Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on the Edge

"Disability and Contemporary Performance explores the relationship between contemporary performance practice and disability, and investigates the ways in which disabled performers challenge, change and work with existing stereotypes through their work. Encompassing the fields of performance, cultural and disability studies, Petra Kuppers draws on the insights developed by theorists such as Foucault, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze to question the assumptions of tragedy and loss that are traditionally associated with the disabled person and to suggest new understandings of disability and identity politics. She draws on numerous examples of individual performers and groups from the UK, North America and Europe who constantly challenge stereotypes through the media of live and installation art, theater, dance and photography, including Mat Fraser, Jo Spence, CandoCo and L'Oiseau Mouche, and opens up new and lively perspectives on contemporary performance practice, identity politics and cultural conceptions of disability."--BOOK JACKET.