelist at Split This Rock Poetry Conference, Washington D.C., March 2008

• ‘Poetry, Performance, Disability,’ Modern Languages Association, December 2007

• 'Cultural Cycles, Crossings, Journeys: Disability Culture and the Reinvention of Poetic Myth', American Studies Association, Philadelphia, October 2007.

• ‘The Anarcha Project: Trauma, History, Performance’ Association for Theatre in Higher Education, New Orleans, July 2007.

• ‘Disability Culture and the Pleasure of Site’ Sedimentations, Rhode Island, May 2007

• 'Pain and the Archive'. Theatre Division Panel, Modern Language Association , Philadelphia , 2006.

• 'Wheelchair Rhetoricity' (Top Papers in Disability Studies panel), National Communication Association Conference , San Antonio, 2006

• 'Experimental Ethics: Disability Culture and the Technological Sublime' Trans Visual Culture , Madison , 2006

• 'Community Arts and Disability Culture'. Society for Disability Studies conference , Bethesda , MD , 2006

• Panelist on Global Disability Culture Panel, Bodies of Work: Disability and the Arts Festival, Chicago, March 2006.

• ;Touching History', Performance Studies international 2005, Brown University, 2005.

• 'Sirens: Performance Technology, Community Dance, and Disability Embodiment'. Congress for Dance Research, 2005.

• Landscape Art and Community Activism: Tracks. Arts Culture Nature, University of Washington Bothell, May 2005.

• Community Performance. Strand Organiser, PSi 2005, Brown University, 2005.

• 'Sirens: Performance Technology, Community Dance, and Disability Embodiment'. Congress for Dance Research, 2005.

• 'Depression: The Melancholia of History'. Modern Languages Association, Philadelphia, December 2004. (session co-organizer and speaker)

• 'Migraine Art: Different Ways of Seeing'. Society for Science and Literature, Durham, October 2004. (session co-organizer and speaker)

• 'Mental Health Difference: Art, Aesthetics and Difference'. Depression: What is it Good for? University of Chicago, March 2004.

• 'Approaching the Body' College Arts Association. Seattle, February 2004.

• 'Virtual Movement: Visceral Affect and Dispersed Identification' Modern Languages Association, San Diego, December 2003.

• Performing the World II, Montauk, November 2003.

• 'Sleeping Giants: Community Arts'. Sustainable Feminisms'. Macalester College, St. Paul, October 2003.

• 'Disability and Performance: Technologies of Otherness'. The Flesh Made Text. Greece, May 2003.

• 'Secret Communications and Rituals: The Corpse in Contemporary Media Culture'. International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. Florida, March 2003.

• Aesthetic Access: Re-thinking Disability and the Social Field. 'Shifting Aesthetics: Disability and Performance. London, November 2002.

• 'Accessible Dance - Community Forms and Aesthetic Challenge'. National Dance Education Organization National Annual Conference, Providence, RI, June 2002.

• 'Moving Stillness, Hollow Places: Lingering over video practice', invited speaker on Still Art in Motion symposium, International Association for Philosophy and Literature: Intermedialities Conference, Rotterdam, Netherlands, June 2002.

• Session Organiser 'Performance and Trauma', Narratives of Disease, Disability and Trauma Conference, Vancouver, CA, May 2002.

• Session Organiser 'At the Scene of ... Disability and Performance' Performance Studies International, New York, April 2002.

• Special Session Coordinator 'Performing Postmodern Bodies: Metaphor, Film and Physical Difference', own paper: 'Performing Uncertain Bodies: Cronenberg's Crash', MLA, New Orleans, December 2001.

• 'Aesthetic Access: Sharing Community Art', Performing the World: Communication, Improvisation and Societal Practice, Montauk, October 2001.

• Organiser and Chair of Panel Session 'Translating Difference: Performance and Disability' own paper: 'Mapping Physicality: Translating Difference.' Performance Studies International 7: Transformation/Transition/Translation, Mainz, Germany, April 2001.

• 'Framing Body Spaces' Installation/Presentation at Digital Arts and Culture, Providence, RI, April 2001.

• 'In-Bodying: Disability, Performance and the Extended Body' Performative Sites: Intersecting Art, Technology, and the Body. Pennsylvania State University, USA, October 2000.

• 'Addenda? Disability, Performance and the Extended Body', Liminality and Performance, Brunel University, London, UK, 2000.

• 'Performativity and the Dancer.' Congress on Research in Dance Annual Conference: Choreographic Politics: Theatrical Representations of the Body. Claremont, California, US, 1999.

• 'Situating Digital Performance in the Community' Between Nature: Performance and Ecology conference, Lancaster, UK, July 2000.

• 'A Critical Perspective on Dance Education: Disability and Dancetheatre.' National Dance Teacher Association Annual Conference. Northampton, UK, 1999.

• 'Victim Art and the Aesthetics of Subversion: Bilderwerfer in Vienna' and participation on closing panel, MoMentUm I: Dancetheatre. Manchester, UK, 1999.

• 'Training Issues and Disabled Performers.' Access Denied? Conference. London, UK, 1999.

• 'Video and Movement: Encounters and their Documents.' Ways of Knowing Conference. Northampton, UK, 99.

• 'Towards a More Inclusive Aesthetic of Body Work: Disability and New Media' Association of Theatre in Higher Education Conference (ATHE) Toronto, Canada, 1999.

• 'Performativity and Disability.' Society for Disability Studies Conference. Washington, US, May 1999.

• 'Reading Women's Traumatic Bodies: Disabled Histories in Contemporary British Film Work.' Refiguring History: Between the Psyche and the Polis. University of Newcastle, UK, 1999.

• 'Redefining Performance and Identity Politics.' 5th Performance Studies International Conference 'Here be Dragons' Aberystwyth, Wales, 1999.

• 'Digital Video Technology and Community Performance Work: Aesthetic Considerations.' Community Dance: Concepts and Issues. Surrey, UK, 1999.

• 'Bodies in Space. Walter Benjamin and City Living in Contemporary Arts.' BLISS/Body Syntax. London, 1998

• 'Performance Theory and the Disabled Performer.' paper combining theory and performance, Society of Disability Studies Conference. Oakland, US, 1998.

• 'Disabled Dance.' Considered Unsightly. Leeds, UK, 1997.

• 'The Present Body: Narrativity and Filmdance.' Time and Value. Lancaster, UK, 1997.

• 'Bad Reputations: Mary Shelley and Lord Byron.' Romantic Reputations. Bristol, UK, 1996.

• 'Aufklärungsfilme: Bodies and Knowledge in German Cinema.' Visible Evidence. Cardiff, Wales, 1996.

• 'Genre and Women's Filmmaking.' Feminisms, Past, Present and Future. 9th International Women Studies Network Conference, Pontypridd, Wales, 1996.

• 'Contemporary Spectatorship and Gothic Gender.' Screen Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, June 1996.

• 'The Romantic Spirit: Early German Cinema.' Celebrating 1895. Bradford, UK, June 1995.

• 'Wheelchairdance: Dancevideos.' Screen Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, June 1995.

• 'Divisions and Barriers: Berlin as Filmic Space.' Creating (and) Space. Leeds, UK, September 1994.
  

Other Contributions

• Anarcha Symposium DVD, forthcoming
• Tracks/Scar Tissue. Disability Culture Projects. DVD (2005)
• Sleeping Giants. Community Arts Approaches. CD ROM (2003)

• Conference Co-Programming Chair: Society for Disability Studies Conference 2008
• Symposium Host: Touching Time, April 2008
• Conference Co-Programming Chair: Society for Disability Studies Conference, Seattle, June 2007
• Symposium Host: The Anarcha Project, April 2007
• Conference Co-Organiser: Sedimentations (May 2007)
• Conference Organizer: Community/Performance (June 2004)
• Co-Organizer: Intensities: Praxis and the Body (2001)

