Alice Sheppard

Last updated

Alice Sheppard performs "So, I Will Wait." Alice Sheppard performs "So, I Will Wait.".JPG
Alice Sheppard performs "So, I Will Wait."

Alice Sheppard is a disabled choreographer and dancer from Britain. [1] Sheppard started her career first as a professor, teaching English and Comparative Literature. After attending a conference on disability studies, she saw Homer Avila performed and was inspired. She became a member of the AXIS Dance Company and toured with them. She also founded her own dance company, Kinetic Light, which is an artistic coalition created in collaboration with other disabled dancers Laurel Lawson, Jerron Herman and Michael Maag, who also does lighting and is a video artist. A lot of Alice's work revolves intersectionality (her being a disabled, queer person of color).

Contents

Biography

Sheppard earned a doctorate in medieval studies at Cornell University. [1] [2] She worked as an associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University (PSU). [3] In 2004, she attended a conference on disability studies, where she saw Homer Avila perform. After talking with him at a bar, she took on a dare to take a dance class. [4] [5] [6] At the conference, she also met Simi Linton, who is the creator and co-director of Invitation to Dance, where Linton's own account of disability is intertwined with the stories of others, including Sheppard, whose image graces the cover of the film. [4] [7] According to the other director of the film, Christian von Tippelskirch, "Alice Sheppard...is a central figure [in the film]. She is an amazingly talented, forceful dancer, whether on stage or at a party". [4] The first dance lesson Sheppard took was taught by Kitty Lunn. [8] 2 years later she resigned from her academic professorship, and began her dance career. She continued her dance lessons with AXIS Dance Company, became an apprentice dancer in 2006 and then became a company member in 2007. Alice had studied ballet and modern dance [9] [10]

During her apprenticeship, Alice explored techniques of dancing in a wheelchair and learning how disability can generate its own movement. [11] She learned to listen to her body. Post-apprenticeship, Sheppard toured nationally and taught for the Axis Dance Company in their education and outreach programs. [12] In 2012, she became an independent dancer and has since worked with companies in the United Kingdom and the United States. [3] [10]

Sheppard is a multiracial, queer, Black Briton. [13] [14] She has preferred not to detail the specifics of her disability.

Career

Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson perform "Excerpt from Snapshot (Minsky's Burlesque, New Jersey, ca. 1954)," 2015. Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson perform "Excerpt from Snapshot (Minsky's Burlesque, New Jersey, ca. 1954)" - 2.jpg
Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson perform "Excerpt from Snapshot (Minsky's Burlesque, New Jersey, ca. 1954)," 2015.

In 2014, Sheppard collaborated with GDance and Ballet Cymru to create the performance Stuck in the Mud. The performance was presented as a promenade – an interactive performance where performers guided the audience through a tour of the site. [15] She has also performed with Full Radius Dance in both 2014 and 2015. [16] [17]

In 2017, she collaborated with the Marc Brew Company to create BREWBAND, a performance that combined live rock music with live dance. [18] [19] The show "blurs boundaries between musicians and dancers and challenges audience's perceptions of what live performance is". [20]

In 2017 Sheppard's dance company, Kinetic Light, created a piece entitled Descent (styled in all caps). Performed on an architectural ramp installation, The performance acts out the story of Andromeda and Venus, re-imagined as interracial lovers. [21] Sheppard performed Descent with Laurel Lawson in wheelchairs.

In 2017, Alice Sheppard became one of two 2017-2018 recipients of a fully supported production residencies from Gibney Dance. The award will provides resources to develop and stage new works. [22]

In February 2018, Sheppard performed at the ribbon cutting of an additional 10,000 square feet (930 m2) of space at the Gibney Dance Center. She also spoke at the 2018 Dance/NYC Symposium on a panel about growing the field of disability dance in NYC. [23]

In July 2018, she graced the cover of Dance Magazine , credited with "moving the conversation beyond loss and adversity." [11] Sheppard was featured as recently as February 2019 in the New York Times article, "I Dance Because I Can." This article features the work of both Sheppard and fellow artist and member of Kinetic Light, Laurel Lawson. "I Dance Because I Can" emphasizes the connection between "art and social justice", detailing the ways in which Sheppard's work responds to and evolves out of disability culture and aesthetics. [24]

In January 2019, Sheppard was one of 58 artists who were awarded the Creative Capital award.

