Bodies in Commotion

Series

• Corporealities: Discourses of Disability

Bodies in Commotion is the first book to explore the lively intersection of performance studies and disability studies, provoking new ways of looking at body, space, spectatorship, and identity. In this groundbreaking collection, leading critics, artists, and activists take on topics that range from theater and dance to multimedia performance art, agit-prop, American Sign Language theater, and wheelchair sports. The multiple perspectives illustrate how disabled bodies are "bodies in commotion"—bodies that dance across artistic and discursive boundaries, challenging our understanding of both disability and performance. Bodies in Commotion exposes for the first time the mutually interpretive qualities of these two emerging fields, making this a unique, dynamic new resource for artists, activists, and scholars.

Carrie Sandahl is Associate Professor of Theatre at Florida State University. 

Philip Auslander is Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Praise / Awards

• "Bodies in Commotion is a testament to the synergy that can build within the interstices of two evolving fields. From the analysis of performance texts to the study of staged performances to examinations of the performing body in everyday life, this book demonstrates the enormous profitability of moving beyond disability as metaphor and the actorly strategies for "playing disabled". It's a lesson that many of our cultural institutions desperately need to learn."
  —Martin F. Norden, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

• Winner: 2006 Best Book Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE)