IDS Dance Research Gatherings: cripping dance studies: embodying care through (un)rest
When and Where
Description
Join the Institute for Dance Studies (IDS) for the second session of the 2024-25 IDS Dance Research Gatherings Working Group. This session will be led by Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban (PhD5, OISE, U of T).
No pre-reading is required for this working group session.
Abstract: Inspired by disability studies scholar Kelly Fritsch’s (2011) suggestion that “to crip is to open up with desire to the ways that disability disrupts,” this working group session invites us to rethink what it might mean to desire disability’s disruption of our taken-for-granted doing of dance study, teaching, and learning. As an entry point into this exploration, we will engage with Asian American, gender, and disability studies scholar Mimi Khúc’s suggestion of a “pedagogy of unwellness” that invites us to consider questions of care as our choreographic task within the university. Through shared reading, discussions, and somatic/movement practice, we will reflect on how we are navigating differential experiences of mental, physical, and spiritual unwellness amidst the neoliberal expectations of the academy, and in the face of ongoing colonial and imperial violences, climate crises, and escalated attacks on trans, queer, Black, Indigenous, racialized, disabled, and Mad life. From these reflections, we will work together to create improvisational scores to inspire embodiments of care through maddened gestures of (un)rest.
Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban:
Jose Miguel ‘Miggy’ Esteban is a dance/movement artist and educator based in Tkaronto/Toronto. Miggy’s choreographic work develops improvisational practices of navigating mad and queer routes to embody Filipinx remembering and belonging through (un)rest. Currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Justice Education, OISE/University of Toronto, Miggy’s research and teaching is oriented through disability studies, black studies, and dance/performance studies. Miggy’s dissertation project reinterprets practices of teaching and learning dance through methods of choreographic narrative that are influenced by disability/mad arts, black radical traditions, Indigenous storytelling, and queer performance. Miggy’s work has been published in Canadian Theatre Review, Choreographic Practices, Disability Studies Quarterly, Feral Feminisms, Journal for Literary and Cultural Disability Studies, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Theatre Journal, TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, and in various edited volumes.
Please register in advance to attend this event.
Access Notes:
- This will be an in-person meeting.
- The venue is wheelchair accessible with one washroom.
- Automated captions generated through PowerPoint will be made available.
- If you have any further access requests or questions, please contact Martin Austin at martin.austin@mail.utoronto.ca
The IDS Dance Research Gatherings Working Group is organized by Martin Austin (PhD3, CDTPS, U of T).