Movement style and choreography

Alice creates choreography that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. She engages disability arts, culture, and history. She is intrigued by the intersections of disability, gender, and race. [10] Intersectionality is what leads Alice to collaborating with other artists. Sheppard's dances use her wheelchair as an extension of her body. [25] She also uses crutches in her routines. [2] In 2016, she incorporated the use of ramps, built by engineering students at Olin College. [25] Sheppard also creates choreography that involves sex and sexuality. [26]

Her work doesn't confirm familiar stereotypes of disability. Her work explores the multiple identities she inhabits. Being honest, telling the complicated history and cultures of disability, race, gender, and sexuality. She believes disability is more than the deficit of diagnosis. It is an aesthetic, a series of intersecting cultures, and a creative force. She also believes that movements don't represent triumph over disability [27] [11]

Below is a list of works choreographed by Sheppard.

List of WorksDate
Doors2013
I Belong to You2014
So, I Will Wait2015
Succumb2016
Re-Membering a World to Come2016
Trusting If/Believing When2017
Where Good Souls Fear2017
Descent2017
REVEL IN YOUR BODY: a dance film story2019
INCLINATIONS: a dance film2019

Awards and grants

Publications

Academic presentations

Public speaking

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tanni Grey-Thompson</span> Welsh wheelchair racer and parliamentarian (born 1969)

Carys Davina Grey-Thompson, Baroness Grey-Thompson,, is a Welsh life peeress, television presenter and former wheelchair racer.

<i>Crippled</i> 2019 book by Frances Ryan

Crippled: Austerity and the Demonization of Disabled People is a 2019 book by Frances Ryan about disability in the United Kingdom under the 2010s austerity programme. It explores the effects of welfare cuts, local council cuts, social care cuts, increased taxes for disabled people and means testing for remaining welfare provisions. Between research about the prevalence of each issue, Ryan interviews disabled people affected by the issue. She finds people who have died from having financial support withdrawn, people who cannot afford food, heating or prescriptions, and people unable to wash or get dressed due to removal of social care. Ryan researches into disabled people who live in inaccessible housing, who cannot afford visits to the hospital, who cannot leave violent partners for financial reasons and who rely on young children to look after them.

Liz Carr is an English actress, comedian, broadcaster and international disability rights activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AXIS Dance Company</span>

AXIS Dance Company is a professional physically integrated contemporary dance company and dance education organization founded in 1987 and based in Oakland, California. It is one of the first contemporary dance companies in the world to consciously develop choreography that integrates dancers with and without physical disabilities. Their work has received nine Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and nine additional nominations for both their artistry and production values.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bebe Miller</span> American choreographer, dancer, and director

Bebe Miller is an American choreographer, dancer, and director.

Simi Linton is an American arts consultant, author, filmmaker, and activist. Her work focuses on Disability Arts, disability studies, and ways that disability rights and disability justice perspectives can be brought to bear on the arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disability in the arts</span>

Disability in the arts is an aspect within various arts disciplines of inclusive practices involving disability. It manifests itself in the output and mission of some stage and modern dance performing-arts companies, and as the subject matter of individual works of art, such as the work of specific painters and those who draw.

