April 17, 2018
Petra Kuppers is a wheelchair dancer, disability culture activist, a community performance artist, and Artistic Director of The Olimpias. She teaches at the University of Michigan and on Goddard College’s Low Residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts. Her book, Disability Culture and Community Performance: Find a Strange and Twisted Shape (2011), explores arts-based research methods. Her most recent book is Theatre & Disability (2017).
The Olimpias is a disability performance artists’ collective that creates collaborative, research-focused environments open to people with physical, emotional, sensory, and cognitive differences and their allies. In these environments, we can explore joy and pain, attention, and the transformative power of touch.