Disability Performance: Culture, Community, Inclusion and Activism

ABOUT THE TALK

In this panel, we will hear from Petra Kuppers (University of Michigan), Regan Linton (MFA ’13), and Jim LeBrecht (BA ‘78) on the topic of disability and performance. PhD student, Jesse Marchese, will moderate. Petra Kuppers will speak on disability culture perspectives in relation to performance making and reception, Regan Linton will discuss disability inclusion in actor training and theatrical production, and Jim LeBrecht will discuss the importance of media and performance in the work of disability activism. The discussion will then converge as our panelists take a few questions from the moderator and our audience about imagining and enacting a more inclusive and accessible future for disability performance.

ABOUT MOVING (IN) THE WORLD: PERFORMING AND THEORIZING SOCIAL CHANGE

As storytellers, performance makers and theorists are uniquely positioned to translate and explicate the competing narratives and the various performances that comment on the public sphere. The impact of their vital work extends far beyond discrete or niche artistic scenes and engages anyone interested in understanding current global political and social climates, the spectacles of power that shape their private and public lives, the histories and performative tactics of social movements, and the worlds they imagine and rehearse through their interventions. 

To amplify and support this work, the PhD area of the Department of Theatre and Dance is launching Moving (in) the World: Performing and Theorizing Social Change, a speaker series composed of scholars and artists whose research and practice tackle, through a dance, theatre, and performance theory lens, some of the most urgent questions the world faces: racial, sexual, and gendered injustice and violence, white supremacy, ongoing colonization and its multigenerational effects, and the environmental crisis. The series will privilege and engage with the work of scholars and artists from and in conversation with under-represented communities in a flexible setting (formal presentations, roundtable discussions, workshops) open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, and the public at large. 

While hosted by the PhD area of the Department of Theatre and Dance, the series’ events will take place largely on Zoom as a way to intentionally reach a broad community of speakers and audience members and as an effort to limit our environmental footprint through travel reduction. In curating these conversations, the PhD area strives to make available the important insights provided by artists and performance scholars on some of the most pressing questions of our times, to broadcast how the fields of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies intersect with other research conducted on campus and beyond, and to to support our students’ professionalization by inviting their participation in important scholarly and artistic conversations.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

PETRA KUPPERS (she/her) is the Anita Gonzalez Collegiate Professor of Performance Studies and Disability Culture in the Departments of English and Women's & Gender Studies at University of Michigan. She is also a disability culture activist and a community performance artist. She creates participatory community performance environments that think/feel into public space, tenderness, site-specific art, access, and experimentation. Petra grounds herself in disability culture methods, and uses ecosomatics, performance, and speculative writing to engage audiences toward more socially just and enjoyable futures. 

Petra received the American Society for Theatre Research’s best dance/theatre book award, the National Women’s Caucus for the Arts’ Award for Arts and Activism, and her performance poetry collection Gut Botany was named one of the top ten US poetry books of 2020 by the New York Public Library. 

She is the Artistic Director of The Olimpias, an international disability culture collective, and co-creates Turtle Disco, a somatic writing studio, with her wife, poet and dancer Stephanie Heit, from their home in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Her most recent book, Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters, is now available from the University of Minnesota Press.

REGAN LINTON is an actor, director, writer, filmmaker, advocate, educator, and change maker from Denver, CO. She spent 5 years as Artistic Director of Phamaly Theatre Company in Denver, a preeminent, award-winning disability-affirmative nonprofit theatre for professional actors with all nature of disability. Regan received her BA at USC, Master of Social Work at the University of Denver, and her MFA in Acting from UC San Diego as the first wheelchair user ever to attend the prestigious program.

As an actor, Regan has performed with Arena Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mixed Blood (MN), La Jolla Playhouse, Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-Center, Pasadena Playhouse, Big-I (Osaka, Japan), The Apothetae (NY), and Phamaly, among others.

As a director, Regan excels at creating projects that center inclusive, accessible practice and innovative, high-calibre artistry. In 2021, Regan co-directed the award-winning documentary imperfect, which follows the intimate stories of diverse actors with disabilities who defy stereotypes and upend perfection with a production of Chicago.

As a writer, Regan is a regular featured contributor to New Mobility Magazine, and her writing has been featured in Theatre Forum, national TCG Diversity Salons, Hollywood Fringe, and Chalk Rep. Her new chapter on disability inclusion in actor training was published in Routledge’s Inclusivity and Equality in Performance Training, edited by Petronilla Whitfield.

JIM LEBRECHT is the co-director (with Nicole Newnham) and subject of the acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated documentary Crip Camp (2020) about Camp Jened, a summer camp in New York designed for teens with disabilities. The documentary tells the story of how LeBrecht and his fellow campers became activists for the disability rights movement and follows their fight for civil rights legislation for people with disabilities.

LeBrecht also has over 40 years of experience as a film and theater sound designer and mixer, author and disability rights activist. Jim began his career in theater, working as the resident sound designer at the Berkeley Repertory Theater for 10 years. His film credits include The Island President, The Waiting Room, Audry and Daisy, and of course, Crip Camp. A complete list of his film credits can be viewed at IMDB.

 Jim co-authored Sound and Music for the Theater: The Art and Technique of Design. Now in its 4th edition, the book is used as a textbook all over the world. Jim’s work as an activist began in high school and continued at UC San Diego, where he helped found the Disabled Students Union. Jim is currently a board member of the Disability Education and Defense Fund, which works for the rights of the disabled through education, legislation, and litigation.