The physically integrated dance movement is part of the disability culture movement, which recognizes and celebrates the first-person experience of disability, not as a medical model construct but as a social phenomenon, through artistic, literary, and other creative means.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Bell</span> New Zealand dancer

Rodney Bell is a male dancer born in Te Kuiti, North Island, New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali Stroker</span> American actress and singer (born 1987)

Alyson Mackenzie Stroker is an American actress, author and singer. She is the first wheelchair-using actor to appear on a Broadway stage, and also the first to be nominated for and win a Tony Award. Stroker was a finalist on the second season of The Glee Project and later appeared as a guest star on Glee in 2013. She played Anna in Deaf West Theatre's 2015 revival of Spring Awakening, and won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance in Oklahoma!

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Wong (activist)</span> American disability rights activist

Alice Wong is a disability rights activist based in San Francisco, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jess Thom</span> British artist and comedian

Jessica Thom is a British theatre-maker and comedian who established Touretteshero, an alter-ego and project aimed at increasing awareness of Tourette syndrome, the neurological condition which she was diagnosed with in her early twenties. The first Touretteshero production, Backstage in Biscuit Land debuted at Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2014. The show won critical acclaim and has since toured across the UK and internationally, including various performances across North America and Australia. Thom has also made numerous appearances on British television, notably an interview on Russell Howard's Good News which has garnered more than 995,000 YouTube views as of August 2019, and was reported on by The Independent and Metro newspapers.

Kitty Lunn is a ballet dancer, actor, disability activist, and founder of Infinity Dance Theater, a company that features performers with disabilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laurel Lawson</span> Modern dancer

Laurel Lawson is a modern dancer who performs, choreographs, and teaches dance for dancers in wheelchairs.

Nujeen Mustafa is a Kurdish Syrian refugee and activist with cerebral palsy. She was raised in Aleppo, Syria, and gained attention after traveling 3,500 miles (5,600 km) by wheelchair, fleeing conflict in the Syrian Civil War, before arriving and resettling in Germany. She was listed as one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2018, and her story was featured on the television show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In 2019 she became the first disabled person to brief the United Nations Security Council, and was the recipient of the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch. She has co-authored two books about her experiences. She resides in Wesseling where she attends a school for those with disabilities.

Liselle Terret is a co-programme leader and a senior lecturer at the University of East London. She has more than twenty years of experience within the field as a teacher, facilitator and manager of Applied Theatre related projects within and outside of the UK working with a diverse selection of groups.

Marisa Hamamoto is a Japanese-American professional dancer and social entrepreneur based in California, United States. She is the founder and artistic director of Infinite Flow, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit and professional dance company composed of dancers with and without disabilities.

Jerron Herman is an American choreographer, dancer, performance artist, writer and a teacher for the Dream Project at National Dance Institute for children with disabilities. He grew up in California as part of a religious and art loving family. He has the movement disorder Cerebral Palsy, the symptoms of which he has absorbed into his dance movements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lusi Faiva</span> Sāmoan stage performer and dancer

Lusi Faiva is a New Zealand-Sāmoan stage performer and dancer and a founding member of Touch Compass. She was recognised for her work with a 2020 Pacific Toa Artist Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards and in 2021 received an Artistic Achievement Award from Te Putanga Toi Arts Access Awards.

Pelenakeke Brown is a multi-disciplinary New Zealand artist. In 2019 she was awarded the Disability Dance Artistry Award by Dance/NYC, and was recognised for her work through Creative NZ's Arts Pasifika Awards with the Pacific Toa award in 2020.

References

  1. 1 2 Weber, Bruce (30 October 2009). "A Dance Company Mixes Arms, Legs and Wheels". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  2. 1 2 White, Jasmine (26 February 2016). "Promoting Disability Activism Through Dance". The Hoya. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Alice Sheppard - Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability". longmoreinstitute.sfsu.edu. Archived from the original on 6 October 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 Palladino, D.J. (29 January 2014). "Invitation to Dance". Independent. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  5. ↑ "Invitation to Dance: A Consecrated Dance Space". Invitation to Dance Movie. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  6. ↑ "Disability Is A Creative Force". Dance Magazine. 18 June 2018. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  7. ↑ "Invitation to Dance (2014)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  8. ↑ "Dancers with disabilities continue to fight for acceptance". Metro US. 3 July 2015. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  9. ↑ Ruidas, Kalani (25 February 2015). "Dance artist expresses complex ideas through movement". Golden Gate Xpress. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 AliceSheppard. "About". Alice Sheppard. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  11. 1 2 3 "Alice Sheppard Proves It's Time To Redefine Virtuosity". Dance Magazine. 18 June 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2018.
  12. ↑ "3Arts". 3arts.org. Archived from the original on 6 October 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  13. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (5 September 2019). "Member Spotlight: Alice Sheppard of Kinetic Light". Fractured Atlas (Interview). Interviewed by Molaundo Jones. Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  14. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (9 June 2020). "Performance-in-Place: An Evening with Kinetic Light" (Transcript) (Interview). Interviewed by Sara Reisman. Alice Sheppard: Hi. I'm Alice Sheppard. I am a light skinned multiracial black woman...
  15. ↑ "Stuck In The Mud - Ballet Cymru". Welshballet.co.uk. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  16. ↑ "Full Radius Dance". Fullradiusdance.blogspot.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  17. ↑ Full Radius Dance (24 August 2014). "It is four years ago and it is yesterday EXCERPT: Quartet". YouTube.
  18. ↑ "BREWBAND". Marcbrew.com. 27 October 2015. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  19. ↑ Elderkin, Rachel (26 April 2017). "Marc Brew Company: Brewband review at Sadler's Wells, London". The Stage. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  20. ↑ "MarcBrewCompany presents: BREWBAND". Indiegogo.
  21. ↑ "Alice Sheppard - Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography". mancc.org.
  22. ↑ Barone, Joshua (19 December 2017). "Gibney Dance Expands Its Residency Program". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  23. ↑ "Alice Performs at Gibney Dance Center Ribbon Cutting - Alice Sheppard". alicesheppard.com. Retrieved 4 March 2018.
  24. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (27 February 2019). "Opinion | I Dance Because I Can". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  25. 1 2 Putnam, Bailey (20 April 2016). "Physics + dance + wheelchair = art - The Boston Globe". Boston Globe. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  26. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (27 February 2019). "Opinion | I Dance Because I Can". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  27. ↑ Sheppard, Alice. "Manifesto". Alice Sheppard. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  28. ↑ "Awards". Wnewhouseawards.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  29. ↑ "Fund". Dance.nyc. Archived from the original on 22 June 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  30. ↑ "2017 MAP Fund Grantees". Mapfundblog.org. 22 May 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  31. ↑ "NEFA's National Dance Project Announces Awards for New Dance Production and Presentation". Nefa.org. 17 July 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  32. ↑ "These Are the Performances Our Readers Loved the Most This Year". Dance Magazine. 1 December 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  33. ↑ "United States Artists » 2019 Fellows" . Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  34. ↑ "Announcing the 2019 Creative Capital Awards". Creative Capital. 11 January 2019. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  35. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (6 October 2017). "Of This Is a King's Body Made: Lordship and Succession in Lawman's Arthur and Leir". Arthuriana. 10 (2): 50–65. JSTOR   27869543.
  36. ↑ Sheppard, Alice (6 October 2017). Families of the King: Writing Identity in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. University of Toronto Press. ISBN   9780802089847 . Retrieved 6 October 2017– via Google Books.
  37. ↑ Jacobs, Hal (14 October 2014). "Alice Sheppard on Disability Dance and Access". Vimeo.com. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  38. ↑ "Arkansas State to present 'Backstage' with a disabled dancer". Arkansas State University. 26 March 2014. Retrieved 20 May 2018.
  39. ↑ "Mobilizing Bodies: Dance & Disability at 92Y, Petronio at The Joyce, & Work Up 3.1 at Gibney". Culturebot.org. 8 April 2017. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  40. ↑ HUBweek (7 March 2019). "Does Disability Need Fixing?". YouTube . Retrieved 9 March 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.