Petra Kuppers

One of my first impulse book purchase of the pandemic — I bought this through the #AWPvirtualbookfair. I've enjoyed books from Wayne State University Press's Made in Michigan series before, and I couldn't resist the description of this book as "my gorgeous queer disabled eco poetic freaky sturgeon dinosaur survivor."

The sections of this collection that fit this description well I LOVED. Gut Body and Contours are visceral and tactile, embodied in nature. Court Theatre examines a sexual assault and its aftermath — the police report, the courtroom testimony, perceptions of her body by authorities and herself. These first three sections I loved so much that later poems fell a bit flat in comparison. Picking the book up later and thumbing through the later sections out of sequence with the first, they pulsed with new resonance.

Also, I just have to say, the entire book design for this is SO GORGEOUS. Each section has an opening page with a full-page monochromatic rendition of the cover image (a sturgeon) and isolated flashes of color appear in titles and headings throughout the book. The press did a lovely job making this a beautiful object in addition to the quality of the poetry.

So glad I stumbled across this one.… (mer)

A solid introduction both to ideas around theater and disability and ways of writing about it. I would have liked a little bit more around writing about audience and disability maybe from a performance studies or theater studies perspective, though Kuppers's pieces were interesting at the beginning especially about her own viewing embodied/"enminded" (embodyminded?) experience. But definitely very accessible and interesting, super short--I read in one sitting pretty much over the course of a morning--and could be really useful especially in the classroom.… (mer)

Community Performance: A Reader is the first book to provide comprehensive teaching materials for this significant part of the theatre studies curriculum. It brings together core writings and critical approaches to community performance work, presenting practices in the UK, USA, Australia and beyond. Offering a comprehensive anthology of key writings in the vibrant field of community performance, spanning dance, theatre and visual practices, this Reader uniquely combines classic writings from major theorists and practitioners such as Augusto Boal, Paolo Freire, Dwight Conquergood and Jan Cohen Cruz, with newly commissioned essays that bring the anthology right up to date with current practice.… (mer)