• Alchemy (dance/poetry/performance/telematics), 2008/9
• Tiresias (poetry/performance/dance/photography), 2007/8
• Anarcha (collaborative performance project), 2006/7
• Purgatory Possible Project (sound art/installation), 2006
• Coastal Mapping. Large-Scale Community Performance. Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, 2005.
• Scar Tissue: A Body of Work (performance workshop, communal video poem, installation, DVD, 2005)
• A Bare Bone Tune. Dance/Poetry Performance devised with Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Women's Performance Art Festival, Chicago, October 2004 (also performed as outdoor park performance for students and faculty of the UIC disability studies graduate program, October 2004)
• Siren. Site-specific Dance Performance as part of the Newport Sculpture Festival, Easton Beach, September 2004.
• Tracks. Year-long disability culture workshop series, utilizing dance, photography, writing, 2004
• Sirens. Devised Performance created with the NYU Center for Advanced Technologies, the SMARTlab and North West Disability Arts Forum, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, 2003
• Body Provisional. Performance devised with Sophia Lycouris. Perishable Theatre, Providence and Arthur's Dress Shop, New York City, 2002.
• Move the Earth with Stories (storytelling/drama work) Site-specific work in Wales, UK, 2001/2002.
• Landscaping (performance/installation/research residency) Chisenhale Dance Space, London, 2001
• Body Spaces (3 performance installations, community residency with young disabled people) Contact Theatre, Manchester Royal Infirmary Outpatients Lounge, Contact Car Park, Manchester, 2000, a Digital Summer Commission.
• Framing [Body Spaces] New installation as part of
Digital Arts and Culture, Brown University, April 2001.
• WaterSkins (community devised performance based on local myths) Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, 2000
• Falling Fire (community choreography) Pontardarwe Arts Centre, 2000
• Dickie and Di (performative installation) Leicester, 2000
• Traces (video installation) Reviews in The Planet, Danceability etc.
  • Performing the World, Montauk, October 2001
  • 6th International Conference on Art and Lifelong Learning Showcase, London, 2001
  • Ecology and Performance Installation Village, Lancaster University, 2000
  • Art and Disability Conference, Germany, 2000
  • Performance and Liminality Conference, Brunel University, 2000
  • Pontardawe Arts Centre, 2000
  • Taliesin Arts Centre, Swansea, 2000
  • Community Dance Conference, Nottingham, 1999
  • University of Surrey, 1999.
• Encounter with Language (solo performance) Drillhall, Aberwystwyth, 1998
• Jonah (community dance) Builth Wells Community Hall, 1998
• Mabuse (workshop project with students) Swansea Institute, 1995
• Vampyra (multimedia theatre) Warwick University, 1992
• Thetis (multimedia theatre) Disused Chapel, Cologne, 1991
• Beckett Material (theatre) Studiobuhne Studio, Cologne 1991
• Frankenstein (physical theatre) Studiobuhne Main Stage, Cologne, 1991
• Frankenstein Project (physical theatre) Studiobuhne Studio, Cologne, 1990
• Woyzeck (in original German, as symphony) Warwick University, 1989

• Alchemy Videopoem, 2008
• Tiresias Videopoem (co-directed with Sadie Wilcox) , 2007
  • Extravagant Bodies, Zagreb, 2007
  • American Studies Association Conference, 2007
  • London Disability Film Festival, 2008
  • Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2008
• Scar Tissue: A Body of Work. Communal Video Poem, 2005.
• Ogham (dancevideo, co-production with Sophia Lycouris/kunstwerk-blend, January 2003)
• Sleeping Giants (videopoem and CD ROM production), NESTA in collaboration with Swansea University Continuing Education Department, Ystradgynlais Welfare Hall and Ystradgynlais Mental Health Self-Help Group (January - September 2002)
  • University of Washingon, Bothell, 2004
  • Depression Conference, University of Chicago, 2004
  • National Film Theatre, London, 2004
  • Dublin, June 2003
  • Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, May 2003
  • International Poetry Therapy Convention, April 2003
  • Arizona Institute for the Arts, March 2003
  • Columbia University, March 2003
• Touch (video of vision and touch, with Raphaella Hill), August 2001. MOMA Oxford/Oxford Film and Video Makers.
  • Arts Television Access, San Francisco, 2001 (screening)
  • Body/Machine and Moving Pictures Film Festival, Toronto, 2001 (installation)
  • London Disability Film Festival, 2002
  • Queer Disability, Oakland, 2002
• Earth Stories (videopoem) Mind production, 2001. Presented at (selection):
  • various presentations at Mental Health organisiations and Health Promotion events
  • Women's Health Promotion event Ystradgynlais, July 2001
  • Ystralafera Festival, July 2001
  • National Think Positive Fair, Mental Health Awareness Week UK - October 2001,
  • Picture This... Disability Film Festival, Calgary, Canada, October 2001
  • Artists Television Access, San Francisco, October 2001
  • Global Visions Film Festival, Edmonton, CA, November 2001
  • London Disability Film Festival, 2002
• From Point to Point (performance video,
co-production with Sophia Lycouris/kunstwerk-blend) Chisenhale, London, presented at Ledled Festival, Cardiff, March 2001.
• Geometries (dancevideo) presented at (selection):
  • Performative Sites, Penn State, US, 2000
  • ComArts, Manchester, UK, 2000
  • Women and Disability Festival, Hawaii, US, 2000
  • E-Phos Body Art Festival, Greece, 2001
  • Dance Film Forum, Chisenhale London, UK, 2001
  • 3rd International Disability Film Festival, Lux Cinema, London, UK, 2001
  • Rhode Island International Film Festival, Providence, US, 2001
  • Artists Television Access, SF, 2001
  • broadcast on PBS Brooklyn, New York, 2001
  • Kinofilm International Short Film Festival, Manchester, UK, 2001
  • GAGA Film Festival, Berlin, Germany, 2001
  • showcased on Arts Council of England Website
  • International Festival of Cinema and Technology, Toronto, CA, 2002
• Fight (movement director for gallery installation video) Toynbee Studios, London, 1999 and Diorama, London, 2001

• Casa Libre, Tucson, Arizona, 2007
• The Mesa Refuge, Point Reyes, California, USA, 2006
• Artist-in-Residence, New Pacific Studio, New Zealand, 2005 and 2006
• DANZ community dance workshop, Wellington, New Zealand, February 2006
• AUSDANCE/Community Cultural Development workshop, Melbourne, Australia, February 2006
• Visiting Artist, SymbioticA, Art and Science Research Laboratory, University of Western Australia, January 2006
• Fellow in Community Dance, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, July to December 2005
• Community Performance Residency, University of New Mexico, April 2005
• SmartLAB, Central St. Martins, London, UK and the Center for Advanced Technologies, NUY, NYC: VIP Virtual Interactive Puppetry workshop, May 2003
• DisAbility Theatre Project, St. Louis, 2001
• Meet you in St. Louie, Louie (Gay Male Identity Group), St. Louis, 2001
• Disability and Dance workshops, Ohio State University, November 2001

• Felt Stories. Aratoi Museum for Art and History, Masterton, New Zealand, March-April 2006, Myth of Difference, Ann Arbor Jan/Feb 2008
• Senses. Solo Exhibit, digital photography, Empire Gallery and Cafe, Newport, Rhode Island, 2005
• Tracks - photography exhibit, malls, libraries, hospitals and other public spaces, Rhode Island, 2004
• 'Sand Rose' photograph selected for NILAS publication, 2004
• 'Wood Chair' photograph selected for culturebase nexus Emotions Exhibit, Singapore, 2004
• Connection/Cyswllt (Digital Photography/Manipulations) Group Exhibition, Tour of the UK, 2002-3
  
• CADWyn, Group Exhibition and postcard project, postcards of digital images available in 100 venues in Wales, 2001-2
  
• Eyeing Up: Dancing Bodies (Chalk Drawings/Photos as Performance Traces) Solo Exhibition, Ystradgynlais, 1996 (reviewed in AdWaith, Arts Disability Magazine, 5/6, 1998, by Chris Tally)
• Shadowbodies (Chalk Drawings) Solo Exhibition, Gallery Cafe, Cologne, 1991
• Sylvia Plath Exhibition, Group Exhibition, Brotfabrik, Cologne, 1990 (Bees collage published in Uberwintern magazine)

• Poetry:
  • Breath and Shadow, June 2007: Contact Improvisation, Disability Culture, Infectious Rhythm, Joint, Crip Music
    • Pushcart Nomination for Contact Improvisation
  • Wordgathering, September 2007 : The Origin of my Wheelchair
  • Breath and Shadow, February 2008: Concrete
  • Disability Studies Quarterly (April 2008): Crip Time, Disabled Lilacs, From the Planet of Cane People
  • videopoem Disabled Lilacs
• Interview about Disability Culture Poetry: Wordgathering
• Lyrical Essay: Crip Language (co-authored with Neil Marcus): Slow Dancing to Invisible Music, Chapbook published by the Inglis House Poetry Workshop, Philadelphia, 2007
  

• Poetry Readings: Davidson, North Carolina; Center for Independent Living, Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Community College
• Leader of creative writing community group, horror/sci fi genre fiction, Rhode Island, since 2002
• Writing/Mapping (community workshops), West Wales, 2001
• Various short stories published in small press publications, e.g. Beyond the Boundaries, Cambrensis, Desire, Visionary Tongue, Quietus, Terror Tales, since 1996
• Arts Council of Wales: Writer's Bursary (Disabled Writer), 1998
• Arts Council of Wales: Writer's Bursary (general) shortlisted, 1997

Literature and Culture: Disability Culture

Topics in Performance Studies(Senior Seminar)

• Board Member, Society for Disability Studies, 2007-
• President of Art Culture Nature 2005-2007 (Vice-President from 2003-2005)
• Elected Representative of Discussion Group on Disability Studies, Modern Language Association, 2002-2006.
• Secretary of Performance Studies International (2001-2004)
• Organiser of Community Performance Networking Group - bimonthly meetings, exhibits, performance events and professional development sessions
• Steering Group memberships: Disability Arts Provision and other short initiatives and projects throughout the UK